Serious Sam 3 DRM Will Kill You Bad

[Andy Chalk]

Serious Sam 3 DRM Will Kill You Bad

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Serious Sam 3 is packing some surprise DRM: an immortal pink scorpion that will make your life miserable.

With most of its business presumably coming via Steam, Serious Sam 3: BFE [http://store.steampowered.com/app/41070/] is already protected by a pretty solid layer of DRM. But conventional retail copies are available in some parts of the world and let's be honest, even Steam games sometimes end up running around loose and unsupervised. Croteam apparently foresaw this possibility and so it took steps to protect the game itself in the coolest, nastiest way possible.

Players with an illegal copy of Serious Sam 3 will at some point find themselves being pursued by a little [relatively speaking] pink scorpion guy with machine-guns for hands. It's technically a Juvenile Arachnoid, with two big differences: it's fast as hell, and it's immortal.

That's right, it cannot be killed and it's way too fast to be evaded for more than a second or two. It will pursue you, it will attack you and sooner or later - probably sooner - it will kill you. It's a hilarious idea and it's even more hilarious to see the thing in action. It's also a lot of fun imagining all the dummies looking for help with the unkillable fast scorpion thing in various Serious Sam 3 forums.

This DRM will be defeated fairly quickly, of course, but in the meantime it's truly a joy to behold. Nicely done, Croteam.

Source: The Dark Side of Gaming [http://www.dsogaming.com/news/serious-sam-3-bfe-drm-introduces-immortal-scorpion/]


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[Handbag1992]

Reminds me of the Arkham Asylum DRM, where it takes away your ability to glide, leaving hundreds of identical topics on the official forums.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Seriously awesome, I need a troll face pasted on that thing stat!

On a somewhat related note, i hope they're porting to consoles at some point. I doubt my "can barely run TF2" Laptop could ever run it... Or anything else for that matter

 

[tehweave]

I like it when VG companies make little easter eggs to deal with the pirates.

Granted, it doesn't last long. Most pirates will find a way around it, but it's pretty sweet to see.

There was one for the game Zak McKraken, an old lucasarts game (SCUMM ENGINE) where if the game was pirated, your character was thrown in a pirate jail and the police officer talked endlessly about copyright infringement. It was pretty cool.

Edit: They should release the invincible scorpion as a challenge mode later on for people to see how far they can get without dying.

 

[tehweave]

(double post, disregard)

 

[The Diabolical Biz]

That's really, really awesome. I can only imagine the look on their faces when that thing runs at them!

 

[Mark D. Stroyer]

Chances of a 'Scorpion Hardcore Challenge' community arising and becoming a rather serious affair: 70%

I expect people will be modding the game very shortly, now.

 

[Dyp100]

Is it wrong I got annoyed at the fact they called a Deagle a Smith and Wesson? I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure it's not.

Also I like the joke DRM's, but I still think the Arkham Aslyum one is best.

 

[Something Amyss]

This will be cracked in like five minutes, but at least it's amusing.

 

[Worgen]

I kind of hope they add something like that as a campaign extra, it could be fun.

 

[Trishbot]

The DS Michael Jackson version replaced all the music with vuvuzalas. I like these smart ways of deterring pirates without punishing legit customers.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

One thing that people who talk about stuff like this and Arkham Asylum's anti-piracy "Easter eggs" forget about is that there has to be an actual DRM system in place to make them work, one that might cause the same issues for legitimate customers as the lockout kind if it's not implemented fairly. Arkham Asylum's was the infamous SecuROM, which in that case luckily reset its activation limit every month. What does Serious Sam use, and what are its terms? They don't say on the Steam store's page (naturally, since it's meant to be a "secret").

 

[Zhukov]

I would have made it so pirated versions have invisible suicide bombers (the "AAAAAAAH" guys).

 

[Mr.Amakir]

One thing that people who talk about stuff like this and Arkham Asylum's anti-piracy "Easter eggs" forget about is that there has to be an actual DRM system in place to make them work, one that might cause the same issues for legitimate customers as the lockout kind if it's not implemented fairly. Arkham Asylum's was the infamous SecuROM, which in that case luckily reset its activation limit every month. What does Serious Sam use, and what are its terms? They don't say on the Steam store's page (naturally, since it's meant to be a "secret").

They are probably just using Steamworks.

 

[brunothepig]

One thing that people who talk about stuff like this and Arkham Asylum's anti-piracy "Easter eggs" forget about is that there has to be an actual DRM system in place to make them work, one that might cause the same issues for legitimate customers as the lockout kind if it's not implemented fairly. Arkham Asylum's was the infamous SecuROM, which in that case luckily reset its activation limit every month. What does Serious Sam use, and what are its terms? They don't say on the Steam store's page (naturally, since it's meant to be a "secret").

It could simply be that the dev team uploaded this. An indie game called "There's No Time To Explain" uploaded a version of their game that simply gave your character a permanent pirate hat (the game has hats) and had a plea in the menu for people to buy the real version, or at least spread the word about the game so others might.
OT: My god I love Croteam. Everything they do is hilarious, from press releases, to adverts and now they've even made DRM funny.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Wasn't interested in this game but now I kind of feel like pirating it.

 

[Little Duck]

Serious sam I will posses you! I swear pom the pink scorpion god.

On a side note, I would love this to come in real life vernon of the game as well. Maybe as some kind of uber hard to kill monster on one level with a few mates.

 

[Kragg]

I would have made it so pirated versions have invisible suicide bombers (the "AAAAAAAH" guys).

or just make the sound randomly appear for no reason, preferably from behind

 

[Shameless]

On a side note, I like the music.