gHacks technology news » games drm http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:01:40 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Gears Of War PC Hits Expiration Datehttp://www.ghacks.net/2009/01/30/gears-of-war-pc-hits-expiration-date/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/01/30/gears-of-war-pc-hits-expiration-date/#comments Fri, 30 Jan 2009 17:12:03 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=10227 If you need another reason why DRM does not make sense whatsoever read on. The PC version of Gears of WAR apparently has a expiration system build in that ran out on January 28, 2009. That’s right. If you legally bought the game you cannot play it anymore because the digital certificate expired. Does it make sense to specify an expiration date? Not really unless you would not sell but make the games available for rent.

Probably as disturbing is the fact that it is possible to overcome the problem by changing the date of the system to one prior to January 28. If this was supposed to be some kind of protection it was more than useless considering that the system data is checked for the data and not some server on the Internet.

It does look more like a blunder of someone forgetting to renew the certificate for the game. That again leaves the question unanswered why the game needs a certificate in first place.

expired

No word yet on the piracy front but bets are 10:1 that the pirated copies of Gears of War are working just fine. If you bought the game you can either change your system date or wait for an official patch which is said to be out soon. Epic Fail so to speak..

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