Buy Bioshock, get free rootkit?

[lionheart]

http://consumerist.com/consumer/punishing--the-ones-that-don.t-steal/bioshock-comes-with-nasty-drm-that-sets-off-anti+virus-software-ruins-everyones-day-292841.php
 
 
http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5527
 
:g:

[Blunt]

I've dl'ed the demo, but I won't install it now if a malware is going to be installed at the same time.

stuff Bioshock for their sneaky backdoor tactics:angry:

[lionheart]

Agreed.

[T-Bag]

Thats Lame.

This is giving legitimate customers a reason not only not to buy a game but to pirate it instead. It's a single player only game (very similar to Oblivion which can with only the simplest protection) and they think people won't find a way round their system within a week (if they haven't already) and then the only thing their stopping is people who pay them using the game.

Imagine buying a spanner and being told, sorry you've used that on your car, lawnmower and setting up the climbing frame in your back garden you'll have to pay us again. It'll just have people "lending" of their neighbours.

[Luminance]

haha this must be the dumbest marketing move EVER

[Gandalf]

that's why I only game on the xbox now. Consoles do have their advantages.

[smilodon]

For clarity - http://www.2kgames.com/cultofrapture/pc_faq.html

Although all this is pointless as the game is already cracked. Anti-piracy efforts while understandable are all doomed to **** of the honest buyer and do nothing to stop the pirate.

[lionheart]

Not a root kit after all..... still a pain.
 
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=41921

[Anonymous]

For clarity - http://www.2kgames.com/cultofrapture/pc_faq.html

Although all this is pointless as the game is already cracked. Anti-piracy efforts while understandable are all doomed to **** of the honest buyer and do nothing to stop the pirate.

My personal opinion is that they would save a lot of money if they didn't have to pay for all these anti piracy measures as it would maybe make the games a bit cheaper.

[delanvital]

My personal opinion is that they would save a lot of money if they didn't have to pay for all these anti piracy measures as it would maybe make the games a bit cheaper.

I guess the argument for would also be the vice versa. With economies of scale the cost pr. paying user to endure is rather low, hardly hitting profits nor sales pr. unit, while maybe making more ppl prone to buy it.

What I would like to know is how much an effort like this actually makes ppl buy a game vs. getting a pirated version. As stated earlier, game already being cracked, and ppl that go for the cracked ones stay with them, since all games will be so eventually... so how is this initiative going to convince them to buy???

[lionheart]

...and on a related note
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=41924

[ghoule211]

apparantly there is some form copy protection :crying:

[Liberator]

By the sound of it its just the full package. DRMing the demo would be a waste of time.

Hope so, I D/L'ed the demo off Steam and played all 10 minutes of it.

Haven't seen anything from the firewall or Avast, pity though, the game looked like it might have been okay and the 10-15 minutes of play you get from the demo sets up quite nicely. Deleted the content after that though.

The clever thing is that in the demo it tells you that plasmoids killed their society and it seems you have to get plasmoided up to play the game.

Sounds like the final scene could be you saving the guy on the radio and his family, then then getting well and truely shafted as a thanks.

Same as Sony's thanks for buying the full game.

I would expect GRC will have a detector/remover out before Sony are forced to.

[Liberator]

Okay, DRMing the demo would be a waste of time, but for some reason they did it anyway.

I did notice that my firewall asked me about blocking "explorer", which is a symptom.

Found the following forum that tells you how to get rid, the key name changes from machine to machine, so you'll have to find out what it was installed with on your PC using good old SysInternals rootkit revealer, now part of MicroSoft.

Some of the keys are still in the registry after uninstalling the demo, but I couldn't see any of the files in system32 or anything under the Securom directory in Docs&Settings. So I think uninstalling the demo removes the rootkit code (which it never did on audio CD's from Sony, hence the lawsuits) and just needed tidying up.

[Carr0t]

Argh! You make comments like that and i want to discuss plot! But if I do it'll spoilt it for other people!