February 19th, 2010 
Cliff Riseborough 
THQ’s upcoming post-apocalyptic shooter/adventure game/awesomeness simulator (errr…I’m just a little geeked about it) will be using Steamworks when it releases on the PC on March 16th in North America and March 19th elsewhere.
That means that it will make use of Steam Cloud saves and Steam Achievements and the like, but also require the game to run through the Steam client. So regardless of where you buy it, you will need to run it via Steam.
February 19th, 2010 Cliff Riseborough 
Re-affirming their commitment to the DLC strategy used on Dragon Age, Mass Effect 2 and The Saboteur, EA has announced that BF : BC 2 will include launch day DLC (consisting of several new multiplayer maps) available to all game owners. This is in addition to multiplayer items available to pre-order customers, and the “Squad Rush” game mode GameStop pre-order buyers will have access to.
Every new copy of the game will come with a single use VIP code used to access downloads of the maps and DLC content in the future. This of course means that buyers of a used copy will need to purchase a new VIP code to use on their game account.
Further DLC is planned, with not all of it guaranteed to be free.
February 18th, 2010 Cliff Riseborough 
As reported on IGN, the newest title in the SOCOM series on PSP will feature some new DRM initiatives. SCEA director of hardware marketing explained the particulars of the system. Basically, anyone purchasing the game will be required to register it through PlayStation Network before they’ll be able to play online. Physical copies will come with a serial key that will be added online while digital purchases will register automatically.
Also, buyers of used copies of the game will have to purchase an entitlement voucher for $20 to gain their own registration key before they can play online.
A notable quote from the interview :
IGN: Why has Sony waited until now to implement this feature for a PSP title? And why for only one title?
John Koller: Today’s consumers are more tech savvy and better connected to the internet than ever before. Piracy continues to be an issue of concern for the PSP platform. SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 3 is a trial run for a new initiative we are exploring for the platform. We will continue to explore this as an opportunity for the platform going forward, but we have no announcements to make on future iterations at this time.
So this is something that could be used again. And if it does achieve some level of success, could we perhaps see it used on the PS3 platform as well?
February 17th, 2010 Cliff Riseborough 
PC Gamer has had an opportunity to give the Ubisoft accounts DRM system a bit of a test drive while doing review testing for Assassin’s Creed II and The Settlers 7. Their results can be found here.
On initial launch, the Ubisoft Game Launcher automatically checks for updates. Okay, that’s actually kind of nice! If only that weren’t the only example of the system doing anything in any way beneficial to a gamer :
If you try to launch the game when you’re not online, you hit an error message right away. So I tried a different test: start the game while online, play a little, then unplug my net cable. This is the same as what happens if your net connection drops momentarily, your router is rebooted, or the game loses its connection to Ubisoft’s ‘Master servers’. The game stopped, and I was dumped back to a menu screen – all my progress since it last autosaved was lost.
So, in exchange for automatic updating and cloud saves, we get a system that kills any chance to play the game the instant contact with the Master Server is lost. This all but guarantees that if the Master Server is down for any period of time, you won’t be able to play any Ubisoft games during that time period, either.
Nice.
February 16th, 2010 Cliff Riseborough 
Electronic Arts is permanently pulling down server (and multiplayer) support for several games in March and April.
Some are system specific, some are region specific, not many are really all that surprising.
March 16, 2010 Online Service Shutdown
Def Jam for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
Godfather for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
Lord of the Rings: Conquest for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames for PC
Need for Speed: Carbon for PlayStation Portable
Need for Speed: ProStreet for PlayStation Portable
Simpsons for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360April 15, 2010 Online Service Shutdown
Burnout 3: Takedown for PlayStation 2
Army of Two for PlayStation 3 (Asia only)Additionally, the shutdown of Xbox LIVE for Original Xbox consoles and games (scheduled for April 15, 2010) will retire online services for the following titles:
Battlefield 2: Modern Combat for Xbox
Burnout 3: Takedown for Xbox
Madden NFL 09 for Xbox
February 16th, 2010 Cliff Riseborough 
The new iteration of AvP released in North America today using Steamworks as its DRM system.
The Beta for the game had consisted of a single multiplayer level, using what Rebellion claimed was an old build of the MP portion using a Peer to Peer matchmaking system.
Well, as of now the promised Dedicated Server support for the full game release is…coming soon?
Posted by a Rebellion employee in the Steam AvP forum :
Rebellion are busy preparing the dedicated server for the Aliens vs. Predator community. We hope to have a beta release with reduced functionality out in the next few days and further updates to improve functionality and fix bugs over the next few weeks.
The files will be available to download from the “Tools” tab in the Steam client and will be a free download.
This thread will be updated as and when there is more information to provide.
So, what happened? It seems odd that a game said to use dedicated servers would launch without that support in place. Was Rebellion waiting on using dedi-servers wile gauging interest in the game? Were they holding off until sales reached a certain level? Or was there simply a snafu somewhere along the way?
We’ll probably never know, but it is an odd sequence of events.
February 13th, 2010 Brad McGraw 
Last year Valve Software President Gabe Newell gave a speech at the annual DICE summit, where he explained that by cutting prices they were able to make more profit than if they kept titles at full price.
This year Paradox Interactive CEO Fredrik Wester said the same thing in an exclusive interview to Netopia (translated version here). Gamersgate saw an increase of 5500% in sales when they reduced the prices 75%.
The successful product launches, sales have been significantly strengthened by temporarily reducing the price within three months from launch, for example over a weekend, with up to 75%. Our test case has shown sales increases from 1500 to 5500%.
The basic theory is the more you sell, even with a lesser profit for each game, you’ll end up making more money. Both Steam and Gamersgate have proven this is true when applied to video games. They also noted that even after the sales were over there was an increase in game sales.
February 15th, 2010 Cliff Riseborough 
Yay! A chance to write something that isn’t depressing news about more DRM and stupid media corporations!
Electronic Arts has followed up last year’s release of Command & Conquer and the original Red Alert with releasing Tiberian Sun and the Firestorm expansion free. All of the games will cost you absolutely nothing, and have had whatever DRM protection they had back in the day removed. Tiberian Sun has been re-released in an ISO format, so you’ll need a virtual drive program to get them going.
All of the freeware re-releases can be found here.
Posted in Games 
Tags: Command & Conquer, EA, Firestorm, freeware, Red Alert, Tiberian Sun 
Comments Off February 11th, 2010 Cliff Riseborough 
It is more than likely that none of these services, or any of the others offering free music streaming, will have access to Warner artists for much longer.
As reported by the BBC, Warner has announced that they will stop licensing such services from streaming the music of their artists, saying that such services were “clearly not positive for the industry.”
Warner chief executive Edgar Bronfman Jr said: "Free streaming services are clearly not net positive for the industry and as far as Warner Music is concerned will not be licensed.
"The ‘get all your music you want for free, and then maybe with a few bells and whistles we can move you to a premium price’ strategy is not the kind of approach to business that we will be supporting in the future."
We’re LIVE!
That’s totally us…only not so much comprised of sentient food. Oh, and I’m Master Shake.
Anyway, seeing as we’ve been adding content on here for over a month now, and we have the basics pretty much set up as we want them, it seemed like a pretty good time to officially announce ourselves.
So…errr…hey?
Despite the site name, we’re clearly going beyond the bounds of simply discussing DRM. That would make for some pretty dry reading, and mean some rather substantial content limitations. In other words : it would bore us as much as it would bore you. So, we’re covering things beyond the DRM realm as well, but still (somewhat) retaining a focus on consumer issues.
Since I’m a game freak, and am seemingly addicted to buying them cheap, I love taking regular advantage of the deals gamers can find online. Starting today, I’ll be keeping our new Game Sales page updated with the newest deals available from EA.com, Impulse, Gamersgate, Direct2Drive, Steam, Good Old Games and any other stuff I am able to dredge up across these vast Internets. It’s accessible from the page list across the upper header bar, or that nifty sidebar addon over there.
We’ve got our basic DRM Glossary set up…you can access that along the same bar, along with our purpose and a little bit of information about us. Have a DRM term you’d like to see added, or a concern about the site or a question? We each have a link to our email addresses on the About Us page.
And if you read one of the articles or editorials and want to chime in, feel free to leave a comment. A few ground rules about commenting.
-If you spam, you’re blacklisted. Your IP address will be added to anti-spam plugins that will get you added to Stop Forum Spam’s database.
-If you have more than one link in your comment, it will be held for moderation. Apologies, but it’s necessary to keep spam levels down. We’ll read over and clear any legit comments held for moderation ASAP.
-I love me some obscenities, but not here. Try to keep it clean.
-Flamewars, attacks on other commenters (or us) and fanboy garbage will not be tolerated and will be deleted as soon as it’s seen. We’re all for debate and legitimate criticism, but going beyond those boundaries gets your comment disappeared like a dissident in Soviet Russia.
Anyway, that’s it. Go about your day…and hopefully check in on us from time to time. We have some things in the works that we’re excited about…and yes, I am totally going to be the sort of jerk who leaves everyone hanging with something like that. BWAHAHA!