BioShock PC launch short-circuits

2K servers go down, preventing PC players from completing installation process for single-player, offline game.

PC owners trying to install their brand-new copy of BioShock have had a rough time of late, with several users reporting that 2K Game's patch servers were down for some hours today.

Installing BioShock on a PC requires a user's computer to connect to 2K's auto-patch servers before the game can be played, something made impossible for some time today when the 2K servers crashed. 2K's own forums were alight with disgruntled BioShock buyers who were prevented from playing the game due to the required connection. As of publication time, 2K's official Web site was timing out, as was the BioShock Cult of Rapture site.

A 2K Games Australia spokesperson said 2K technicians were working on the issue, and had already added additional servers to help cope with the influx of traffic.

526 Comments

  • Bah-Humbug

    Posted Aug 29, 2007 1:09 pm PT

    WISEarchitect how many times have you installed the game already? Did you uninstall the game first? If this is only your third time installing this game then 2K and Securom have failed to give you the five that they promised to their customers now. In any event I will not buy this game until the install limit is removed.

  • WISEarchitect

    Posted Aug 29, 2007 11:54 am PT

    Ive played the full game (original) and had to reinstall the game again today.

    Guess what? Cant pass the downloading process wich means i cant install the game. Man, i want so bad to continue playing it. :S

  • aroxx_ab

    Posted Aug 29, 2007 5:23 am PT

    I am glad it all worked just fine for me with the installation

  • nightshade85

    Posted Aug 27, 2007 9:19 am PT

    has a patch been announced?

  • Hillsy_

    Posted Aug 26, 2007 10:37 am PT

    @JonnyNemesis Jonny, Laptops are not designed for gaming.. This has been known for a long time. If you are buying a PC for gaming, then buy it for gaming. Everyone knows that Laptops do not perform as well as Desktop/Tower PC's. If you want your PC to have the fancy graphics then your choice of graphics card is only either Nvidia or ATI as they are the mainstream cards for gaming. People talk about how there machine cannot play certain games....you will not be able to if you use on board Sound or intergrated Graphics chipsets. They do cause conflicts. If somebody was looking into buying a PC then I would suggest researching it. Look into good motherboards with good compatability chips. Quad Cores are the thing at the moment. The 360 uses an ATI graphics card whilst the PS3 uses a nvidia card. Maybe this will influence your choice of chipset. Then again, Nvidia have the fastest cards at the moment. I bought my PC two years ago. It is a Athlon64 x2 4200+, 2GB RAM, WinXP, x800xl It was the best I could find at the time. I have enjoyed playing games such as F.E.A.R, Civilization IV, Titan Quest, Stalker to name but a few. I have since upgraded my graphics card to a x1900xt 512mb this year. Now I have been playing Lost Planet, Rainbow Six Vegas and probably soon to be Bioshock etc..

    The PC is adaptable, you can change to the way the industry changes. PC's allow mods, level editors etc. Drivers updates maybe annoying, but they are there to improve gaming. Without them? Well... Remember, this is only from a gaming point of view. The PC is really so much more.

    Then again, PC's are going through changes at the moment with the New Vista Operating System and soon to be more Directx10 cards aimed for 64bit gaming. I would not buy a gaming PC at the moment, I would wait to see what happens. 32bit is still here, and will probably still be here for the next 6-12 months.

    Last point: - Not directed at you Jonny, somebody earlier.... Any PC owner should be able to tell you that the Mouse and Keyboard combination is better than a gamepad for FPS in console games. The precision of the mouse is more accurate. I know this from playing Halo and other games on consoles.

  • ElHypno

    Posted Aug 26, 2007 12:50 am PT

    Weak

  • Mikey_PJ

    Posted Aug 25, 2007 10:11 pm PT

    Yeah I heard this game was causing some trouble for pplz... To bad cuz it looks awesome!

  • ryan6236

    Posted Aug 25, 2007 5:59 pm PT

    Soooo... is it down again or something?
    The auto patch server? Does anyone know of a way around this or would I have been better off using the 53 bucks to start a fire?

  • gatsbythepig

    Posted Aug 25, 2007 5:31 pm PT

    I know this is upsetting a lot of people.

  • Dark_Nexus3367

    Posted Aug 25, 2007 3:55 pm PT

    Well kori911,you kind of pointed it out for me.Halo did indeed use tried and true concepts well for the game,but online gaming on consoles was horrible at the time,so in that sense Halo did revolutionize online gaming for consoles,and is also the reason Xbox live is as successful as it is,as well as the other way around.

  • BigSweetc

    Posted Aug 25, 2007 11:58 am PT

    Don't worry ..theres always a ''workaround''...lol I have all HL2 games installed and even ''garrysmod 10'' ...and I d'ont have STEAM on my comp....forget it !!!!

  • tsunami2311

    Posted Aug 25, 2007 10:13 am PT

    and to think game companies wonder why people pirate there games these days internet connection require to play the game that bs and the reason why I never bought HL2

  • kori911

    Posted Aug 25, 2007 9:52 am PT

    "Say what you will about Halo,it may not have changed gaming for PCs,but it did revolutionize it for consoles."

    Halo did nothing "Revolutionary". It did tried and true concepts well.

    Halo owes ALOT of it's sucess to Xbox live.

  • Erebus

    Posted Aug 25, 2007 6:26 am PT

    If games like Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, or Super Mario excite you, purchase the console(s) of your choice. I chose Wii for game style and control. With the exception of a few games, pretty much every great game for a console will find its way to the PC. However, not every great PC game will find its way to a console. I just shelled out $700 for a system that eats the PS3 alive (minus the Blu-Ray) and deficates a 360. Now I'm ready to play Warhammer Online, perform intense video and sound editing, oh... and enjoy BioShock without ANY frame-stuttering, temporary lockup, sound, or crash issues. Opinions are everywhere, and I just thought I'd share mine.

  • Dark_Nexus3367

    Posted Aug 25, 2007 4:39 am PT

    Sonicgod you do know that Halo for the PC was not an FPS right?Originally it was supposed to be an RTS game for the PC and Mac,but since MS bought out Bungie to work on games for the xbox,they completely changed the game into the FPS that it is today.So really Halo wasn't dummed down for the Xbox,it was re-imagined into what I believe was a much better game.Say what you will about Halo,it may not have changed gaming for PCs,but it did revolutionize it for consoles.

    PCs are indeed better than consoles in the technical aspects,but the fact that PCs are constantly consuming money for upgrades while consoles produce games just as good with only slightly less quality in the graphics is rather interesting.I mainly use my PC for web surfiing and downloading stuff,but my console is what gets my games.Don't get me wrong,back then I was an avid PC gamer,just that now I feel more comfortable sitting on my couch with a large HDTV and Surround Sound than I would sitting 5-12 inches away from a small monitor.So yeah,you spend tons of money a year to get your games looking a bit better on the PC than the 360 or PS3,and I'll save that cash for other things I may need,as graphics are never above gameplay.

    Also,look at CoD 4,all 3 versions look identical,so really spending 1500-5000 on a PC to run CoD4 is a big waste when the consoles can handle it the same,and the gamepad actually feels more comfortable to me than a mouse and keyboard will because of it's simplicity.

  • zehoo

    Posted Aug 25, 2007 12:43 am PT

    makes me glad i bought the steam version ..........

  • Sonicgod

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 9:30 pm PT

    MY Bioshock PC installed and connected. But I got the game early and it was working then.

    And PC bioshock owns Xbox 360, it looks better, controls better, sounds better there is no contest. The screen shots on the back of the box on both versions are the PC since it is the better version.

    I only use MY xbox 360 for games made for xbox 360. First person shooters and Bioshock is not those games made for xbox 360. it is pretty clear what one got the attention. Shooting things with a gamepad is not fun anyway when mouse and keyboard is far better and improves the game play way a head of console.

    Gamepads and shooters work like cutting down a tree with a tiny handsaw when you could be using a chainsaw mouse and get the job done twice as fast and with a cleaner cut.

    (and yes the Halo series was for PC and MAC before it got dummed down to run on an xbox with a game pad.) meaning they got a average PC FPS that pc players have had for years with worse control, compared to PC FPS there not that special.

    So ya the xbox best games are ports Of PC games, and there game code always ran on a PC first. The first time unreal engine 3 was shown it was on a PC then ported to xbox 360. I cant think of any Xbox games That i did not buy on the PC since it was better on PC. Mass effect, Until it comes to the PC, then it will be bettter on xbox 360.

    And the HDTV res consoles run at is low compared to PC's and there monitors that have been beyond HD for years.

  • JonnyNemesis

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 7:54 pm PT

    Hillsy_: The problem I have with the PC is that no two are ever alike. Even PCs that came off the assembly line have their own quirks and issues. It's versatility is a double edged sword. If I had a nickel every time I tried to play a computer game only to be thwarted because my graphics card wasn't compatible, or I didn't have a driver, I could buy two PCs. Which brings me to my second point: price. My XBox 360 cost me $400. My VAIO laptop: $1,700. For the price of that laptop, I could've bought a 360 and 21 brand new games. And the VAIO is a few years old, so it's still on XP and can't really handle newer games.
    I used to be a mixed gamer: some consoles some PCs. But now that most games are being ported to consoles, I didn't see any reason to put up with the headaches PC gaming has.

  • playstation_wii

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 6:34 pm PT



    It's sad that I can't play it.

  • Hillsy_

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 3:30 pm PT

    @foxhound_fox - Well Said.

    Experience reaps its' own rewards.

  • Olly464

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 1:35 pm PT

    I got this game today and it wouldn't work, I just tried it later and it was fine. Not a problem, I don't know why everyones so pi**ed! Great game, btw.

  • prioritymail

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 1:09 pm PT

    Patches shouldnt be part of game experiences. period. If the game isnt ready, do not release it. If anything, patches should only be in place if the game just will not work otherwise.

  • Oni

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 1:01 pm PT

    Why are people bringing the console wars in here? Please go away.

    Anyway, Piracy sucks, but what's even worse is the game developer's means to fight it like "Star Force", which by the way ate my PC.

    I understand the need for these Companies to protect their huge investment, but they need to find an alternative way of doing it that doesn't make the people who are actually buying the games suffer.

  • jim0n

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 12:56 pm PT

    @Chernnunos

    How am I being irrational? I think I presented my opinion on this matter if not politely, at least inoffensively.

    "There is no possible way ANY Piece of software can be designed that works 100% of the time on 100% of the machines out there..."

    We are not talking about hardware compatibility because of too many variations in hardware. The problem right now is at their end, where they are fully in control. Even PCs with the most perfectly-tuned settings would not be able to run the game if they're forced to patch from servers that end up broken.

    Yes, it will be fixed, but they should've been better prepared since it's such an important step(crucial, you might say) in getting the game to run.

  • Hillsy_

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 12:30 pm PT

    @Aim...

    Sorry, but the PC is a far better machine than the 360. The PC is always moving forward. The 360 can only go to its' technological merits permit. Aim, only 15% of the UK have HDTV's, whilst 25% in the US have HDTV's.

    Ghost Recon Advance Warfighter 1 and 2 were more arcade shooters for the 360. The PC versions were more tactical. They are both good in there own particular ways.

    The 360 also has some technical issues too, a half baked desktop fan, and no room for the graphics card. See the Japanese engineers review on the internet about the 360. Finally, the 360 is directx9 whilst the PC has already moved onto directx10

    I am not saying the 360 is a bad machine, it has some fantastic games. To me, the 360 is a hardware nightmare. So many problems. I don't mind if you don't believe me. Come back though in 6 months time when your 360 has gotten hardware failures.

    Remember, the PC is more than just a games machine. The PC is what you want it to be.

    No I don't have a PS3. Oh, and I do like consoles. My favourite being the Super Nintendo. and Yes, I still have my US Snes!

  • Hillsy_

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 12:11 pm PT

    @daooat - Totally argee.

    2K Games like so many other companies now, Lost Planet springs to mind; are trying to take away control from the buyer. I too understand that piracy is a problem. It has been with us for such a long time, anyone remember the Amiga and AtariST days? Piracy will always be with us, we cannot avoid that, just like we cannot avoid crime. We cannot eradicate crime like we cannot piracy. I really want to buy this game but I don't want to promote this kind of release, saying it is fine for online activation. For a single player game you should not need to activate it. The user should always have the control, it is a part of good UID (User interface Design). Think also about the people who do not have the internet...its' not even a multiplayer game.

    Problem is, I could miss out on playing one of the best games this year.

  • MiltoxBeyond

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 11:32 am PT

    Patches are autoapplied on the new consoles when you connect online...

    I go PC too, but its cuz my video card rocks my socks off.

  • darkreign2424

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 11:17 am PT

    PC vs Console....meh, I personally always go with the PC version of a game for 3 reasons...

    1) Patches
    2) Mods
    3) Console (usually the ~ key)

    Until consoles duplicate these capabilities, theyll always be second for me. So its out there, I own and play every console except PS3. I enjoy the heck out of them immensely.

  • hovles

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 11:13 am PT

    @ Mrbojangles25: Like?

  • mrbojangles25

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 11:10 am PT

    The whole piracy ordeal is getting rediculous. First off, not every gamer has internet. I dont, so I had to lug my PC 20 minutes to my friends house to initialize the game. Second, they have the copyright statement in FIVE different languages, and you have to sit there and look at them.

    Its just rediculous to ask for online authentication for a game that is 100% offline, plain and simple. There are better ways to combat piracy without inconveniencing the consumer, plain and simple.

  • BoogieManZero

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 10:59 am PT

    Still waiting for 2K to give us an update on how to get the Big Daddy figure replaced. Although I think I can wait a bit while they work out the kinks on their other problems...heheh...I can always just play BioShock.

  • neokusama

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 10:59 am PT

    I complete agree daooat, I really don't want to buy a product with this kind of deception.

  • daooat

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 10:48 am PT

    I have only a limited amount of sympathy for 2K and other publishers. I understand that piracy is a potential problem; however, the real solution to getting people to buy the game is to make a good one. I have been tempted to get Bioshock because of the reviews, but because of this DMR issue I will not. Call this Malware an effort at anti-piracy, but any piece of software that act without your knowledge is a virus.

    I am paying to play the game. If I have to load a crappy piece of software like Steam or some other DMR verification software that requires I remove my virus protection (or worse have to connect to the internet to play a solo game), I will not buy it. I have even found games through Steam or other DRM based services and purchased them through other methods of distribution to avoid this drain of system resources. I don't have to phone someone with a code before I can read a book. Developers and published need to accept the market. No copy protection will ever be perfect and only alienates your customers. (You remember them, they are the ones that pay for your product.)

  • Canitbe

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 10:38 am PT

    'People are still playing PC games?'

    8 Million WoW subscribers would probably argue yes.

    http://www.gamespot.com/news/6164082.html?sid=6164082

  • GunnyHath

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 10:33 am PT

    Guess I made the right choice installing it when I did, I had no problem.

  • serge59

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 10:30 am PT

    They really need to figure out some new anti-piracy techniques. The ones they have now are too overt. I hope they eventually can have anti -piracy techniques that won't even be noticeable to the user.

  • fenriz275

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 10:17 am PT

    Sounds like a lot of legitimate owners of BioShock will be looking for a no cd crack. It's this kind of dumb anti-piracy move that drive away costumers. I've avoided anything by Valve specifically because I don't want Steam on my computer. Guess I'll be avoiding BioShock as well.

  • josemb

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 10:14 am PT

    Come on people!! An HDTV is a must have regardless if you own a top of the line pc or not. So please, stop adding the cost of the TV to your arguments!!

  • Aim

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 10:07 am PT

    "MOST people don't have HDTV's to play a PS3 HD game on, but most people DO have computers with monitors that can support high resolution games."

    Yea, but how many people have decent graphic cards to support those high resolutions? Also, hdtv's are becoming very mainstream.

  • Aim

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 10:05 am PT

    I was a big time PC gamer back in the past. I still love PC games, but I've just recently just made the switch to the Xbox 360. And why? Because of the simplicity. I can put the disk in a game away.

    Also, the graphial advantage that the PC had is now gone. Has anyone seen GRAW? Or how about the console version of bioshock? The graphics look awesome to me. Anyway, once you dive into a game the graphics become secondary to the actual gameplay.

    Finally, my 32" LCD tv cost me $850. The Xbox Elite cost me $450. That's $1,400.00 total. You could say that I should have built a PC at that price, but I didn't. I didn't want to.

  • rah_mhambrey

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 9:50 am PT

    i'm bored of all this....this is a simple server problem and here we r debating bout which console is better......it dosent matter.....let us pc gamers be........

  • loserboyone

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 9:46 am PT

    PC gaming has been "dead/dying" for what 15 years now? I think people need to give up on which is better, console v. pc. People have a preference. Naturally PC's do somethings better, but some things consoles do better. Can't we all just get along?

  • livinglegend305

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 9:42 am PT

    RESIDENTEVILTWO PC gaming is where its at

  • RESIDENTEVILTWO posted Aug 24, 2007 9:37 am PT (does not meet display criteria. login to show)

    RESIDENTEVILTWO

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 9:37 am PT (hide)

    People are still playing PC games?

  • genoj00

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 9:27 am PT

    i was affected by this and it made me go crazy for a while but now that im playing my hatred for this online activation has temporally subsided

  • dryden555

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 9:02 am PT

    the notion that console gaming is "cheaper" makes no sense by the time you add the big TV, stereo receiver and speakers, and all of the console accessories and 60 buck games. Meanwhile, my PC does a heck of a lot more than play games and it certainly didnt cost 2k. Gaming on consoles is not somehow loads cheaper. At best it is a wash. Sorry but not a strong argument.

  • shinobukaizoku

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 9:01 am PT

    I don't know why people are boasting about Oblivion, being on PC, and 360 at different dates. You can look on this very website and see that the release dates are.....the same. Anyways, yeah it doesn't really suck that this happened for 2k, I mean problems happen, atleast they could fix it.

  • Pgtest

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 9:00 am PT

    Return your games.... It not worth supporting BAD business models.

  • MetalContra

    Posted Aug 24, 2007 8:59 am PT

    My Bioshock for Windows experience has gone off without a hitch. My 2 and half year old computer has been handling the game wonderfly on high settings on 1024 resolution.

    I do feel for the people that couldnt activate when the servers went down though, and I am sure that patches will resolve the sound issues.

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