SecuROM, what's so bad about it?

Its the idea of it. What is it supposed to do? It assumes each user is a pirate and thus only allows 3 (or so depending on the game) unique installs before the user must call said company and ask for another allowance. Now A. what happens 5-6 years down the road when said company either, no longer exists, has been reorganized or bought by another company, or no loner offers support for the game... ???? are we just S.O.L.? B. Who does it hurt? Only the legit buyers of the game. Why? Because TO DATE, every secuROM game released has been cracked and release SANS secuROM BEFORE the game is supposed to hit shelves ... simply put those who pirate the game don't ever have to even worry about this issue. Thus the end result is mistrust upon the users who actually purchase the game, needless frustration, and honestly a waste of time if the security protocol cant even be kept contained for a week. -_- So, no there is nothing "wrong" with it but the execution of the technology SUCKED hard and thus it just hurts legit buyers. Hope that clarifies.

EDITED Hope --- misspelled it as Home

SecuROM raped my family, and murdered my dog.

It limits the number of installs for BUYERS of the game. It forces the install of a program that one can't uninstall on the BUYER's computer. It causes hassle and problems with the BUYER by forcing them to use the internet when installing the game, and if they decide to install the game more than 5 times (completely understandable) they have to RING up the publishers to get it fixed. Why? What did the BUYER do wrong?

Meanwhile, the PIRATE gets a crack for SecuRom, and it doesn't hinder them in any way. At all.

Stopping of Piracy: 0
Frustrating the hell out of actual loyal purchasers: Priceless

It limits the number of installs for BUYERS of the game. It forces the install of a program that one can't uninstall on the BUYER's computer. It causes hassle and problems with the BUYER by forcing them to use the internet when installing the game, and if they decide to install the game more than 5 times (completely understandable) they have to RING up the publishers to get it fixed. Why? What did the BUYER do wrong?

Meanwhile, the PIRATE gets a crack for SecuRom, and it doesn't hinder them in any way. At all.

Stopping of Piracy: 0
Frustrating the hell out of actual loyal purchasers: Priceless

1carus

I agree with what you say, however i personally haven't had any issues with SecuRom, but then i only have Bioshock that uses it to my knowledge.

I'm with you buddy. This SecuROM thing is a spook story, a myth and people need to get over it fast. We can't have PC sales declining further over this paranoia, because people THINK that SecuROM is going to stuff up their game or their comp or whatever. I have ME, Bioshock, F3 and I haven't had a problem with it either. Get over it gamers!!biggest_loser

For Start

1. Several securom functions are similar to malware functions and that can be taken into advantage by hackers

2. Most of the programs that use securom dont inform you about installing securom feature on your pc and that alone is quite bad ( the consumer must know what is byuing )

3.Some games use it to limit how many times you can install a game (a console user can take his game and play it in as many consoles he want why cant a pc gamer do the same?)

4.It conflicts with other software for instance daemon tools

5.in some games like fallout 3 installs a driver that checks for common cd/dvd writing software and if it finds one it wont le tyou install the game ( it happened to me i had alchohol 52% and in order to install fallout i remove alchohol and had to remove all its entries in the registry which took me quite some time )

Those are some common problems. Securom didnt solve piracy problem and ot wont. So dont use it because the only one getting hurt are the legal user

Wanna do something about piracy make good games realease a demo and the users will apreciate the game so most of them will buy it to support the developer. Or they can use a service like steam for distributing games

[QUOTE="1carus"]

It limits the number of installs for BUYERS of the game. It forces the install of a program that one can't uninstall on the BUYER's computer. It causes hassle and problems with the BUYER by forcing them to use the internet when installing the game, and if they decide to install the game more than 5 times (completely understandable) they have to RING up the publishers to get it fixed. Why? What did the BUYER do wrong?

Meanwhile, the PIRATE gets a crack for SecuRom, and it doesn't hinder them in any way. At all.

Stopping of Piracy: 0
Frustrating the hell out of actual loyal purchasers: Priceless

mjstokes85

I agree with what you say, however i personally haven't had any issues with SecuRom, but then i only have Bioshock that uses it to my knowledge.

Yeah, infact, I haven't had issues either, and I too only have Bioshock as a SecuRom game. However, in theory, it's a very evil program that makes the consumers seem like criminals without stopping piracy at all. Therefore, I see no reason to support this awful stuff.

Oh god. Treats us like criminals? I don't know about the rest of you but I'm not that precious that I care what some CEO, tea sipping, billionaire suit thinks about me potentially pirating his game. If it doesn't affect your game then who cares! biggest_loser

But there's simply no reason for this software to be here. It's as simple as this - when I buy the game, I get unwanted software that limits my freedom for zero reason. When I pirate the game, I don't have to bother with any of it. So what's the point in buying the game? To give money to those guys I respect so much? Oh wait, I forgot, they treat me like a criminal, so I'll treat them in an equally negative way.

Thus, more piracy takes place - not less. I don't pirate games, never have, but it makes it continually hard to support the industry and buy their games when they put crap like this on my computer. Not to mention when it forces me to uninstall other software on my computer. That's just overboard.

It depends on the Securom in question. Fallout 3 just has a disk check. That is absolutely fine with me, install limits however, aren't. I doubt install limits are for piracy there more to try and stop second hand sales. I'm not sure about the US but second hand sales in europe are supposed to be protected under EU law. Infact a fair few segments of the EULA is illegal under EU law.

But on another note peoples worries about Securom, esspecialy low key Securom like disk checks are for the most part unfounded.

[QUOTE="biggest_loser"]Oh god. Treats us like criminals? I don't know about the rest of you but I'm not that precious that I care what some CEO, tea sipping, billionaire suit thinks about me potentially pirating his game. If it doesn't affect your game then who cares! 1carus

But there's simply no reason for this software to be here. It's as simple as this - when I buy the game, I get unwanted software that limits my freedom for zero reason. When I pirate the game, I don't have to bother with any of it. So what's the point in buying the game? To give money to those guys I respect so much? Oh wait, I forgot, they treat me like a criminal, so I'll treat them in an equally negative way.

Thus, more piracy takes place - not less. I don't pirate games, never have, but it makes it continually hard to support the industry and buy their games when they put crap like this on my computer. Not to mention when it forces me to uninstall other software on my computer. That's just overboard.

I been doing my research on SecuROM because PC gamers have been making such a big deal about it. For PC, I have Mass Effect, Fallout 3, GTA4, and Spore. All of those games are known to have SecuROM included in the install, but I have had no problems, and if you have a legit computer and use legit games/other software, then really why bother? So it is similar to malware, but it isn't, or at least that's what I have found out though my research (and for my research, I didn't just check wikipedia. I checked SecuROMs site, many other sites, and I read in detail the case filed against EA over haveing SecuROM). Please tell me there are other people on GS that aren't just paranoid gamers thinking that SecuROM hacks our computers and sends our information to the develops.arto1223

Did you also check the Mass Effect PC Technical Support forums, the Spore forums, etc? Because you'll find quite a few people who can't play the games they bought BECAUSE of SecuROM, or because they have run out of activations.

I like the way you throw around the word 'legit' as if trying to claim anyone having problems is a pirate. Nice try. Except pirates would never even see SecuROM or any kind of DRM in the pirated version of a game, so would have no problems at all running it. Only some LEGITIMATE paying gamers are the ones experiencing problems.

All forms of copy protection software have been known to conflict with certain makes/models of drives. SecuROM is not alone in this - people have also experienced problems with TAGES and SafeDisc in the past. In fact, if you check the back of the Far Cry 2 game case, it even mentions that the 'copy protection' used (which happens to be SecuROM) could conflict with certain makes/models of drives - so the publisher/developer even ADMIT to that fact.

I had experience of this with Thief: Deadly Shadows, when my drive could not read the disk. It was a perfectly good DVD drive, and read every other game in my collection - but the copy protection on Thief: DS at the time meant I couldn't play the game I had just paid full price for (I preordered it). I had to resort to using a No CD crack in order to play that game, until I experienced a problem with another game where the disk could not be read, and I just gave in and bought a different make of DVD drive.

Fast forward to the days of SecuROM 7.xx. I'd recently installed some SecuROM 7.xx games (the only thing I had changed on my PC in a while) and was using Nero to do a backup (as I usually do). Suddenly the disk drive stopped working and the PC hung. I don't believe in coincidence - so I did some checking and discovered that SecuROM 7.xx has been known to cause some makes/models of drives to fail and doesn't like some versions of Nero (which I use). Other people have experienced this.

So I removed the SecuROM 7.xx games from my PC in the hopes of resurrecting the drive - then discovered SecuROM was still installed on my PC. It put null entries in my registry, and installed a hidden folder that contained files named with illegal characters, so they could not simply be deleted. Proof. In effect, SecuROM 7.xx is designed to make it very hard to remove from your PC - even if you no longer have SecuROM protected games installed. Why? What is the reason for this? Why is it installed without your knowledge in the first place? Why is there no mention of it when you install a game, prompting you and asking if you want it installed (as some other third party software is, like Ageia, etc)?

The simple fact is that SecuROM has the ability to blacklist certain types of software including some CD-burning software like Nero, for some obscure reason, and can conflict with certain makes/models of DVD drive. I unfortunately fell foul of that, and had to replace yet another DVD drive - because of copy protection.

That is why I will not install any further games that utilise SecuROM 7.xx. Fortunately I have experienced no problems myself with TAGES or SafeDisc - but I'm not going to dismiss out of hand anyone that has experienced problems, because I've had problems myself with SecuROM. If you've never experienced any issue, then that's great. I mean that sincerely. The vast majority of people won't experience a problem. However, there are a minority of gamers who DO encounter problems, and there's an old saying: "Once bitten, Twice shy!" I'm just not willing to run the risk again.

I did manage to remove SecuROM 7.xx in the end, and I've had NO problems since then with backing up data using Nero.

I don't see why a game company feels they have the right to interfere with my PC in any way at all, or indeed interfere with the IP rights of other software developers who are making totally legitimate software (like Process Explorer, Nero, and a host of others), particularly when it ends up costing me money to repair/replace things. And I feel sorry for all those gamers who BOUGHT their game, only to find it won't work because SecuROM doesn't like their DVD drive, or some other software installed on their PC.

And that is all quite apart from my disagreement with online activation and install limits.

I suppose its also worth mentioning that Spore was the most pirated game of 2008 because of SecuROM. What a joke...

http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-games-of-2008-081204/

Thanks, I've got many good information about SecuROM. It's really disgusting that game Publishers think legit buyers a$$hole. I hate this type of backdoor checks.

What should be done to curb piracy?

1. Cripple the game - Pirated EXE will transform the game unplayable.

2. More & more digital distribution services.

3. SecuROM or similar Malware installation.

I think, except third solution first two will definitely slow down piracy.

I've recently heard (& read too!) that famous football manager 2009 has unique feature that if a pirated EXE is deteced then the game will lead to many sily incidents throughout the game (like, holiday is not enabled, many injuries etc). Thus crippling the gameplay and force users to buy the origina.Game developers should try to incorporate these features more to curb piracy.

I suppose its also worth mentioning that Spore was the most pirated game of 2008 because of SecuROM. What a joke...

http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-games-of-2008-081204/

reborngamer

[QUOTE="reborngamer"]

I suppose its also worth mentioning that Spore was the most pirated game of 2008 because of SecuROM. What a joke...

http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-games-of-2008-081204/

osan0

Its about boycotting so companies think twice before putting sh1t like SecuRom in their games.

've recently heard (& read too!) that famous football manager 2009 has unique feature that if a pirated EXE is deteced then the game will lead to many sily incidents throughout the game (like, holiday is not enabled, many injuries etc). Thus crippling the gameplay and force users to buy the origina.Game developers should try to incorporate these features more to curb piracyarijit_2404

[QUOTE="osan0"][QUOTE="reborngamer"]

I suppose its also worth mentioning that Spore was the most pirated game of 2008 because of SecuROM. What a joke...

http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-games-of-2008-081204/

reborngamer

Its about boycotting so companies think twice before putting sh1t like SecuRom in their games.

this entire planet is ran off of one thing-------------------------- FEAR.

and the monitary system only backs that up..

securom, is used for the same reasons the threat of nuclear war were put out during the cold war.... for us to be scared into submission.

im not buying that. if someone wants to boycott something then kick up a stink on places like amazon and dont buy it and encourage other ppl not to buy it. thats fine. but securom does not justify the act of downloading the game without paying for it. that is theft and anyone who does it should be treated as a thief.osan0

But that's the delicious irony about it!

An enti piracy method that actually encourages piracy. Come on, it doesnt get much funnier than that!

[QUOTE="osan0"]im not buying that. if someone wants to boycott something then kick up a stink on places like amazon and dont buy it and encourage other ppl not to buy it. thats fine. but securom does not justify the act of downloading the game without paying for it. that is theft and anyone who does it should be treated as a thief.TeamR

But that's the delicious irony about it!

An enti piracy method that actually encourages piracy. Come on, it doesnt get much funnier than that!

regardless, all of this is a direct result of the monitary system.

[QUOTE="osan0"]im not buying that. if someone wants to boycott something then kick up a stink on places like amazon and dont buy it and encourage other ppl not to buy it. thats fine. but securom does not justify the act of downloading the game without paying for it. that is theft and anyone who does it should be treated as a thief.TeamR

But that's the delicious irony about it!

An enti piracy method that actually encourages piracy. Come on, it doesnt get much funnier than that!

[QUOTE="jmnderson69"] Thats not true, my friend has it, he has played three seasons so far.arijit_2404

SecuROM raped my family, and murdered my dog.

Jodan77

i feel for you my friend :cry:

[QUOTE="arijit_2404"][QUOTE="jmnderson69"] Thats not true, my friend has it, he has played three seasons so far.jmnderson69

So that original buyers like us don't have to worry about the DRM issues and play peacefully. Digital distribution is a good solution, but countries like mine (India), don't have cheap & fast broadband connection like in USA, so it's problematic for us touse Steam or D2D services. We've to rely on retail version.

GTA IV is released in India @ INR 499/- which is approx $10. Crysis or FC 2 like games cost here INR 2000/- (approx. $40). And I can tell you GTA IV will be pirated less than other costly games.Another way to tackle the piracy. :)

Its completely justified when you buy a game and you can't install it or it asks you to unistall other software on your computer. I mean seriously, its the only way to stop this junk from happening. Think about it.

Its about boycotting so companies think twice before putting **** like SecuRom in their games.

reborngamer

In 1955 during the bus boycott in Montgomery Alabama, African Americans refused to take the bus in response to what happened to Rosa Parks; they didn't steal cars or other forms of transportation to show their disapproval. If you want to truly boycott the companies that release games with this software, do not buy the game, rate the game poorly at popular sites, and inform others of the dangers of the software (all of which are perfectly legal things to do). You could even write an email or letter to the game company saying they lost a customer due to their support of this type of software. Support companies that provide legal demos if you want to test the game. There is no justification for game piracy. In fact, people who use your logic are hurting the industry in the end and encouraging companies to develop more draconian anti-piracy measures. That's how I see it anyway.

[QUOTE="reborngamer"]

Its completely justified when you buy a game and you can't install it or it asks you to unistall other software on your computer. I mean seriously, its the only way to stop this junk from happening. Think about it.

Its about boycotting so companies think twice before putting **** like SecuRom in their games.

entropyecho

In 1955 during the bus boycott in Montgomery Alabama, African Americans refused to take the bus in response to what happened to Rosa Parks; they didn't steal cars or other forms of transportation to show their disapproval. If you want to truly boycott the companies that release games with this software, do not buy the game, rate the game poorly at popular sites, and inform others of the dangers of the software (all of which are perfectly legal things to do). You could even write an email or letter to the game company saying they lost a customer due to their support of this type of software. Support companies that provide legal demos if you want to test the game. There is no justification for game piracy. In fact, people who use your logic are hurting the industry in the end and encouraging companies to develop more draconian anti-piracy measures. That's how I see it anyway.

LOL - Before you mark me as some sort of thief that goes downloading games realize I am completely anti-piracy and beileve that if a company sees their efforts at anti-piracy have backfired(because they screwed over the people who paid for the game) they will certainly look into it and realize why, and that is why the spore boycott works. That being said, there are many ways to boycott and at the end of the day I think companies WILL realize their mistakes and create better ways to fight piracy. Furthermore, I want to make clear I didn't buy or download Spore since I couldn't care less for that game(nor would I if I did care/like the game) but I am not one bit outraged or against the fact it was downloaded like a motha f***a because at the end of the day they deserve it by screwing over legit customers and its the perfect way to force what I think will be a positive change away from things like SecuROM.

I HAVE THE PERFECT SOLUTION!!(drums plzz) lets buy the game and then download a pirated version from a torrent site so you are buying the game and paying and not getting any DRMAlejandro1992

I HAVE THE PERFECT SOLUTION!!(drums plzz) lets buy the game and then download a pirated version from a torrent site so you are buying the game and paying and not getting any DRMAlejandro1992

Devs and Publishers: OMG! Our game sold 5 million copies but our data shows that it was pirated over 500,000 times! Kill them pirates!