Coelocanth

Lots of good answers here, and much of what I feel has been covered, but I'll throw in my two cents as well. I bought BioShock without knowing about its DRM scheme. I was burned on that game and lost my activations due to changing user accounts and putting in another internal hard drive. This was [i]not[/i] a new drive for the OS, but just an extra drive for more storage. I was locked out of my game. When this happened, I checked out the BioShock forums and was appalled

Well, of course it's all subjective, but I found the second Indiana Jones movie was a big let down. And as far as the Star Wars movies: I thought the first (Episode 4) was fantastic. Next was pretty good. After that, the just kept getting worse. Those cute and fuzzy Ewoks just made me want to hurl something at the screen. And could they have found a [i]worse[/i] actor than Hayden Christensen? Good gods, a cardboard cutout has a better acting skills and a wider emotional range. &

For movies, I have to say pretty much any sequel. There are very, very few that are worth looking at. A few examples of bad sequels off the top of my head: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Jaws 2 As mentioned above: Star Wars Episode One (I'll also toss in Episodes Two and Three and even Episode Six) Pirates of the Caribbean At World's End (Dead Man's Chest was pretty pointless as well) Any of The Exorcist sequels I general

[quote]"Lock-in" is an economic term for the difficulty of switching to a competing product.[/quote] Explain how Stardock's system makes it difficult to switch to a competing product. You can switch to a different game with no issue. You can switch to a different delivery system (such as Steam or whatever other one you may want to get games) with no issue. So please, enlighten us on how the Stardock model conforms to the definition of customer lock-in.

[quote who="Kyrein" reply="7" id="1884180"]The best thing since the invention of cake....[/quote] Meh, the cake was a lie... I love this idea though. Hopefully Brad and the Stardock crew can get more and more publishers on board with this. It can only mean good things for the PC game market, IMO.

Latest I read today is the LHC is off line for a couple months for repairs. So that's good news. Gives me a chance to play a couple games I've not gotten to, grab a couple new releases, and maybe I'll be able to find my tinfoil hat before they fire the collider up again. [e digicons]:'([/e]

Bloody heel. Edit button isn't working. Please excuse the multiple posts.

Crap. This was supposed to be a reply to DeadMG in post 25.

It also gives these companies that insist on using DRM ammunition to point and say "See, we knew you were all just dirty pirates anyway". So then they come up with an even worse system. I personally see nothing hilarious about that.

While I agree with your sentiment, WBS, that if you pirate the game, you're nothing less than a thief, let us know how 'minor' that interference is when you hit the activation limit due to adding/changing hardware. a reinstall of the OS, installing on a new machine, or anything else that ends up burning an activation on you.

I'm skeptical. The BioWare devs said they changed video cards when testing Mass Effect and didn't run into any activation problems. However, after it was released, I saw more than one report on their boards where poepl found that changing a video card burned an activation. My own experience with BioShock was that adding a hard drive (not a new one for the OS, but just another internal HDD for more storage) triggered an activation (in fact it locked me out of the game).<

Yes, the activation is tied to your hardware ID. You [i]may[/i] be able to change video cards or other components without troubles. Problem is EA won't tell you how much hardware change is toerated by the DRM, so it's a complete crap shoot if you change/add hardware as to whether or not you'll burn an activation.

[quote who="WarlokLord" reply="9" id="1877096"]UPDATE: Multiplier x6 (isn`t this supposed to be x9 for the Q9650?)[/quote] This is most likely Intel's Speedstep technology (or something similar). It throttles your multiplier back when the chip is not under load in order to save power. It can be turned off in the BIOS. Good luck with the flash.

[quote who="Spartan" reply="25" id="1876973"]On a side note all the fallout about the DRM has generated a lot of plugs for SD on many forums and in several news stories. Additionally, I think if DemiGod becomes a major selling product, it will serve as a very loud wakeup call to the industry.[/quote] One can only hope (I plan on buying Demigod just to show my support for Stardock's business model, even though the game doesn't really seem to be up my alley). But judging

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="11" id="1871787"]Once we have enough of the micro expansions, we plan to put them together and release it as a traditional retail expansion pack. The expansion packs are designed to aid in both the single player and multiplayer experience. [/quote] There's your answer.

I believe my supply of troll food has run dry.

Indeed, your whole argument fails becasue you're operating on the premise that Stardock is somehow obligated to provide patches and upgrades to you for free. They're not. That they do so is laudable. Requiring you to use Impulse and a CD key/authorization to get these things is [i]not[/i] a DRM scheme, nor is it 'lock-in', since it's free and you can still play the game whether you choose to use this service or not.

Well, Max, when you buy a recipe book, if you don't like coconut, you can simply choose not to put it into the recipe you're making. Can't choose to not have the DRM when you buy the game though. The cookbook also doesn't lock itself and force you to call up the publisher for a new recipe page once you've taken that recipe book to three freinds' houses to cook at their place. You also don't get a covert spy camera installed on your bookshelf when you take that cookbook home and shelve it with

Awesome and good on ya, UEF Soldier. I'm old enough to remember when computers in the home was a crazy thought. I recall taking Fortran in university. Ah, the joys of punch cards!

Interesting post. I'm not that computer literate (at least, I don't consider myself so) and never had much interest in computers until about 4 or 5 years ago. Up until that time all I knew about them was how to switch one on and off (and I often did the latter the wrong way). However, after getting hit with some very nasty malware and having to take my computer to a local guy to fix, I became more than a little pissed off at what my ignorance of the machine cost me. So, I researched, asked qu

Sorry Venym, but I don't see the issue. If, as the Gamer's Bill of Rights would have it, you can play the game out of the box, then what's the beef? You have to be on-line to get patches or new content anyway, so I see no issue with having to register an account to get these things. And yes, I've heard the argument that you can't DL from another machine and transfer it to your off-line one. However, I believe Stardock has said they're looking into a method to do that (perhaps I misunderstood,

Yes indeed. They're lifting them to the point of giving you exactly the same thing, but you get 5 activations instead of 3! Yeah, that's some good work there, EA. Real good work.

And me without my tinfoil hat...

[quote who="Diviator" reply="7" id="1870466"]Well, the good side is that I'll think about buying Sins of a Solar Empire. It has an online activision, but I'm treated like a thief.[/quote] No it doesn't. You can play Sins right out of the box without any internet connection. However, if you want patches/additional content or to play mutliplayer games, then you have to register it on-line. (it's still not an activation per se though). But the game p

[quote who="jeffwads" reply="6" id="1870430"]The "negative" rating thing on Amazon will not dissuade anyone from grabbing the thing...it is stupid to think otherwise.[/quote] Well, from what I've seen posted on various sites, it [i]has[/i] deterred people from buying it.