Hey, you remember how DRM is now history right? Apple and EA have ditched the system and customer reactions have made it a very bad idea for companies to include crippling DRM with their products. Unfortunately no-one told Atari, who have fitted The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Dark Athena with an unbelievably moronic 3 install limit.
Naturally this has sparked the ire of the whiny gits that populate the internet who’ve taken to the Atari Forums and Amazon customer reviews to hack the game to bits. The game currently has a 1 star user rating due to the DRM, however the system isn’t actually crippling. Atari issued this statement:
The protection on the PC version of The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is an activation system with online authentication required the first time you install the game on a machine. The activation code lets you install the game on up to 3 machines, with an unlimited number of installs on each assuming that you don’t change any major hardware in your PC or re-install your operating system.
If you reach the maximum number of installations you can contact the Atari hotline and if it’s a legitimate request you can get a new activation code.
The DRM allows the game to be installed on 3 different machines as many times as you like provided you don’t drastically alter your hardware. If you run out of installs you can phone up Atari on a free number for some more. In my mind that’s not crippled, it’s perfectly reasonable.
However the damage has no doubt already been done, and it was done by PC Gamer magazine mentioning the 3 install limit in their review of the game. They said it wasn’t possible to get more than 3 installs, raising again the matter of games writers doing their research. If a website gets something wrong they can change it immediately, but a print magazine like PC Gamer can potentially do massive damage to a game’s sales just by not researching something properly. With DRM more and more a factor in game purchasing I think the limitations of these systems need to be explained accurately if you’re going to mention them in a review. Otherwise you seriously risk damaging the game’s sales and consequently damaging your relationship with the publisher.
Of course PC gamers, you could just buy the game on a console.
Via: The Escapist
And what happens when they turn off the phone system in a few years? “Selling” a game with DRM like this is wrong. Unless they admit you are renting the game.
This is the exact same problem that people like me had with Spore.
“assuming that you don’t change any major hardware”
Which I do, every couple months or so…
“or re-install your operating system.”
More frequently than I upgrade hardware.
Sorry for being such a geek, but the game would be a royal pain in the ass for me. The connotative DRM is a failure, and any company who continues to use it deserves to have their games trashed to bits. This is the internet age. Things happen very quickly, and no matter how you try to pretty it up, DRM is NOT going to go over well. Piss off the wrong group, and you’ll never gain a foothold… see Vista for what I mean. Vista pissed off the early-adopting geeks, and sales went nowhere because of it.
Just something to think about. If you sell the game to a person, and include a system that may make the game unplayable for that person, then the system fails. Period.
It’s nice to see that DRM will at least give you a reach around.
“In my mind that’s not crippled, its perfectly reasonable.” Reasonable? You got to be kidding.
DRM usually requires you to install it in each OS even if it its the same computer. I dual boot between Win 7 and Vista and I reinstall them frequently. Then I would have to call them about every two months?
Ludicrous.