BioShock gets update: number of activations per game increased

Tuesday 28th August 2007, 02:02:00 PM, written by Farid

One of the rare negatives brought up by gamers during discussion about BioShock, the latest game from Irrational Games, now 2K Boston and 2K Australia, was its quite draconian online activation system. Acknowledging this outcry from their customers and fans, 2K games decided to raise the number of authorised online activations to a more reasonable level.

The number of authorised simultaneous installations had been limited to 2 computers, and only 3 reinstallations of the game on these 2 machines were allowed.  That resulted in a system that many considered too restrictive and kind of unfair to the legitimate owners of the game.

An update made to the game activation server now finally raised these limits to a 5-by-5 plan. In other words, the game can now be installed on 5 different computers and reinstalled 5 times on these same boxes. Also announced by 2K was future release of a “revoke tool” which will allow users to free one of these 5 activations from a computer and move it to another one entirely.

This new approach to the online activation of the game sounds better than what has been made available out of the box for the owners of the PC retail version. Nonetheless, some might consider it still restrictive and not future-proof at all.

Industry veteran, Ken Levine, also BioShock’s lead designer, chimed into that debate and cleared the doubts about the future and the activation system for BioShock. Speaking with Joystiq, Levine pointed out that the online activation system will only be available during the period of time the game is “really hot and there are people really trying to find ways to play the game without buying it.” After that period, a patch will be issued allowing the game to be installed without online checks. This information should put that part of the debate to ease.

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Tagging

graphics ± bioshock, online, activation, system, restrictive


Latest Thread Comments (21 total)
Posted by SugarCoat on Friday, 31-Aug-07 06:55:59 UTC
Quoting caffeinated
The securom portion of Bioshock was cracked a few days after release, which just goes to show how useless it really is. I don't think it was worth the negative publicity 2K went through for copy protection that barely lasted a couple of days.

The activation portion, however, still has not been cracked. I think that answers the question about which one is more useful (and activation doesn't secretively install crap on your box)
Given the fact that most games are cracked and released weeks prior to their retail launch i think it worked as planned. Far from a failure.

Posted by Mummy on Friday, 31-Aug-07 07:32:53 UTC
I believe that ppl who doesn't want to buy it will not buy it, regardless of when it gets cracked, while ppl who want will, so at the end protections like those just make legitimate purchasers angry.

Posted by epicstruggle on Friday, 31-Aug-07 07:57:02 UTC
Quoting Mummy
I believe that ppl who doesn't want to buy it will not buy it, regardless of when it gets cracked, while ppl who want will, so at the end protections like those just make legitimate purchasers angry.
I doubt that most legitimate purchasers will even notice. Im really suprised that this DRM scheme worked for this long. Looks like they are getting better at protecting their content, good for them.

epic

Posted by BRiT on Friday, 31-Aug-07 16:26:28 UTC
Quoting epicstruggle
I doubt that most legitimate purchasers will even notice. Im really suprised that this DRM scheme worked for this long. Looks like they are getting better at protecting their content, good for them.
I'm not surprised that their DRM scheme worked for the entire stretch leading up to the launch. They kept a significant portion of the working code off of the media that is sold. At the end of installation, what many consider to be the "activation" phase, the program contacts servers to pull down vital code. It's impossible to crack code that no one has, until they distribute that code.

Posted by Malo on Friday, 31-Aug-07 16:51:43 UTC
Personally I hope that copy protection schemes are starting to work better, as indicated here with Bioshock, as it means development studios might be inclined to throw more time and money the PC way instead of everyone going to the console.edit: as long as those measure are not too draconian in nature I guess.

Posted by Silent_Buddha on Friday, 31-Aug-07 17:41:18 UTC
This one is actually a fun one to track. As well as being amusing reading various gaming forums where there's tons of kiddies (old and young) running around saying it'll be cracked anyday now.

Considering how this is a Triple A title with much "scene" cred attached to whatever group manages to get a working crack, I'm actually fairly surprised it still hasn't been successfully cracked.

It's extremely refreshing and gratifying to see this. Game dev's (and the publishers that take the risk in funding them) deserve to at the very least regain their initial investment and hopefully make a profit on their work.

And if people wouldn't have bought it even if it wasn't pirated. Well good. If they don't buy it or rent it, they bloodly well don't deserve to play it. Although I'd imagine 5 activations would make rental's a bit difficult. Although they could do something like...unlimited activations, but a new activation will invalidate a previously installed and activated copy. Granted that would require some type of check over the net each time the game is started, which could be a hastle for people living in the country using dial-up.

And heck even a non-refundable 5 activations is quite generous if they do indeed plan on removing the copy protection mechanism sometime after launch when sales inevitably start to die down.

Regards,
SB

Posted by swaaye on Friday, 31-Aug-07 19:53:15 UTC
Are you sure it hasn't been cracked? It looks like it's on the various torrent sites now. Caffeinated said above that it had been cracked 2 days after release.Those cracking teams will end up being single-handedly responsible of PC gaming moving to only icky MMOs, IMO.

Posted by Richard on Friday, 31-Aug-07 21:46:24 UTC
Guys, let's try and get the discussion to the OT (increasing number of activations) instead of the "it's (not) cracked" debate.

Posted by micron on Saturday, 01-Sep-07 00:33:14 UTC
Quoting Sxotty
. supposed to be like Die, Die, Die my darling by the misfits.)
Holy crap, another Misfits fan @ B3D.

Posted by hesido on Saturday, 01-Sep-07 09:36:46 UTC
Quoting Curt
I don't know, it says here on the back of the box something to the extent that "this product is copy-protected through security measures"

Anyway I think you are really blowing this out of proportion. Remember that if your are using Windows you've already lost. Don't kid yourself. You don't have to register Bioshock, you don't have to provide an email adress, all it takes is a quick connection to the server and you are done.

I don't know what the future will be like, but it's possible that at some point you have to log on to a secure server every single time just to be able to play.

On the other hand if it bothers some people so much, they should consider buying the console version. That should really do away with their security concerns. YEAH, RIGHT.
I don't own an Xbox, but a PS3. But a keyboard/mouse fps gamer, I hate console fps, can't play them at all!

Some people don't like Steam, but I like their approach. I bought quite many games through steam and I can play them on any PC I like, and install, uninstall anytime I want. It even does have an offline mode for times with no net access.

Anyway, I do like your points, but I still hate the 5 installs restriction which could deplete very quickly. The notion that I am renting the game is a concept I do not like. I may buy the game when this thing is removed and the game will be cheaper as a bonus. Also, they should have showed some respect and tell on the box:

*They could only reinstall 2 times (at launch, this was the case)
*And that this restriction is temporary but for an indefinite time.

Of course on the internet, words spread quickly so people were aware, but they should have made this clear on the box, only out of respect to the buyer.


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