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Wednesday saw a great deal of buzzing, and quite angry buzzing at that, as a result of an announcement made by Derek French, Technical Producer for Bioware. The reason for all this activity was due to the fact that French stated that the PC version of Mass Effect would contain, in addition to all the graphical goodness that we Xbox 360 owners have been spoiled by, a DRM based system called SecureRom that would be activated upon first playing the game. Once that was done the SecureRom system, in a manner not unlike that of a overly concerned parent who makes sure you brush your teeth every night, would start itself up every ten days to ensure itself that you aren’t gonna try anything funny.
In what may be construed as an attempt to lessen the angry roars Mr. French stated this wasn’t as big as irritation as it may seem for the following reasons: 1)There would be no external software outside of the Mass Effect game itself to install for this procedure to operate. 2)The program will only transmit, via the Internet, the CD Key and some other kind of singular identification that will allow you to play the game without any further obstruction once this automated security system clears you. The most reassuring thing about this system is point number 3, where Mr. French stated that the instructions would appear in “clear labeling” on the box the game came in.
Unfortunately. it seems that the gaming community at large was not convinced by Mr. French’s statements that, in the end, SecureRom wouldn’t be that much of a hassle. It all started when it was postulated by one post on the BioWare forums which queried what would happen if one was not able to play the game every ten days and on day eleven what would happen when SecureRom could not connect to the Internet. Mr. French was forced to admit that in that case you could not play the game under those circumstances. While it is important to hold yourself to a schedule when playing a game, as too much of a good thing is not good at all, it seems that the game doing it for you is carrying it a bit too far.
It seems that both the Mass Effect forum members and Bioware agree on this point, because just today at 9:25 AM, Bioware’s Community Manager Jay Watamaniuk announced that the ten day authentication system was going to be dropped from the final version of the Mass Effect PC game. Instead, said Mr. Watamaniuk, the PC port of Mass Effect will sport the more ordinary one-time validation. Gamers can then play Mass Effect without any further questioning, or even with the disc in the drive, and the disc will only have to be used again upon the installation of any additional Mass Effect content.
This seems to have ended quite pleasantly except for the fact that each individual copy of the game can only be installed a grand total of 3 times. We at TGR don’t have any information on whether or not Bioware will correct this annoyance between now and the North American release date of May 27th but stay tuned right here to TheGameReviews.com for more information as we get it.
In what may be construed as an attempt to lessen the angry roars Mr. French stated this wasn’t as big as irritation as it may seem for the following reasons: 1)There would be no external software outside of the Mass Effect game itself to install for this procedure to operate. 2)The program will only transmit, via the Internet, the CD Key and some other kind of singular identification that will allow you to play the game without any further obstruction once this automated security system clears you. The most reassuring thing about this system is point number 3, where Mr. French stated that the instructions would appear in “clear labeling” on the box the game came in.
Unfortunately. it seems that the gaming community at large was not convinced by Mr. French’s statements that, in the end, SecureRom wouldn’t be that much of a hassle. It all started when it was postulated by one post on the BioWare forums which queried what would happen if one was not able to play the game every ten days and on day eleven what would happen when SecureRom could not connect to the Internet. Mr. French was forced to admit that in that case you could not play the game under those circumstances. While it is important to hold yourself to a schedule when playing a game, as too much of a good thing is not good at all, it seems that the game doing it for you is carrying it a bit too far.
It seems that both the Mass Effect forum members and Bioware agree on this point, because just today at 9:25 AM, Bioware’s Community Manager Jay Watamaniuk announced that the ten day authentication system was going to be dropped from the final version of the Mass Effect PC game. Instead, said Mr. Watamaniuk, the PC port of Mass Effect will sport the more ordinary one-time validation. Gamers can then play Mass Effect without any further questioning, or even with the disc in the drive, and the disc will only have to be used again upon the installation of any additional Mass Effect content.
This seems to have ended quite pleasantly except for the fact that each individual copy of the game can only be installed a grand total of 3 times. We at TGR don’t have any information on whether or not Bioware will correct this annoyance between now and the North American release date of May 27th but stay tuned right here to TheGameReviews.com for more information as we get it.
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