Poll: Could not find disk! Please insert the disk and try again...

[Talshere]

Ok, so this is aimed at, primarily PC gamers by default but Im looking for any an all opinions.

Is it just me, or is this "you need the disk to run" one of the single most out dated and annoying mechanics that dev's still INSIST on using in games?

Ok sure, 15 years ago I'm sure it was quite effective at preventing piracy, or maybe they really did run the majority of the game straight of the CD.

Whatever. All this serves to do now is irritate to the extreme, forcing gamers to spend extra time, and possibly risk malicious software, on top of installation, finding a no disk crack, on both the original release of the game and any and all subsequent patch releases.

I have hundreds of games. Most of them I still have installed. It is impractical to cart all of those disks around with me on top of my machine ever time I go somewhere (the classic being Im currently at uni and shifting my comp to and from uni is bad enough in itself).

Am I alone here in wishing dev's would give up this happy fantasy they have that forcing us to use the disk is anything but an irritant which achieves absolutely nothing, and just remove this function from their games!

 

[Auric]

Yes.

Its 100% useless as copy protection, but serves well to annoy us, alot.

 

[reg42]

I hate it, I always crack my games (which I remind people, is not illegal)

 

[justcallmeslow]

I don't move enough for it to be an issue at the moment.

Oh, and also my laptop has a major case of the deads. So, not even an issue until i get my new desktop. Which won't move.

 

[Captain Pancake]

I hate it when I get that message when the disk is already in the drive anyway. Steam is the way to go, people.

 

[ethaninja]

Just another thorn in ours sides. Just like DRM. It doesn't prevent priacy.. it just pisses people off.

 

[Jedoro]

I'm more of a console guy, so the few games I do play on my decent-quality PC are right there, anyways. I don't mind using discs, but I can see how it would be a problem.

 

[Dexiro]

You still need discs to run pc games these days?

Sounds pretty pointless, it'll just have more people looking for cracks or going straight for a pirated version xD

When pirated stuff is so hard to come by, some Dev's seem to think that making the retail version harder to play is going to reduce piracy.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

It's better then the DRM Ubisoft used for Asassins Creed II is it not?

I know it's a bit of a buzz kill but it totally makes sense to me, I mean it's hardly asking much is it.

People complaining would be doing so more for the fact they want to be lazy and not have to put their disc in.

 

[Axeli]

Cracks make it a pretty pointless form of protection anyway. Thankfully, cracks also mean it's easy to work around.

 

[mokes310]

Nope, I crack all of my games so I don't have to use the disc (PC, not console).

 

[Samurai Goomba]

It's better then the DRM Ubisoft used for Asassins Creed II is it not?

I know it's a bit of a buzz kill but it totally makes sense to me, I mean it's hardly asking much is it.

People complaining would be doing so more for the fact they want to be lazy and not have to put their disc in.

This. I would a hundred times rather insert a game disc than have spyware inserted in my comp.

 

[Heart of Darkness]

I don't mind, as long as the game doesn't download all of the data files to my computer. Really, if you're gonna do that, then make the disc optional. If not, great for keeping my HDD clear.

 

[Kiefer13]

It honestly doesn't bother me that much. It's somewhat annoying, certainly, but all of my games are just on the shelf next to my PC anyway, so I don't need to get up or anything. I can never be bothered to hunt down safe and clean no-CD cracks for my games anyway.

Not requiring a disk is one of the nice things about buying games from Steam, though.

 

[Davrel]

Get CD cracks - takes 5 mins max - problem solved until you un-install the game.

Retain original .exe in a separate folder to allow for easy updating.

I fail to see your issue.

Also, steam.

 

[Axeli]

As enough people have already said, crack your game. Not illegal in anyway, and it let's you not have to dig through a million disks to find the right one. God, so glad people started using DVDs for games, the six CDs were getting so annoying.

Games still often come on more than one DVD, and they won't even bother telling you which one is the verification disc, let alone make them both/all verify.

 

[Asehujiko]

I hate it, I always crack my games (which I remind people, is not illegal)

According to the EULA, you are not allowed to modify "their" product in any shape or form. It's illegal to move the icon around your desktop and if you have a particularly corrupt judge like the one BREIN uses you could get convicted for it. It's just that no law firm ever had that much spare time with all the one time pirates that can be sued for 500.000 times the value of the product they downloaded because the law is so incredibly skewed against the defendant.

Also, yay for steam, allows me to make backups of any game on an external drive and they are just one copy+paste and a validate/update away from being playable again after reformatting.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

It's better then the DRM Ubisoft used for Asassins Creed II is it not?

I know it's a bit of a buzz kill but it totally makes sense to me, I mean it's hardly asking much is it.

People complaining would be doing so more for the fact they want to be lazy and not have to put their disc in.

This. I would a hundred times rather insert a game disc than have spyware inserted in my comp.

Yeah, I mean the only time I have ever cracked a game was my copy of Warcraft III when my brother (I have no idea how) literally managed to crack the disk, so I couldn't use it.

 

[Ascarus]

Am I alone here in wishing dev's would give up this happy fantasy they have that forcing us to use the disk is anything but an irritant which achieves absolutely nothing, and just remove this function from their games!

i could not care less. given the amount of time it takes to install some games anyway, the extra 30 or so seconds it takes to switch out a few DVDs is trivial in my view.

 

[Lukeje]

As far as I remember cracking games is only legal for `archiving purposes'. This requires that the game is quite old (5 or 10 years minimum). But yes, I do tend to crack my games. Especially since my CD drive is buggered and only works half the time.