I’ve come across a pretty good writeup on another site which is fairly close to what I’ve got in my open letter to the gaming industry:
http://talkjack.wordpress.com/2008/06/22/is-drm-killing-pc-games-part-1/
http://talkjack.wordpress.com/2008/06/22/is-drm-killing-pc-games-part-2/
http://talkjack.wordpress.com/2008/06/22/is-drm-killing-pc-games-part-3/
Dear gaming industry,
I’ve been an avid player the last 20 years, but lately the frustrations of being a legal gamer are starting to exceed the pleasures of gaming itself. So much so I’ve even resorted to writing “open letters” about it.
This whole thing began as silly and easily circumvented things such as manual checks (i.e. I had to look things up in the manual, which could be circumvented by making a copy of the manual), to requiring the CD (and later the DVD) disc be in the drive, to start doing things like bad sectors etc, in an ever escalating war against pirates. It started out innocuously enough, but it is starting to go very badly wrong. Some people haven’t been able to use the games they bought because the copy protection was physically incompatible with their drive, for example. I haven’t been one of those, thankfully, but if I had, I would be back in the shops, claiming a refund, be denied one because I’d opened the packaging, swearing, going back home, downloading a crack, and finally play what I’ve paid good money for. And obviously swearing to never buy another game with the same protection system on it.
Lately, however, things have gone from bad to worse. The first I’ve noticed of this was when StarForce got its 15 minutes of fame, and this outraged me by installing a driver in Ring0. It was the first time I’d met a game that actually required I reboot to play after installation, and it wasn’t just limited to full games, oh no. Demos were apparently something you had to protect as well. That just rubs me the wrong way. This made me check with gaming clerks whether or not any games I were considering buying had StarForce on it, and leaving it there if it did.
Apparently after a loud outcry against StarForce, this was replaced by Tages, which also installs a driver, so now I had 2 DRM systems to avoid. And now even SafeDisc and SecuROM (which I previously thought was on-disc protection only) have joined the driver-in-ring0 game.
I believe those 4 represent the vast majority of games released today, and they’re all broken/cracked/whatever within hours or days of release, sometimes even sooner than that. This means that pirates or legal users who are breaking the EULA or just plain stealing, are getting a much better product than legal customers. This is intolerable, and I am hereby announcing that as of today I will not be buying any game with those copy protection systems on it, or any other systems which insist on treating me like a criminal, when I’m being an honest customer. If that means I will not be buying any games for the next 5 years, so be it. This is basically my line in the sand, where I’m saying “this far, but no longer”.
If you absolutely must have some sort of verification that I have actually bought your games, limit it to disc checks. Do not mess with my OS or enforce draconian DRM like online activation and a maximum number of activations pr copy. If I want to play it while offline, it’s my prerogative. If I want to sell the game on after I’m done, it’s my prerogative. It’s my copy, I do what I want with it.
So basically, what StarForce and Spore did (well, in my case, anyway) was trigger a chain reaction which means I will not be buying all the games listed in the following post:
And I am not alone. Below is a link to a collection of links which basically say the same as I am, that things have gone too far:
Baslically, I don’t represent a lost sale due to piracy, I am a lot worse than that. I represent a lot of lost sales simply because you have pissed me off by treating me worse when I buy your games, than if I had just pirated or cracked your games instead. And you have none other than yourselves to thank for it.
Yours annoyedly,
Jan Martin Mathiassen
Annoyed Ex-Gamebuyer.
This post will be updated continuously as I add more and more articles.
Spore uses SecuROM, and requires an internet connection when you install it. It also has an install limit of 3 or 5, depending on when you bought your copy. You may be able to beg your way to another install, but be prepared to be assumed a pirate.
The severity of the copy protection has prompted it to become one of the most pirated games the last few years, simply because it had the DRM it had.
I was going to buy the game, but I’m currently rather glad I didn’t. I will not stand for being treated as a criminal-in-the-making which must be monitored at all times to make sure I don’t use the software in a manner which They ™ don’t approve of.
I’m not alone in being pissed, though. There’s an ongoing lawsuit, for one. I hope they win through, so that maybe EA and other publishing companies can stop infringing on and ruining our computers.
EA is one of those who seem to have invested most heavily in the new version of SecuROM, or at least the most draconic version of it. Games such as Spore have received a lot of favorable reviews for the game itself, but the copy protection’s limits have made people get up in arms and boycotting it.
Basically, it installs a driver in ring 0, and requires that you be online when you do the install. It also has a limit on how many times you can install the game. This was initially 3, but after the major backlash they upped it to 5. And before that, they were talking about requiring you authenticate your copy online every 10 days, or it would stop working. You can get new activations by calling EA, but they will assume you are a pirate.
This is going to be fun in a few years when EA decides to pull down the authentication servers, or you decided to install the game while at a cabin in the mountains, or you’ve had to reinstall your OS 3 or 5 times.
http://doublebuffered.com/2008/05/07/eas-new-copy-protection/
The common working theory these days is that this isn’t implemented to cut down on piracy (since everyone knows that doesn’t work anyway), but to cut down on second-hand sales. I.e. if I buy a game, people will be less inclined to buy the used games from me after I’m done at a reduced price.
Someone’s dissected the DRM used in Fallout 3.
http://talkjack.wordpress.com/2008/10/25/fallout-3-drm/
Apparently the DRM implementation here is weird. The game uses SecuROM, but it’s only used in the install and launcher application, but the game itself doesn’t use it. So if you want to, make sure the driver is removed, and just start the proper .exe file (I’ll leave the details to talkjack).
Unfortunately, it seems like the installation process might install the driver. I’m wondering if that means you would have to be an admin to install the game in the first place, or if you can avoid getting the securom driver in the first place by just installing as a normal/limited user.
Pity. A friend of mine bought this game, and he says it’s pretty good. But I’m not buying it.
Tages installs a device driver in ring 0.
Tages has been known to conflict with a few disc image emulators and the presence of both SCSI and SATA drivers in the system. Tages has also in f.ex The Witcher removed certain key non-player characters if it believes your copy is a pirated copy.
For more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TAGES
StarForce installs a driver in ring 0. Major drawback is if a game was protected by a SF Pro 3 system, it might not work or even reboot the computer if run on a 64bit OS. Just updating the SF protection is also not sufficient, the games developer/publisher would also have to release an updated version of the game.
Has been known to be distributed on demos, even demos distributed on Steam.
Has been known to cause system instability and hardware malfunctions.
For more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarForce
The latest version of SafeDisc (v4) installs its own Windows device driver, named “secdrv.sys”, which enables ring0 access to the application. This means that even if you do run your games as a limited account, the game and trojans and other malware might still have admin access.
This has opened up one potential security exploit already, see http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/944653.mspx if you’re interested.
Also, most installers don’t set the correct permissions, so every user could change this to point at whichever executable you might want, which would then run at the next reboot. And it would run with full admin access.
For more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SafeDisc
Current versions (i.e. v7) has 2 modes of running.
If you run as a non-admin, it’ll install a service called UAService7.exe, which works in ring 3 mode (not so bad, and works around one of my pet peeves, i.e. requiring administrator mode to install, or worse, run the game.
If, however, you haven’t wisened up to the benefits of not running as an admin, it’ll install a driver in ring 0, which basically gives it full access to whereever it might want.
For more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securom