Legit buyers have to activate games over the Internet, have to play with the DVD in drive and even uninstall software to make the game work on their systems.

Knowing which DVD copy protection was used on a game DVD can be helpful to determine if it makes sense buying or trying to copy the game. Talking about copying bought DVDs obviously.

A-Ray Scanner scans game DVDs and displays information about the DVD copy protection that has been used to “protect” the DVD. The software program is capable of identifying all the important DVD copy protections including SafeDisk, SecuRom or StarForce. A total of 26 different DVD copy protections can be identified by the application.

The software can scan a DVD that has been inserted into a DVD drive. It can also scan a folder on the PC’s hard drive. A-Ray Scanner will display information in the main interface if the game DVD is copy protected. If it is the protection that has been used will be listed as well.

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This first plans were watered down after the Internet community noticed the plans and the regular checks on the Internet were canceled. Gamers were still not pleased with several other aspects of the protection such as forcing them to have the game DVD in drive and only allowing them to reinstall the game three times before they had to contact EA to be able to install the game again.

The release of Spore saw some heavy protests which concentrated on pushing bad ratings of Spore on the Amazon.com website. The game has currently been reviewed by nearly 2400 customers of whom 2133 have rated it with the worst possible rating.

This protest seemed to have an effect on Electronic Art’s decision – according to online gaming portal IGN – to ease up on the DRM of the upcoming Red Alert 3 game.

The maximum amount of installations before having to contact EA was raised to five and the DVD is no longer required to be in the drive to play the game. While that does not meet the demands of gamers worldwide who want the games that they purchase to be on pair with the games that can be downloaded from P2P sources.

Buying the game would mean to pay money for it, to be restricted in the number of installations and face the hassle of contacting EA whenever the maximum number is reached, to have a resident program on the computer that wont play the game if certain software is installed on the PC, that might stop working in the future because of closed activation servers. It does on the other hand come with a manual (most game manuals cannot be really called that these days), a box and the knowledge that the developers and publishers have been paid for their work.

The guys who download the game from the Internet do not pay a dime for it, get the manual as a PDF as well, get a game that they do not have to activate online, a game that they can install as often as they want and a game that does not install the resident software. It is however illegal to do that.

The problem that arises for gamers who know about DRM is that they feel cheated. They pay money for the game but get the “bad” version while the downloaders can enjoy a hassle free game.

The whole story feels more like a “Oh god they are protesting so much, let us throw a bone at them and maybe they stop protesting”. Is that bone enough? Definitely not. Will the DRM stop the game from being pirated? Definitely not.

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It seems that the press coverage and outcry of the gaming community made EA change their minds. The games will now run perfectly fine after an initial online activation and additional checks will only be performed before downloading additional content for the game.

That’s definitely great news for the computer users who wanted to buy Mass Effect or Spore, the two affected titles, but could not ensure that they were able to authenticate the game every ten days to be able to continue playing it.

The updated FAQ by Bioware’s community manager Jay Watamaniuk specifically mentions the armed forces and international users. I personally think that they still have not understood the real reason for the outcry but that’s probably just me wondering why someone would copy protect games when cracked versions of the games normally make their appearance before or during the initial game release.

It’s a wrong way of fighting piracy. I never understood why companies are fighting piracy on the backs of their customers.

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Technical Producer Derek French replied to a user thread on the Mass Effect Forum about the copy protection and activation the game would be using. I have several objections to this kind of protection although I understand that game makers and publishers want to make sure that they earn money from their games while keeping piracy to a minimum.

Users who do not have a permanent Internet connection will not be able to enjoy the game. The game has to be activated after installation giving the user nine days after installation to do so. It will stop working if it is not activated by then. A game will stop working if it cannot perform a check every ten days. If that does not happen the game will not run until the check has been made.

Am I the only one thinking about DRM and services that have been taken from the net ? It happened before, just recently to customers of the MSN Music store. What happens if EA decides to turn off the servers that check the activation. Will they be able to provide the check ten years after the game has been released ? What if the EA server is down or the Internet connection of the user ? He won’t be able to play the game until then if he is over the ten day period.

Let us take a look at the users who grab a copy of the game from P2P networks. Will they even realize the game has such a protection ? I bet they won’t. They install the game, copy a crack over and are done and can play the game for as long as they want without fearing that the game will be unplayable because of activation issues.

This is the exact reason why DRM fails. It is punishing the wrong people. Honest buyers are punished by it, not the ones who copy the game without paying for it. It’s like those stupid anti piracy trailers that can be skipped when loading a retail DVD. What’s your take on this issue ?

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