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I haven't played PC games in quite sometime (my system sucks), but I'm getting a hot one, at my door, in the next few days... so yesterday I found out about this SecuRom. It is a "Digital Rights Management" system. It is on many media types, especially PC games. Apparently it asks you for an activation (online/manual) and you only have three activation. If your PC undergoes another hardware change, I guess it'll think you've pirated the game and will ask you for an activation. In a lot of cases you are only allowed three activations, after that you can't play, but to their credit if you send SecuRom an email, they should be able to help (they'll send you a file). I have heard they have good support.
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BioShock
Consumers have accused BioShock of installing a rootkit. An official announcement was made denying the use of any type of rootkit.[6][7]
The game required consumers to activate the game online and originally set a maximum of two activations before they would have to call to get more activations. This was raised to five activations because an incorrect phone number had been printed on the manual and call centers were only in the United States. Users also found that the game had to be activated for each user on the same machine.[8][9]
In 2008, 2K Games removed the activation limit, although users are still required to activate it online.[10]
Mass Effect
In May 2008 EA announced that Mass Effect for the PC would be using SecuROM 7.x requiring a reactivation of the software every 10 days.[11] Due to complaints, EA removed the 10-day activation while keeping SecuROM tied to the installation. SecuROM's product activation facility was still used to impose a limit of three times that a customer is allowed to activate the copy of Mass Effect they purchased. The game becomes unplayable "as is" after the activations are used up, until EA's customer support is contacted to reset the activation limit, or until activation is bypassed using one of a number of available tools. Unlike BioShock, uninstalling the game does not refund a previously used activation.[12]
Spore
On September 7, 2008 EA released Spore, which uses SecuROM. Despite EA's efforts, Spore has seen relatively substantial rates of illegal piracy among peer-to-peer groups, and with a reported 1.7 million downloads over BitTorrent networks, it was the most-pirated game of 2008.[13][14] EA requires the player to authenticate the game online upon installation.[15] This system was announced after the originally planned system met some opposition from the public, as it would have required authentication every ten days.[16] The product key of an individual copy of the game would only be authenticated on up to three computers.[17] In response to customer complaints, this limit was raised to five computers.[18]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SecuROM
I have heard that Spore has released a fix/removal tool in their update, hopefully BioShock and ME have released fixes (I know Bioware [ ME developer] hasn't yet)
SecuRom TRIES to prevent piracy, but as we saw with Spore, it may be causing the opposite......
There are ways to remove SecuROM stuff from your registry, but then you'd have to download the game from somewhere like Steam, because the Original discs have SecuROM. **STEAM IS NOT A PIRATING UTILITY**
How SecuROM Damages Your PC
In closing, I hope that SecuROM is improved OR otherwise dropped by devs/publishers. Part of the probkem is that there are so many people pirating. I wish people would realize that by LAW creators that distribute their work,(especially software/music) HAVE A RIGHT TO COMPENSATION.
What do you think?
emaiil us at
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Let us know if we can publish your comment .
Resources/Help:
Removal, etc.
http://reclaimyourgame.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=68&Itemid=40
http://reclaimyourgame.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=225:securom-isnt-the-bad-guy&catid=12:securom-news&Itemid=20
http://reclaimyourgame.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=77&Itemid=46
A message board thread I started
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=17898
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