it was suposed to be a shooter mostly and rpg second.

dakan45

Wait, what?

"The espionage RPG"

"RPG"

It's neither supposed to be a shooter or a stealth game. It's an RPG, where both choices are available. This whole mess reminds me of when people dissed Deus Ex because it wasn't a good shooter or a good stealth game (having only played the first level, mind you.)

Gotta agree there. Not that I'd want a console, but if I'd buy one it'd be PS3.

what are AAA games known for?rmfd341

Being overrated? :P

Seriously most of my favorite games of all time aren't AAA. Deus Ex got 8.2 (lol) from GS, so that shows what they know.

Ah, it's one of these threads. Here we go!

Of course, this is only my main PC. Older games are installed on my other PCs.

Not to defend this DRM, but they see it the exact same way. If they release a game without DRM, the good, genuine customers may buy it; but the number of people who exploit simplicity is quite high, in fact, higher than the number of people willing to deal with pirate servers and buggy DRM patches. The more difficult you make it to pirate a product, the less people will be willing to see it through.

Piracy is easy, convenient, free. If we can't find a solution, if broadband speeds keep increasing and torrent sites keep proliferating, the number of people engaging in the practice will only continue to grow. Even if these are not lost sales -- even if pirates would have never bought the product -- what company would, in good, sound mind, sit back and let people illegally use their products without doing something about it, knowing the situation only gets worse year by year?

It's the single biggest crisis in single player gaming... games like The Witcher 2, and Assassin's Creed 2.

SakusEnvoy

I think they are losing paying customers by draconian DRM instead of turning pirates into buyers.

Most people I know who pirate games either

1. Don't care about gaming all that much, so they don't wanna spend that much money on it. These guys usually have pre-built PCs not meant for gaming.

2. Don't have enough money to buy the games in the first place. Reasons for this could be the country of residence (in poor countries game prices can be insane), or the age of the person (kids don't have that much money to buy games.)

Then of course there's the occasional asshat who always has the latest hardware but never buys any games (unless they're uncrackable multiplayer games.) These are the guys who are killing PC gaming the most, yes even more than shoddy console ports. If there's any of you guys out there reading this, shame on you!

Anyway, the industry likes to think that "1 pirated game = 1 lost sale". Which more often than not, is not the case. If they want to tackle it with draconian and annoying DRM that never works instead of offering actual benefits to the people who buy the game (we used to have these cool big cardboard boxes with all sorts of cool bonus stuff back in the day, I guess it was too expensive), have it their way. I'm not gonna support them though.

Well you just explained why your own suggestion wont work.... they wont take the excuse "we pirate coz of DRM" ... because no one does, its just an excuse. so thye are going to go the "we will try harder with our DRM until it works ... even if it doesnt" route. My suggestion just meets inbetween.Birdy09

I don't know about you, but I don't like to spend my money on something that I have to illegally modify in order to play.

The point isn't whether people are using DRM as an excuse to pirate or not. The point is that DRM is completely POINTLESS. It will always be cracked, the pirates will enjoy a better product for free and in the end the only ones left with sore asses are the ones who actually supported the company and bought the game. Now who would want to support a company that cares more about whether its products are pirated or not than the experience their paying customers will have?

I dont understand why those of you that find DRM annoying.... instead of thinking it will ruin your games, why dont you just... you know, PURCHASE the game... but then crack the software? then its not piracy just modding..... and you know... bye bye DRM and youve still suported the deveoper... win win?Birdy09

Purchasing the game just shows the publishers that you're all right with this sort of DRM.

Pirating the game SHOULD show them that this kind of - heck - ANY kind of DRM is useless. But for reasons unknown, it just makes them add more DRM.

I call it a lose-lose situation.

Oh, goddammit.

I can miss out on Ubi's terrible console ports but I can't miss out on Witcher 2. Hopefully they will change their minds.

Don't trust the reviews, the game is actually very good. I've completed the first part of the game now (Saudi-Arabia) and I haven't had a single bug yet. That's something considering that it's made by Obsidian, lol. Keyboard & mouse controls work perfectly fine and performance is rock solid. Dialog and more importantly choices are a big part of it, or so it has seemed so far. If you like RPGs be sure not to miss it.

So GS has posted the final version of the review (+ video review.)

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/alphaprotocol/review.html

Seems like Kevin didn't enjoy it as much as I have. :(