Bioshock DRM Limits Removed

It is a step in the right direction, certainly. Hopefully it will boost their sales and send the message out load and clear (although I suspect certain companies would need the message chiseled into their collective boardroom skulls before they begin to understand).

Good idea with the post of the news too, Kryo, there has been much (deserved) criticism of the subject on these forums, so it is right to promote the positive outcome.

I really do hope Bioshock is successful on the PC platform - it is an excellent game (only played it on 360), and that is from someone who usually has little or no time for FPS games.

Hm. I just hope EA takes the same step with Mass Effect ans Spore.

Yeah, it would be great if EA grabbed a clue from this, and I also hope 2K's sales figures rise as a result of this. If I didn't already own the game, I'd be tempted to buy it, although it still has the SecuROM crap with it, as Kryo noted.

Of note: you still must activate the game when you first install it and you still need the disc in the drive. But yeah, huge step in the right direction.

One small step for companies, one massive step for gaming.

Yes, they can now boast to be less restrictive than their competitors...

That the whole DRM business was a gargantuan leap in the wrong direction in the first place - no mention of that.


(PS: I always wanted to use the word 'gargantuan' in a legit post. )

Good to hear (as I own Bioshock). Lets hope EA opens their bloody ears as well.

That's good news, now i can install and uninstall as i please. It would be even better if they released a patch that let's you install it without internet connection.

As for Mass Effect, it look's and sounds intresting, but only 3 unrevokable installs + no demo to see if it even runs decently = no buy.

WOW now thats great news But i really doubt EA will follow any time soon.

I just hope this will make Bioshock sell even more

Well Done Bioshock - the only time EA will follow suit is when the year on year balance sheets hit negative growth

Regards
Zy

Great news. I might actually consider buying bioshock now (although I'll probably have to wait till I upgrade my computer since I can only meet the minimum requirements).
I just hope EA listen, since mass effect and spore are two games I really want to play, but refuse to atm due to the draconian DRM measures they've put in place.

Oh good, I can buy it now.

Screenshot that and send it to EA - you never know they might suffer an attack of common sense, we can only hope

Regards
Zy

The DRM is still there.. it's still on the disc - it's only the limit on the amount of active installs you may have that's been removed.. The game still has the potential to not install on some machines etc. etc.

Eh, it doesn't really make too much of a difference to me. I had to push myself to finish up the last hour or so of the game. Not that it's bad, but it wasn't what I thought it would be. I've had it uninstalled for quite some time now. I've been considering re-installing it just for the heck of it though.

If a PC game is heavily DRM I won't support it.

I read this thread last night, Bought the game today. I`m glad I did, It just reek`s of quality. I`m not very far into it, The intro and beginning of the game are amazing. The sound quality in paticular is incredible. I`m also very happy that I can "feel" the System Shock heritage in this game.

Should be, "One small step for gaming, one massive step for companies."

When will games companies get it through their collective heads that any kids of DRM and/or copy protection on games only does one thing. Piss off your customers and causes a reduction in sales.

The pirates will always find a way to hack out your copy protection and activation routines and play it anyway. Anyone intent on getting a game for free will do so, no matter the level of copy protection or DRM.

Please recognise this before you drive away ALL of your paying customers by using draconian measures that just make it difficult for paying customers to enjoy their purchase as they wish.

I would be more willing to buy games tied to online services if this was an actual part of license agreement.

This is great news. I love Bioshock and the fact that 2K is now removing restrictions is a step in the right direction and I hope that this is the conduct for future games from 2K and other companies.

Hmm. lets recap.

1. Release game for XBOX 360
2. Wait a year, but announce game for PC meanwhile
3. Announce game will have a very restrictive DRM to get a lot of negative 'buzz' around the game.
4. Release game
5. Wonder why the game flops at retail?
6. Remove DRM
7. Notice that the game does not suddenly become a best seller
8. Decide that DRM had no impact on lack of sales, and blame pirates.
9. Release next game on console

Pretty sure Bioshock didn't flop. Also, they were intended to be release on PC and XBox at the same time but were something like 3 weeks apart due to a retailer mistake. And by all accounts the PC version was better graphics, better controls and less buggy.

Can someone help me with the implications of this?

Bioshock was a game I avoided buying because of all the negative buzz from the DRM used, the same reason I won't be buying Spore unless I know my fears are unfounded or things change. There's plenty of games out there that I can be picky about games that run with this kind of restrictive activation system. But Bioshock is like £12 in some shops now and it got good reviews so...
So what does this mean if I buy Bioshock now? The SecuROM will still be installed then so what does this mean for my PC? Should I still be worried about having this on my PC? Is there any 'spying' going on with SecuROM? I've heard nightmare tales of it breaking other non related things on people's PC.

Please quel my fears or point me in the direction of the information I need.
TIA.

Don't buy BioShock. It's not just about DRM, it's about design. They stole every single feature from somewhere else, and sewn them all together into a ridiculous Frankenstein game. The entire storyline is presented as a bunch of tape recorders scattered throughout the city. You shoot waves of mutant zombies... I mean, splicers, collect the tape recorders, shoot splicers, collect, shoot, collect, shoot...

You can't die. You can't die even symbolic death.

Everything that requires user interface is handled through vending machines. Some of them work once and don't take any money. Some of them are used to simply change your bio-upgrades - for free!

Ah, the plasmids. You stick a needle in your vein, wait 2 seconds, and your hand transforms into HL2 gravity gun. You do that couple more times, and you can use the awesome power of bioengineering to set stuff of fire using pyrokinesis.

Doesn't sound stupid enough? Come to the nearest device and "hack" it solving a meaningless puzzle, while the main game waits for you on pause. Do it again, and again and again.

It's one of those games that spit on common sense to achieve a bit of dumbed-down "fun".

---

Did I mention SecuROM broke my DVD driver?

Oh brother.

Ignoring the senseless rant abouve: the main criticism with the Bioshock DRM was the limited installs. It would lock you out after 3 installs on 2 computers originally, and uninstalling it didn't remove one of those counts, so people would install on 2 computers, then uninstall it to put in on another only to find that they couldn't. The SecuRom business was that it got flagged as Spyware by some anti-virus stuff and you couldn't easly remove from your registry, but I don't recall any actually 'spying' going on as such. Apparently it 'broke' some people's DVDs drives as above, but from what I could garner many people got on with it fine. Many people are getting on with Mass Effect fine on the PC, even though it has much the same DRM, so that would lead me to think it simply it was exagerrated consumer outrage that put it in under such scrutiny - this time everyone's fallen for the EA two-step pretty quietly and I haven't heard very much about broken DVD drives etc.

I bought the game, but won't be buying Mass Effect due to the DRM restrictions (I didn't realise this was the case when buying Bioshock). But seeing as they have lifted I think at £12 it's a great game at a good price. I just depends if you're funny about having to put your disc in to play it (some people get really pissy about that) and how much of a 'stand' you want to make against DRM.