2K Games Releases BioShock Activation Revoke Tool

[Andy Chalk]

2K Games Releases BioShock Activation Revoke Tool

BioShock [http://www.2kgames.com/] activation revoke tool," which allows BioShock owners to revoke one of their activation credits before uninstalling the game, freeing it up for future use.

BioShock was criticized for its use of the SecuROM [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SecuROM]copy protection scheme, which limited users to only two "activations" of the game; while 2K responded by increasing the number of activations per game to five, much of the negative reaction to the limit remained, leading 2K to promise a tool that would essentially cancel an activation on a single machine, making it available for use in the future.

The tool works only with the retail release version of BioShock, as the Direct2Drive [http://www.steampowered.com]release.

There are limitations to the tool's effectiveness: According to the FAQ, the revoked activations are valid only on the computer on which the game was originally installed, and only as long as no "major hardware component, such as a motherboard, hard disc drive or DVD ROM" has been changed. Further, the tool will only revoke one activation per computer, regardless of how many individual copies of BioShock have been installed.

More information, including a detailed FAQ, a Cult of Rapture [http://downloads.2kgames.com/bioshock/BioShockRevokeTool.zip].


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[brkl]

You should be able to revoke any or all previous activations if you have access to the serial number. Otherwise the tool is almost useless.

 

[Tom Edwards]

According to the FAQ, the revoked activations are valid only on the computer on which the game was originally installed, and only as long as no "major hardware component, such as a motherboard, hard disc drive or DVD ROM" has been changed.

You could always reinstall on the same computer without using up another license under those conditions...so how does this tool help at all?

 

[Andy Chalk]

The whole thing sounds pretty useless to me. Seems to me it'd be a hell of a lot easier and more effective for anyone "in the know" to just crack the thing and be done with it. I fail to see where this sort of copy protection addresses the issue of software piracy with any sort of effectiveness or relevance whatsoever, and I fail to see how a tool like this addresses the failure of the copy protection to address the issue of software piracy with any sort of effectiveness or relevance whatsoever.

 

[TomBeraha]

An Anecdote that comes out of copy protection in general ->

My friend Brian works in CAD, one of the programs that he uses for his work requires the presence of a physical "dongle" that is attached to the PC as a measure against piracy. His office owns the software they are using, however has elected to use a copy protection removal (a crack) on their machines. Why did they do this? because the program actually runs far slower when you use it correctly due to a bug in the way they coded the protection. They see substantial speed increase by cracking the software.


My personal feeling is that if your piracy-protection starts to hurt your customers, you're mistreating your customers. I personally hate the guy who wants to check my receipt at best buy, and had frequently gotten sick of him to the point of walking right by him and telling him to accuse me of shoplifting or not, but to back the hell off if he wasn't going to. I am perfectly capable of making sure I received the products I paid for. Now I just take my business elsewhere.

 

[Katana314]

I think overall, customers would have been more pleased if it was a Steam-only game.
Many complaints, but not as many.

 

[Andy Chalk]

I take it you mean Steam-activation only, as opposed to Steam-purchase only?

I often crack older games when I play them. I tend not to with games I've just purchased because I don't actually trust most of these cracks not to bugger them up in one way or another, but with older, established games it's one of the first things I usually do. I do it mainly for the convenience, so I don't have a bunch of old game cds lying around, but the stories of improved performance are very common as well. And does copy protection really stop anyone who's determined to copy a game?

Trouble is, this is an old argument, with all the old points well-hashed out, and it doesn't make a damn bit of difference. We can expect to see more of this sort of thing, not less.

 

[manaman]

Neverwinter Nights 2 was a recent problem I had with copy protection. An update to secure rom broke the game. I along with many other people where unable to play the game. I actually gave up trying to figure out what was causing the error, I think it had something to do with Secure rom detecting multiple drives with the same guid in the registry. I felt slighted, I paid for the game and was unable to play it, no warning, took a long time to fix the issue, and they never released a roll back to remove the patch from the system.

I crack all games I play. I think the copy protection is bull, and only hurts the people that pay for the game. Good copy protection only seems to delay a crack until someone takes the time to write a new installer for the game. I guess they are spending all that money (and aggravating paying customers) to get a few weeks reprieve before people can just download it.