Comments on: Pirarsey: Age of Booty Demo

By: redrain85

redrain85 — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 07:08:12 +0000

Haven’t you guys read Capcom’s take on SecuROM yet? They think it’s swell!

Christian Svensson, Capcom vice president, business development and strategic planning, defended SecuROM and said the technology itself shouldn’t be blamed for how it’s used by publishers and developers.

“SecuROM is as onerous or innocuous as a developer or publisher chooses to make the policies.”

When asked if Capcom will continue to use SecuROM with its future PC titles, Svensson replied: “That’s our intention. We have a good, long-standing relationship with SecuROM. I don’t anticipate that going away any time soon. And to be fair we think it’s actually had really good results for us.”

http://www.videogamer.com/news/capcom_on_securom_its_not_the_bad_guy.html

So, he’s essentially saying that it’s each individual developer’s fault, if an implementation of SecuROM goes too far. And that, somehow, this makes SecuROM an innocent party.

Never mind that SecuROM are the ones who offer the stifling control mechanisms, in the first place. If they’re “much maligned for things that it is not necessarily responsible for”, then why don’t they prove that by dropping the limited activations and other mechanisms in SecuROM that end-users despise so much? Hah! :p

By: Muzman

Muzman — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 04:03:35 +0000

All the best jokes have been done, so I give you the one, the only white disco classic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niU4qb8EnM4

(it’s only really funny if you’ve seen the movie. And even the…)

By: bansama

bansama — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 03:46:40 +0000

Thinking about it, this may be due to the Steam version not including SecuROM

No, the Steam version of the demo *does* have SecuROM as that’s the version of the demo I played. I wouldn’t mind so much if Valve bothered to mention it on the product page. As I’d then know what to expect and which of my PCs to install it on.

By: catska

catska — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 02:21:16 +0000

Good game and works great on the consoles.

By: Rich_P

Rich_P — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:51:41 +0000

@Y3k: The AoB PC release reeks of amateurism: shitty performance, unsupported resolutions, SecuROM install limits, and Gamespy (rofl). It’s like they go out of their way to make PC gaming as user-unfriendly as possible. Sounded like a fun game for $10, but not if I have to deal with installation limits and Gamespy matchmaking.

By: Wedge

Wedge — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:21:27 +0000

Yes and we all know World of Goo was a huge failure selling 50k copies (these are massive numbers for a niche indie title) BEFORE it was put on Steam, and who knows how many after that.

Moreover though putting installation based copy protection in any game with it’s larger part being online is nothing short of retarded, as you could easily be doing more reliable and less troublesome “DRM” with accounts and authentication over that portion.

By: Y3k-Bug

Y3k-Bug — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 22:25:38 +0000

“hahaha who the hell puts SecuROM and activation limits on a $10 PC game? FAIL.”

@Rich_P Considering the shit ton amount of piracy that ran through World of Goo at $20, I’d imagine it to be a pretty sound idea all considering. Despite all the rah rah rah about Securom.

By: Mil

Mil — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 21:34:40 +0000

Baby Got Back? Really? Please tell me you’re hung over.

No doubt he was thinking of the Jonathan Coulton cover (press “Play the song” to listen). That has to be gamer-approved, Coulton being the author of Portal’s famous Still Alive song and all.

By: VLADIMIRPUTIN

VLADIMIRPUTIN — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:58:17 +0000

I can’t even get the Steam demo to run, the Age of Booty process just dies on start-up. Thinking about it, this may be due to the Steam version not including SecuROM.

By: Skurmedel

Skurmedel — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:49:54 +0000

Isn’t Age of Booty a board game originally? I can play that one for twice the cost but without the DRM. And I can see my opponemy opponents too! :)

Surely this game must be quite popular round the shores of Somalia?

By: drewski

drewski — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:23:51 +0000

Publishers have been puting DRM on demos for ages. I recall being baffled back when Star FORCE was the most evil thing in the history of evil things that Codies were sticking it in with the demos of their games.

Because we can’t be having people illegal sharing free software!

By: JonFitt

JonFitt — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:22:44 +0000

The anti-piracy measures on the demo is clearly there to stop people pirating the Pirate game. It’s true that people will probably pirate the Pirate game anyway, and the copy protection will only hurt the non-Pirates, but imagine the embarrassment that would be caused if you had to tell your executives that you made not attempt to stop the Pirates pirating the Pirate game.
Seems clear to me.
PIRATES! ahem.