they are just throwing away money trying to protect games, very sad

gonna buy the game though, did buy Bioshock after they softened up the security :)

promajo

They may be throwing money away but I dunno I'm not even sure if I was a publisher I'd fly naked and take the Stardock route.

The game looks interesting to me and since I'll be buying it either digitally or from a store shelve I fear not their copy protection schemes.

Well i guess developers dont really take those countries that seriously. Main targets are people in Europe, America and East Asia (Kina, Korea, Japan)

So even if a good game came out and everyone in india and pakistan pirated it, there would still be plenty of western people buying it. But of course it sucks that you guys get those steep prices.

robertlie

Which is both funny and sad at the same time. Those countries you listed along with China and Russia has well over a 89% piracy rate yet it seems like only US purchasers are held responsible. I'll never understand why they don't focus on oversea issues and leave us alone :)

[QUOTE="Krall"]Where is the hassle in that? It's going to be checking online in the back ground. The only hassle I'd see is if you have to physically dial up your connection.RobertBowen

I give you that most of the time they ask if you want to allow them time to connect to the internet, but not always or it's not that obvious in the install process. My point really was that there's already programs on your system doing this so there really is no hassle involved with the process Mass Effect will use, it's as transparent as it gets.

"If it can't contact the server before the 10 days are up, nothing bad happens and the game still runs. After 10 days a re-check is required before the game can run."

I still don't see the hassle or problem with that. If the game hasn't been able to make a check on the 10 day you can't play till you allow it to call the master server.

You could never play UT 2004 online if it couldn't contact the Master server. No biggy.

It's certainly a bit intrusive to deal with but again the fact that you'll prolly never run into a point where you have to physically jump through hoops to play is okay by me. Certainly not having to have the disc to play is a huge bonus. I can't even play my Civilization Warlords game ATM because I can't find my disc. Now that is a PITA!

[QUOTE="LTZH"]If it prevents just one pirate from taking ME free, then its fine with me...its not that big of a hassle.TheCrazed420

How is this not a big hassle? The legit buyer has to continuously prove to EA that he has bought the game, whereas the pirate will wait an extra couple of days until the game gets cracked again. And that cracked version will not need any of this BS.

Where is the hassle in that? It's going to be checking online in the back ground. The only hassle I'd see is if you have to physically dial up your connection.

You do know that 90% of the stuff you have installed on your PC already does this right? You have Adobe Reader. Nero Burning ROM, Microsoft Office, ah Windows XP/Vista, anything like that on your PC? Well in the background those aps are constantly checking for updates....

Plus I see this as being a huge bonus: "Mass Effect does not require the DVD to be in the drive in order to play, it is only for installation." That's from the first link.

I had been looking forward to Mass Effect PC, but now I won't be touching it at all. They are effectively saying 'We don't trust PC gamers at all, and you will have to check back with us every 10 days to use our software'.

RobertBowen

First I read your post, but not the links so I may have missed something.

I don't really see the big deal with this. It's mostly a transparent process that isn't going to bother me much. Draconian to me is Starforce. This is like installing Windows and I don't see the big deal. The activation over 3 times thing could be a bit of a pain but honestly for me I upgrade every 1.5 years most of the time and that's basically a video card. I do full builds around every 2.5 years and by that time I'll have no interest playing this game anymore.

Those upgrade/build rates I posted are going to be dropping for me though since there hasn't really been that many FPS/RTS games that would push my system that much that I want anymore. So if EA's little protection scheme lulls them into thinking they are safe from piracy and continue to churn out PC games I want to play then fine, I'm all for it.

Granted if I could have my way no protection or at least none of that keep the CD in the drive crap would be the best scenario for me to embrace.

i love shooters, what are some great free FPS's? And what other free games, can i not miss?xfactor19990

There's a perfectly great sticky at the top of this forum discussing this very topic which includes a perfectly good listing...

Geez $15k? Go buy a car and see the PC Hardware forums!

Thanks :)