Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition's DRM Punishes Legitimate PC Customers

[allistairp]

Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition's DRM Punishes Legitimate PC Customers

PC Street Fighter IV fans are upset at Capcom for limiting the offline character set to 15 of 39 in the upcoming Arcade Edition release.

In a recent [a href="http://www.capcom-unity.com/sven/blog/2011/05/25/stuff_you_want_to_know_about_ssfiv:ae_for_pc"]blog update[/a], Capcom detailed the features, requirements and DRM of the PC port. As a response to piracy, the port will require players to be signed into Games for Windows Live to receive full access to the game's features (similar to Dead Rising 2). However, the remaining gimped offline content is what has upset fans.

When offline, players will have no access to previously downloaded content (DLC, replays), no ability to save progress in challenges or settings and local play will only feature less then half of Arcade Edition's cast.

"I've been playing Street Fighter IV on PC lately and since online is pretty much dead for North America I've been doing training, arcade and trials, which are pretty much the only methods of keeping me entertained," NeoGAF poster Vidal wrote. "Now in the case that I'm not connected to the internet there's a chance I won't even be able to play my main character, save challenges or EVEN USE THE DLC I'VE RIGHTFULLY BOUGHT? This is a fucking dumb idea, Capcom."

The announcement of Arcade Edition coming to PC is what fans wanted to hear after the console-only Super Street Fighter IV left them out in the cold. While some may be discouraged by Capcom's anti-piracy measures, the developer spared no expense in carrying over the content and adding graphics options PC fans desire. PC players who missed the SSIV on console will be able to access "14 new characters, new background stages, new replay modes, new spectator modes, bonus stages and a complete character rebalance."

Of course, that's assuming you have an internet connection and don't have anything against Games for Windows Live.

The problem with Capcom's decision is that it punishes pirates at the cost of punishing customers - depriving them of the content they are paying for. This wouldn't be so bad if pirates gave up so easily on these things, rather than take them as a challenge. Here's looking at you [a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/98396-Ubisoft-Online-DRM-Its-Worse-Than-Expected"]Assassin's Creed 2[/a].

Source: [a href="http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=431404"]NeoGAF[/a]


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[aPod]

Yes. This sounds like a wonderful idea.

/shakes hands with investors

I'll bet that pirates have a crack or workaround within days. So in the end Capcom is only screwing paying customers.

Well done gentlemen. Well done.

 

[laserwulf]

There's stupid, and then there's this. I'd love to hear the thought process of whomever at Capcom thought this wasn't a foolhardy idea and pushed it enough to get the 'feature' into the final product.

Hopefully there will be enough outcry that they'll reconsider. I can't think of any way that this benefits the consumer, and -not- bite Capcom in the ass.

 

[Caliostro]

The problem with Capcom's decision is that it punishes pirates

Actually, this is the biggest problem... it DOESN'T punish pirates. Pirates will just hack around it, like always. It did fuck all to stop Assassin's Creed II piracy, and it'll do fuck all to stop SF piracy.

This is doubly stupid when you consider SF already has what is arguably the best piracy deterrent: It's almost entirely an online game [footnote]Yes. I know you can still pirate and play online games, but it's such a bigger hassle, and is so much more limiting than "single player piracy" that it's practically inexistent.[/footnote].

So this, this is the stupidest move. This is JUST punishing your legitimate customers. Ubisoft learned it the hard way that the worse thing you can do is punish the actual fucking customer.

 

[ZeZZZZevy]

hey look, another attempt to combat piracy by using the consumer as a baseball bat.

I suppose there will always be casualties in war. It just seems Capcom has no problem with their policies being dangerously close to insanity

 

[Worgen]

violent games dont cause violence, shit like this causes violence

 

[Kevlar Eater]

In that case, fuck Capcom. They want to punish me because they feel like it? Well, no dice.

 

[DustyDrB]

Yikes. Even I know that's a bad idea, Capcom. How can you not? Seriously...

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

Is anyone at all shocked at this? They really hate pirates after what happened with SF4.

I?m not saying that what they are doing is good, but I highly doubt it would have come to this if so many people had not pirated the last game.

Still, it?s too bad that customers suffer in this, though the best way to voice disapproval would be not to buy the game

 

[vrbtny]

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!1!!!eleven!!!!

Seriously though Ubisoft, I don't give a crap about this game. But that DRM is really unnecessary. Is it really in your best interests to abuse your paying customers? And besides, the pirates will have all that content cracked and able to use in days, if not hours.

Seriously, stop being bitches to your customers and treat them with some respect....

 

[Raithnor]

My interest in reading this article and buying this game was lost at "Games for Windows Live".

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU Capcom!

 

[nagi]

Ah... way to drive legitimate customers with problematic net connection (or even any... in case capcom servers get DDoS-ed like soooo many others before) to piracy!

 

[silverbullet1989]

if devs spent half there time making pc versions of games half decent they wouldnt need to pull shit like this cos the fan base would go n BUY the game... all this does is encourage piracy -_-

 

[Keava]

And the same day CDPRojekt releases 1.1 patch for Witcher 2 that removes DRM completely from the retail versions. Yeah.
Go figure Capcom, you just want the community to hate you for ideas based on false premise. Pirates will find workarounds around such DRM sooner or later, data mining, packet sniffing, some coding and a crack will be out.
The funny part? Some of people who bought your game legally will praise the hackers that did that because it will let them enjoy the game.

 

[Samurai Goomba]

See also: Most DRM.

Although not necessarily to this degree.

 

[koroem]

See now here is a reason for Anonymous to go start hacking and DOSing a company. Capcom have nothing but contempt for their paying customers if this is what they feel is necessary. Screw the customers that support your company. Nice move. Pirates will be around this in record time and paying customers will be left fucked over it.

People need to vote with their wallets on this one, and hacking groups like Anon need to find a way to attack them without screwing customers personal info. Ubisoft deserved it, and now Capcom does.

Shame there isn't some kind of better outlet to show displeasure on topics like this. I'm tired of publishers raping us and treating us all like criminals. Its time to treat them like criminals.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

See now here is a reason for Anonymous to go start hacking and DOSing a company. They have nothing but contempt for their paying customers if this is what they feel is necessary. Screw the customers that support your company. Nice move.

People need to vote with their wallets on this one, and hacking groups like Anon need to find a way to attack them without screwing customers personal info. Ubisoft deserved it, and now Capcom does.

Shame there isn't some kind of better outlet to show displeasure on topics like this. I'm tired of publishers raping us and treating us all like criminals. Its time to treat them like criminals.

Yes. The company did something people don't like, so of course attacking them is a good idea. In fact, it is totally justified. This in no way can turn out bad
/sarcasm

What will hurt them the most is that people don't play the game. But attacking them allows them to treat the consumer base even worse, because they have justification.

 

[Ne1butme]

Blazblue for the PC had something similar. You had to be logged into GFWL in order to save anything. I mean everything. controller settings, graphic settings, completion rates of the story mode. If you don't sign in, it's like you made a fresh install every time you booted the game.

Luckily, there's a method to get around this. You just create a local only account for GFWL and then you can play without connecting to the internet or GFWL. The only thing you couldn't do was play online (as expected)

Wonder if a similar workaround will be available for SSF4:AE.


But yeah, it will get hacked very soon. They always do. Nothing is secure.

 

[Littaly]

Really?!

This seems like a solution someone would pull three or four years ago, and it was a bad idea back then too. Is anyone taking bets on how long it's gonna take for pirates to crack the DRM?