23 replies to this topic

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

To give unsuspecting users a fair warning I'm trying to compile a list of games here with untolerable DRM:

• Bionic Commando Rearmed 2
  
• DC Universe Online
  
• Final Fight: Double Impact
  
• SingStar

Greetings,
Manuel

[Lendorien]

There are rumors that Sony is going to go the Serial Key route that PC games did a few years ago. God, I hope not.

Here.

Edited by Lendorien, Mon Feb 14, 2011 9:48 AM.

[rxd]

Lendorien, on Mon Feb 14, 2011 9:47 AM, said:

There are rumors that Sony is going to go the Serial Key route that PC games did a few years ago. God, I hope not.

Here.

The day $ony does this is the day I hack my PS3...

[cimerians]

Well....since the PS3 was hacked why not? Do you blame them? I dont. Its only a matter of time.
Thank the guys who start dumping games on their hard drives for "convenience". I like having the ability to do those things since I dont have the space but whats to stop me or them from renting or downloading games I dont own and dumping them on my drive?

I lived with stupid code wheels and serial keys my whole life. Starcraft, Warcraft...you name it.

It sucks but on the other hand I would probably do it too if I was them. Its insane how easy it is to get games once a machine is hacked but you cant trust anyone.

Quite possibly this could result in more people looking to hack. Which is fine, Sony and others will then try something else to annoy everyone.

Its an endless game.

Cyber you forgot to add the king culprit to the list:

Final Fight: Double Impact

[Cybergoth]

cimerians, on Mon Feb 14, 2011 10:26 AM, said:

Cyber you forgot to add the king culprit to the list:

Final Fight: Double Impact

Hm... I thought they did eventually patch the DRM away for this one, but apparently they just apologized for "forgetting" a warning message?!

[cimerians]

Cybergoth, on Mon Feb 14, 2011 10:45 AM, said:

cimerians, on Mon Feb 14, 2011 10:26 AM, said:

Cyber you forgot to add the king culprit to the list:

Final Fight: Double Impact

Hm... I thought they did eventually patch the DRM away for this one, but apparently they just apologized for "forgetting" a warning message?!

Last time I checked which was a long time ago (I deliberately dont play this game) it still required you to sign in.
I think they just added the warning and thats it.

I can try tonight when I get home. I should just delete it from my PS3.....

[Underball]

I honestly think the serial key makes a lot more sense than forcing people to log onto the PSN to use their games. It still won't eliminate piracy, it'll just annoy legitimate users.

[Mord]

Lendorien, on Mon Feb 14, 2011 9:47 AM, said:

There are rumors that Sony is going to go the Serial Key route that PC games did a few years ago. God, I hope not.

Here.

If they go that route, this thread will end up being a compilation of Sony's released games of 2011 onward.

Regardless, all these DRM methods are the primary reason I stopped doing any PC Gaming. If Sony wants to look to PC gaming as their flawed solution they will find themselves being evaluated the same way by me. The only games I buy (or play) on the PC are those without any sort of DRM -at all-. Which pretty much limits me to indy games and potentially stuff from GOG.com (although I've yet to bother ordering anything from them.)

Quite simply it means these serial key checks, online connection requirements, etc will all become reasons to stay the heck away from future Sony products and will be preventing me from joining any pre-order unless it's specifically stated this kind of garbage will NOT be on the disc. PS3 games are already too close to the PC borderline with the mandatory installs as far as I'm concerned.

[cimerians]

Mord, on Mon Feb 14, 2011 12:30 PM, said:

Which pretty much limits me to indy games and potentially stuff from GOG.com (although I've yet to bother ordering anything from them.)

GOG are good people. I love GOG.

No DRM, no nothing.
You get manuals, maps, soundtracks, already installed patches and everything is CD-less.

GOG is great. I have a handful of classics from them and they work great on Win7 (64-bit no less). If you do have any issues its all documented on the games forum so you wont have problems.

[Elw00d]

Cimerians...........you comment "I lived with stupid code wheels and serial keys my whole life." made me immediately think of the Gold Box Series. Ah, Good times.

[cimerians]

Elw00d, on Fri Feb 18, 2011 5:39 PM, said:

Cimerians...........you comment "I lived with stupid code wheels and serial keys my whole life." made me immediately think of the Gold Box Series. Ah, Good times.

Ughhh...I think most of them had them. Dethek, Espruar runes.
I remember Kings Quest too: "Please turn to page 56 of the manual. Paragraph 5, line 4 and please type in word #3."

What a joke.

But yes such was life.

[moycon]

Sing Star is a bad one.
I recently tried to download my bought Sing Star songs to my PS3 Slim (I have around a dozen songs bought)
Needless to say, you can't do it. Even if you wanted to buy the songs again, you cannot.
I found this on the web in regards to the issue:

You see, SingStar takes an interesting view on DRM. Sure you can download from a wide selection of decent music at reasonable prices, but things get trickier when you need to redownload them -- you can't. SingStar uses its own download system outside of the standard PSN system, and it won't allow you to download a SingStar song to more than one PS3. So even though Sony allows you to download almost ANY of their PSN content onto 5 PS3s and that Activision and EA have no problems allowing you to do the same with their music tracks, SingStar has instead decided to impose an incredibly Draconian form of DRM that permanently keeps you from redownloading content you've paid for if your console dies. And worst still, they won't even let you re-buy it! So if you download a SingStar song and your PS3 has something unfortunate happen to it, you can never get that song again. Period.

[Cybergoth]

Added it to the list, thanks for reporting!

[Mord]

Can anyone confirm if the Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition has limited character selection when not online? Apparently it's at least on some versions, although I don't know if that's PC only or console too.

[VW]

Mord, on Fri Jul 29, 2011 1:04 AM, said:

Can anyone confirm if the Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition has limited character selection when not online? Apparently it's at least on some versions, although I don't know if that's PC only or console too.

The PC version was going to do that but Capcom amazingly relented after a lot of people complained. Not sure about consoles.

[cimerians]

VW, on Mon Aug 1, 2011 1:13 PM, said:

Mord, on Fri Jul 29, 2011 1:04 AM, said:

Can anyone confirm if the Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition has limited character selection when not online? Apparently it's at least on some versions, although I don't know if that's PC only or console too.

The PC version was going to do that but Capcom amazingly relented after a lot of people complained. Not sure about consoles.

Did a search last weekend and I could not find anything about the console version so I think the console version is safe.

[Mord]

cimerians, on Mon Feb 14, 2011 10:51 AM, said:

Cybergoth, on Mon Feb 14, 2011 10:45 AM, said:

cimerians, on Mon Feb 14, 2011 10:26 AM, said:

Cyber you forgot to add the king culprit to the list:

Final Fight: Double Impact

Hm... I thought they did eventually patch the DRM away for this one, but apparently they just apologized for "forgetting" a warning message?!

Last time I checked which was a long time ago (I deliberately dont play this game) it still required you to sign in.
I think they just added the warning and thats it.

I can try tonight when I get home. I should just delete it from my PS3.....

If you haven't deleted it from your PS3 yet, could you check again? I was looking over the PSN store and noticed Final Fight doesn't seem to mention a required internet connection at this point. So I find myself wondering if they removed the disclaimer or if they really did patch it out. If the former, then I'll find it very hard trusting any description on the store if I decide to get a couple things.

[cimerians]

Mord, on Mon Feb 6, 2012 7:46 AM, said:

cimerians, on Mon Feb 14, 2011 10:51 AM, said:

Cybergoth, on Mon Feb 14, 2011 10:45 AM, said:

cimerians, on Mon Feb 14, 2011 10:26 AM, said:

Cyber you forgot to add the king culprit to the list:

Final Fight: Double Impact

Hm... I thought they did eventually patch the DRM away for this one, but apparently they just apologized for "forgetting" a warning message?!

Last time I checked which was a long time ago (I deliberately dont play this game) it still required you to sign in.
I think they just added the warning and thats it.

I can try tonight when I get home. I should just delete it from my PS3.....

If you haven't deleted it from your PS3 yet, could you check again? I was looking over the PSN store and noticed Final Fight doesn't seem to mention a required internet connection at this point. So I find myself wondering if they removed the disclaimer or if they really did patch it out. If the former, then I'll find it very hard trusting any description on the store if I decide to get a couple things.

Ok I'll check when I get the chance. Probably tonight when I get home.

[Cybergoth]

Mord, on Mon Feb 6, 2012 7:46 AM, said:

I was looking over the PSN store and noticed Final Fight doesn't seem to mention a required internet connection at this point.

On the German store it's still there. On the 'buy' screen, if you scroll the middle section down to the bottom, right above the copyright line, it says that you are required to log into PSN each time you want to play that game.

But regardless, I just bought an XBOX to get it on disc.

[cimerians]

cimerians, on Mon Feb 6, 2012 9:19 AM, said:

Mord, on Mon Feb 6, 2012 7:46 AM, said:

cimerians, on Mon Feb 14, 2011 10:51 AM, said:

Cybergoth, on Mon Feb 14, 2011 10:45 AM, said:

cimerians, on Mon Feb 14, 2011 10:26 AM, said:

Cyber you forgot to add the king culprit to the list:

Final Fight: Double Impact

Hm... I thought they did eventually patch the DRM away for this one, but apparently they just apologized for "forgetting" a warning message?!

Last time I checked which was a long time ago (I deliberately dont play this game) it still required you to sign in.
I think they just added the warning and thats it.

I can try tonight when I get home. I should just delete it from my PS3.....

If you haven't deleted it from your PS3 yet, could you check again? I was looking over the PSN store and noticed Final Fight doesn't seem to mention a required internet connection at this point. So I find myself wondering if they removed the disclaimer or if they really did patch it out. If the former, then I'll find it very hard trusting any description on the store if I decide to get a couple things.

Ok I'll check when I get the chance. Probably tonight when I get home.

Just tried it and yes I could NOT play the game without being signed in first.
"Error code XXXX please sign in to play the game" (along those lines).

I still get infuriated when I remember getting the shaft with this game. Sony ignored the complaints and Capcom said, "Sorry. Next time we will mention it. Have a nice day!"

[Mord]

Cybergoth, on Mon Feb 6, 2012 3:54 PM, said:

Mord, on Mon Feb 6, 2012 7:46 AM, said:

I was looking over the PSN store and noticed Final Fight doesn't seem to mention a required internet connection at this point.

On the German store it's still there. On the 'buy' screen, if you scroll the middle section down to the bottom, right above the copyright line, it says that you are required to log into PSN each time you want to play that game.

It's definitely not there on the english (Canadian) store then. It is there for Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 at least, so I can at least hope Final Fight is the only instance of BS.

[JamesD]

I'm just waiting for the reintroduction of the copy protection dongle.

[LarcenTyler]

The stupid thing about DRM is that publishers do it to deter pirates, but the whole thing is why people use cracks on it. Yet, instead of learning their lesson, they just make them even harsher.

Pretty soon we're going to need an internet connection, a serial number, a blood sample, a fingerprint, our mother's maiden name, a signed contract, AND the kitchen sink just to play one stinking game!

[Mord]

LarcenTyler, on Tue Mar 20, 2012 8:25 PM, said:

The stupid thing about DRM is that publishers do it to deter pirates, but the whole thing is why people use cracks on it. Yet, instead of learning their lesson, they just make them even harsher.

Pretty soon we're going to need an internet connection, a serial number, a blood sample, a fingerprint, our mother's maiden name, a signed contract, AND the kitchen sink just to play one stinking game!

Yeah, I have a feeling most gamers will still be willing to bend over if things got that bad.

I should put Dragon Age Origins/Ultimate Edition in my PS3 to confirm what they've done with the DLC packed on the disc. I believe they have that content tethered to EA's servers - if you don't sign in to them, then the content becomes unselectable? Worthy of being put on this list imo.