Know how people talk about history repeating itself, but you still see zidiots running around committing the exact same mistakes as everybody else? Apparently, in EA and BioWare’s case, that’s more than hitting the bull’s eye. In what seems to be a serious case of having gone Rip Van Winkle during the Bioshock / SecuROM SNAFU, Derek French, the Technical Producer at BioWare for Mass Effect (PC) has the beginnings of a fine mess on his hands, especially after announcing a copy protection system that makes the Bioshock activation mess (or StarForce even) seem tame by comparison.

According to Derek French, Mass Effect, scheduled to arrive on the PC this 28th, will employ the same SecuROM online activation system that was initially put into Bioshock, allowing the buyer to activate his copy of Mass Effect for 3 times before politely asking to him / her to go to hell, that is, contact the customer service “helpline” to get it reactivated. And while the game itself wouldn’t require the DVD to be physically present in the drive, it goes one step further and phones home every 10 days and re-authenticates just to make sure legit customers are not the worst form of criminal scum publishers swear we are.

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The month of May seems to have started off on a great note, what with E-Xpress Interactive playing Santa and leaving us a PC preview copy of the highly anticipated multi-platform game GRID. Knowing the rich history that Codemasters has when it comes to the racing games genre, the racing buffs in us were eager to try out the latest offering from their able-stables. Certainly then, braving the Mumbai traffic to rush back home was something that we were not really too keen upon. However, once back home and having installed the game, it just took us a couple of minutes into the game to know that all the trouble was worth it.
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If you haven’t heard of it already, news is buzzing around about the yet-another-new-controversy with BioShock; this time pertaining to fact that it apparently carries SecuROM - a rootkit that installs itself onto your computer and is used as copy protection for the game. News articles pertaining to the full details can be read here, or any other of the major gaming sites - the entire Internet’s abuzz with it from the looks of it. Currently, SecuROM is confirmed to be in both Steam and retail versions of the game, as well as in the PC demo (both Steam and independent executables), so there’s really no escaping it for PC users.

To clarify: SecuROM itself is not entirely malware. From the company’s site one can gleam that it doesn’t snoop into your computer past the CD protection. However, considering that Sony’s the one really providing the technology, such claims are at best, ambiguous, considering they have already had their asses sued over this. However, due to its nature, SecuROM can be extremely difficult to remove - it’s nearly impossible to delete it from the registry using the Registry Editor, while anti-virus programs can’t remove it either. For a quick lesson in rootkits, one can go here. For those that may want to remove the rootkit, there’s a somewhat easy method here.

Although I have several negative opinions on this move, I’ll refrain from posting it in favor of putting up pertinent information. Regarding the install issues: it appears that each individual can have at most two installs of the game running simultaneously. To install BioShock on more than 2 PCs is apperantly not possible, since you’ll have to uninstall the game, and then reinstall on the new PC. However, there have been reports that uninstall ‘credits’ aren’t working properly, creating issues for many gamers. Even worse is the fact that many can’t even install, because the 2K servers that monitored the SecuROM installs (yes, you need to be ONLINE to install the game) went offline due to the heavy load and usage. Worse still, was 2K customer support directing those that would enquire on the issue to SecuROM, while SecuROM customer support is directing them back to 2K, which is just shitty, IMHO.

Thankfully, though, it looks like 2K is doing something about it. As mentioned in an interview here, they apparently intend to get rid of the online activation eventually (although when is another matter altogether) as well as up the number of installs from 2 to 5.

However, this still does not address the issue of the rootkits in use in the first place; to mention nothing of their lack of effectiveness and the number of people its driving away instead. When, or if they’ll issue at all is something that remains to be seen.