Sony

[AVGWarhawk]

RR, I see you agree that stealing/piracy is never good. BUT....who are the valuable customers here? How do you determine this? I think that is impossible. Therefore, everyone gets the protection downloaded. Should we know up front it is being loaded? Yes. Do you honestly believe persons such as yourself think you will download a game without some type of protection program? Not these days!!! Like I explained to you a few days ago, I use Rhapsody for my music. I pay .89/song. If I cut off Rhapsody, I can no longer burn these songs to anything. But wait, I paid my .89 for the song. Not only that, without some great computer know how, I can not convert these songs to a different format to play them. IMO, this SecuROM is small beans compared to the other issues companies are dumping on your computer without your knowledge. When I cut off Rhapsoday, they never told me the songs I paid for are now unburnable or transferable to a disc or MP3 player. I guess I'm being concidered a criminal here as well? I have no desire to transfer to any place but my daughters MP3 players or burn to disc for my own personal use. So, my point is and by reading your post that you have been considered a criminal before the fact. Not, so really. There is no way UBI can determine who is a criminal therefore, all get the SecuROM.

Just my observations RR.

[MONOLITH]

Originally Posted by danlisa

please accept that developers wish to protect their work and learn to live with a form of copy protection that in 99% of cases will never cause you any problems.

Agreed.

[MarkShot]

Can anyone answer if the European CD/DVD has Securom for me? Or this the just the USA download?

Also, are both equally compatible for patching?

Thanks.

[maerean_m]

Originally Posted by MarkShot

Can anyone answer if the European CD/DVD has Securom for me? Or this the just the USA download?

Also, are both equally compatible for patching?

Only the download version has SecuRom inside it.
The "game" inside all add-on versions is the same.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

BUT....who are the valuable customers here?

The valuable customers are the ones who buy the game. The members of SUBSIM are valuable customers. You can see that having paid for the game, we don't suffer fools who would talk about stealing software. Have you ever seen a thief treated in a friendly way here?

The crackers don't pay for the game, they steal it. Illegal downloaders don't pay for the game, they steal it too. And their stolen copy does not include SecuROM. SecuROM only punishes good customers who paid for the game.

It's like my neighborhood. There hadn't been a fatal accident in over 20 years until two years ago. Then a drunk with no license and violating parole, hit and killed a kid on a perfectly straight road with a mile visibility both directions. The response: 100 stop signs indiscriminately placed in a 3 square mile area. Would any number of stop signs stop the perp? NO! He had no respect for the law. But the stop signs have punished every honest, law-abiding resident of my neighborhood multiple times per day for two years. Next time we get a similar slimeball in the neighborhood he will kill somebody the same as the first, unencumbered by the 100 stop signs we obey every day.

Punish the innocent. It's easy! It's fast! It makes you feel good! But it's a losing proposition. Customer loyalty takes years to build. Customer hostility can be produced overnight. People who buy a game will not pirate it. People who steal a game are unhindered by any copy protection. SecuROM and all the other commercial "protection" rackets were cracked years ago. SH4UBM went into illegal distribution without SecuROM minutes after it was released, unless it was stolen before then.

If players value their freedom to operate their computer lawfully without unreasonable interference, they must refuse to cooperate with companies that view them with disdain. A company who thinks its paying customers steal more software than they buy is on the road to being another Sony. You can't let the slimeballs lull you into assuming that everybody is a slimeball. Then the slimeballs win.

The right way is to protect your product in an open, honest manner. Let potential customers know what kind of copy protection you use and whether it enforces personal vendettas against consumer warriors who caught the company which sells the copy protection committing worse offenses than the thieves. Let informed paying customers decide whether they wish to be treated like that. Or come up with a protection system that respects your customers and rewards them for their honesty.

Ironically, as things stand now, the only rewards go to the pirates and illegal downloaders, who get to use the games without restrictions. We're honest because we're honest people, not because of any reward. But being appreciated would be nice. And we're the ONLY source of income Ubi has. Trust is a two way street. Why not try building some? Trust flows from the top down before it flows from the bottom up. Some people just are not trustworthy, but it is foolish to treat the rest of us as if we were paying money to steal the product. Any fool can see that makes about as much sense as a screen door in a submarine!

[MarkShot]

I will get my copy from Europe, then.

However, this is still an expensive and unnecessary inconvenience for me which does nothing to improve my impression of the publisher.

[Rockin Robbins]

No credit goes to Sony or Ubi for this. If you download Process Explorer 11, you can just shut down Process Explorer, SecuROM cannot find this version only. If you are actually running Process Explorer when you start SH4UBM, the SH4UBM will then refuse to run. That meets my criteria for a reasonable compromise.

If you want to snoop around, just start SH4UBM and then run Process Explorer. They run simultaneously with no problem. I'm doing it right now. I'll post a screenprint if anybody's curious. Snoop all you want into SH4UBM's running processes. All Process Explorer will let you do is shut them down. Hey, that's what Enditall does and it's not on the blacklist! So much for all the silly rationalizations for why it's in Ubi's interest to ensure you can't run Process Explorer. You can! I've got some high dry land in the Florida Everglades I'd like to sell Ubi. They seem willing to buy any story, no matter how laughable it is. As for me, I was born recently, but not yesterday. I recognize incompetent hypocracy when it bites me in the arse.

Doesn't change my position though. No more Ubi products are purchased by this family until the SecuROM garbage is removed and Ubi realizes that customer is spelled with a capital "C." There are too many companies around that actually value my business and actually like me to tolerate being treated like a criminal. Let 'em try to make money doing business with crooks.

@AVG: that's why I buy CDs. Cheaper per song, no DRM and they're a perfect backup. I'm an album guy from way back anyway. Downloaded music is a loser so far, but there are signs of intelligence almost everywhere but....you guessed it! Sony! Treat customers as you would like to be treated and you sell more product. Treat them with disdain and go deservedly broke.



Now all that money went to Sony for what? To protect who? From who?

Enough of this! I'm off to find the head in my U-Boat!

[AVGWarhawk]

@AVG: that's why I buy CDs. Cheaper per song, no DRM and they're a perfect backup. I'm an album guy from way back anyway. Downloaded music is a loser so far, but there are signs of intelligence almost everywhere but....you guessed it! Sony! Treat customers like you would like to be treated and you sell more product. Treat them with disdain and go broke.

I'm a old record man myself. I remember the days of old with a penny on my stylus arm. Until I got a turn table with weighted arm. As far a the CD. I do not car to purchase a CD when I wish to have only one song. I enjoy looking through Rhapsody and finding music that would take hours to local at the music store. Not to mention finding music that I can not find at the locale music store. It just befuddles me that once you cut Rhapsody, you can not do a thing with the music you paid for on your hard drive other then play it on your computer. We get off track here.

Perhaps I worded my "valuable customer" wrong. What I really ment to say was how do you determine the crackers and legits? As far as I know, you can not determine the honest and dishonest. So, what do you do? Attempt to create a program to keep your hard work safe and going to paying customers. Does it work all the time? No. Does it attempt to insure you get your dollars for your hard work. Yes it does. Therefore, you as a customer have to suffer (although I do not have an issue with it) because of the hacks and crackers. These are the folks who need your attention. UBI is attempting to keep their doors open as a game creater. In doing so, download protection is created. Be it SecuROM or SF( ) I would also want something that I created to have some returns in the form of dollars. Not illegit downloads. So, who is really making the legit suffer? UBI or the hackers who have nothing better to do other then steal software and when they get caught they stand there looking innocent. Everyday, I pass by camera that are monitored by security people. Am I a criminal? Well, no. So why do I have to be subjected to cameras? Because of the criminal element. Same applies here. I'm subjected to SecuROM because of the criminal element. But, that does not mean I should not be notifed SecuROM is being used and I agree to it being installed.

[Rockin Robbins]

Honest people will always buy games. Drown my house in free copies and I'll go to the store and buy the game. Dishonest people wouldn't buy that game to begin with. They steal things, and to them the theft is more fun than the game.

Nothing will make the dishonest people buy the game. But it is very easy to tee off the honest people so they will go elsewhere with their money. The only money out there is from the honest customers. The dishonest ones are losers whether or not they find a way to steal the game.

The reflection to that truth is that copy protection does not limit piracy in any way. Copy protection is snake oil, useless to the buyer and don't bother asking the snake. The only one to benefit is the slimey seller. A new approach is needed.

Oh, yeah, I was off to find the head!

[AVGWarhawk]

Now, that we have this out of the way. What exactly is SecuROM doing to your system? I'm a bit lost here. Currently SecuROM is sitting on my hard drive. Sometime last year it was loaded. It has sat dormant until this release. As far as I can tell, it has done nothing at all to my computer other then allow me to download a legit purchase of the game.

[Onkel Neal]

If it's not Starforce, it's Safedisk, or Securom, but all these big dollar games are going to have some kind of copy protection to prevent people from stealing it. I've had all three and probably several others on my PCs for 6 years, no big deal. I don't get why this agitates and excites some people but apparently, it does. Play the game, enjoy the game, and who cares about the copy protection, except pirates.

Can we let this die? This thread is giving the impression that U-boat Missions has some kind of PC-nuking trojan built in, when in fact, it's nothing different than 90% of the game on the market and on people's computers.

[MarkShot]

RR,

So, did you boycott SH3 due to SF? I did for a couple of years. Finally, after buying it, it was necessary to disinfect it in order to run it safely.

Well, I'll buy from Europe, but I fully understand and support you position.

[AVGWarhawk]

This thread is giving the impression that U-boat Missions has some kind of PC-nuking trojan built in, when in fact, it's nothing different than 90% of the game on the market and on people's computers.

This was my thoughts as well. There is sits. Allows me to load up a game legit. It shuts off never to be seen again until my next purchase. I don't see it doing anything other then allowing to download a legally purchased game. What is it really doing other than allowing UBI to get compensated for their work? I'm at a loss really.

[CaptainHaplo]

Ya know - I haven't gotten the add on yet. As for copy protection - heck - with all the talent we have here I can't believe some folks haven't gotten together to do a few brainstorm sessions to create a new "style" copy protection scheme. There are so many ways it could be done with modern data encryption values. Being a network engineer with a focus on security, encryption hashes are easily created one way and made unique. I don't see why something like this couldnt be used for copy protection. Granted - it would mean an original cd would have to be used, but that wouldnt be an issue for legitimate users - especially if a company using such a product was willing to provide a replacement cd reasonably.

[jazman]

Next: what happens when I need to upgrade my computer? Is my "activation" portable to my new install? I ask because I just did an OS reinstall, but my machine is long in the tooth.