Ranting to /dev/null

This, on the other hand, is a terrible idea

Apparently BioWare, producer of such genius games as , Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, is choosing a unique way of shooting themselves in the head for the DRM on the upcoming PC release of Mass Effect. The game will have to check in with the company's servers every ten days to remain playable.

This is a fantastic idea. Reasons it will succeed:
- Though most people do have broadband, not everybody does.
- People on restricted networks, e.g. college campuses, will be unable to activate as the connection won't have been approved by IT.
- The inevitable keygen will inevitably bork real CD keys.

But the real reason this will fail is that it undermines one big reason people buy software instead of pirating it: it's more convenient. If using a legitimate product is a pain in the ass, people are just going to get the crack off of BitTorrent, and considering that crack will probably take about 12 hours to release. . .

If I do wind up getting a legit copy of this game for some reason, I'll definitely crack it, but the DRM means I probably won't.

Pity. I like BioWare games.

Posted by ryan at May 7, 2008 12:50 PM | TrackBack