We're Not Criminals

I was lucky enough this year to get a chunk of money this Christmas from Tarkheena to build a new gaming rig. My old rig was getting, well, old. So as you can imagine, this was a welcome gift. I took advantage and built a nice value gaming rig with a dual core Intel and an 8800 GT graphics card. All of the games that were balky or wouldn’t run before seem to run pretty dang nice now.

One of the games that didn’t run well before was Hellgate London. Among it’s other well-documented failings it was a sort of a system hog. I could play the single player mode before if I turned down all the graphic options. Once I had my new rig built, I decided to reinstall the games I’m playing or playing with right now. Wow, EVE, COX, TF2 and the other Valve stuff, Tabula Rasa, and Hellgate. All of that other stuff went right back on my computer with no hassle, but Hellgate was a pain in the ass.

First, it wouldn’t let me install without re-entering my CD key. I know it has a single player element, but this still bugged me a little. Then the installer came to the place to create your account. I had an account already, but there was no “skip” button to bypass this step. There was a tiny “log in” button for people that had been in the beta. I hadn’t been in the beta but it was unclear what I was supposed to be doing, and given that there was no “back” button, I clicked it and entered my account info. This took me to another screen where I could enter super sekrit codes of some sort. I didn’t have any, so when I clicked “Continue” I got an error message. Maybe it’s just because I’m a software tester by day, but this drove me frikkin’ nuts. Eventually the install completed, in spite of me it seems.

I go to test the game with my new graphic card later in the day and the game won’t run without the DVD in the drive.

So let’s recap. I gave it my CD key on install. I gave it my CD key once again when I created my account. It was pretty sure I was a legit user, so it let me install. Now it won’t let me play without the disk in the drive.

Now, I’m a big boy and I understand the need to protect intellectual property. But let’s be realistic. First, let’s assume that someone wants to play Hellgate. I think Flagship Studios didn’t do themselves as proud as they would have liked with this product. That’s a matter of opinion, and that is mine. Second, let’s assume that someone didn’t buy the game, but instead pirated it. We’ve all been around long enough to know that in 15 minutes I could find a crack for the game, no sweat. As for needing to have the disk in, there are utilities for making a ghost of the disk in memory that would trick the game into playing anyway. So what have they accomplished by all of their layers of copy protection? They have made it difficult for me, someone who legally obtained (bought) a copy of their disappointing game to play it. Good plan. Now I’m pissed and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

We’ve come to a time when copy protection, if the company feels it’s necessary, needs to be a whole lot less obtrusive. For me personally, I’d rather that I entered the CD key once (I’m old and feeble, so even that often means entering the damn code 2 or 3 times before I get it right) and then having the software call home when I launch. If there is another machine running the same code, it gets shut down. If there are several running that code concurrently, then the code is invalidated. Shame on me for sharing it if that is what I did. Yes, that is more server load for them and another thing to manage, but then they get to be hassled for the right to copy protect their client instead of me, the paying customer. They should shoulder the burden, not me. We’re not criminals, we’re your customers.

I understand that a single player game is different than an MMO. I understand the issues around that. All I’m saying is that as a customer of Flagship’s I don’t have a lot of reasons to purchase software from them again. A mediocre game. Lots of entering numbers and letters. Having to insert the disk to play. Flaky install routine. Too much trouble for not enough reward.