Dear Publishers and Game developers,
I hereby respectfully request you to refrain from using my $300 SATA DVD-Ram drive as a dongle for your software. In this open letter I will give you several arguments to show you that this is not part of an honest business plan and puts unnecessary stress on the hard- en software of your customers. In this open letter I will use the game 'Gears of War' as an example. But really, these arguments can be applied to nearly any game that uses my expensive hardware as dongle.
Having played Gears of War in the past without any hitches and remembering I had a fun time I tried to play it again recently. Unfortunately things did not go as planned as my original CD apparently has suffered from data loss in the last years as I keep receiving the following error, even after applying the latest patches:
DVD not found, please insert the original DVD in order play Gears of War
Let me state the obvious, it is the original DVD. It's just 3 years old. Now I wouldn't want to do anything illegal (like download a no-cd patch) as that could mean banning of my Live accounts (or worse trojans and viruses). So I had very little other options besides returning to the store. The store owner told me that he was not responsible for this kind of damage as it is not part of any warranty or other support program. So I went to the support department and made a support ticket and received no answer. Currently this means I cannot play this game anymore, just 3 years after I initially bought it and paid $75 for it (in Europe we unfortunately pay 30% more for game software, which is a whole different 'open letter' entirely).
But there are other issues as well with using my $300 SATA DVD-Ram station as a dongle.
The spin-up and frequent usage of the disc means extra wear and tear on my hardware and the original DVD. Because publishers have decided that it's good practice to spend as little money as possible on the actual discs themselves the protective layers become thinner and thinner with each new game meaning about half of the games I originally bought are unplayable due to my drive not reading them anymore, some of which are only several months old.
But there are more issues still.....
Because much of your DRM solutions see virtual drive managers as potential security flaws I cannot have PowerISO or any other virtual drive manager like Deamon Tools installed on my system. This means that when needed I cannot mount the images I receive via sites like MSDN to install new software, nor make backups of my own system. All because you needed to use my $300 SATA DVD-Ram station as dongle and subsequently disallow virtual drive manager software.
There are even more issues to consider here..
Namely, the lifespan of the games that use CD verification. If either the disc stops working, or the DRM implemented requires activation of new hardware this means extra measures need to be taken when DVD hardware is changed. Most often in such cases support departments ask the customer to reinstall the game, which takes time.
Because of all of the before mentioned reasons I hereby respectfully request you to reconsider your DRM measures to exclude this method of verification.
Sincerely,
A 35 year old Gamer who has been supporting your market since day 1.
I hereby respectfully request you to refrain from using my $300 SATA DVD-Ram drive as a dongle for your software. In this open letter I will give you several arguments to show you that this is not part of an honest business plan and puts unnecessary stress on the hard- en software of your customers. In this open letter I will use the game 'Gears of War' as an example. But really, these arguments can be applied to nearly any game that uses my expensive hardware as dongle.
Having played Gears of War in the past without any hitches and remembering I had a fun time I tried to play it again recently. Unfortunately things did not go as planned as my original CD apparently has suffered from data loss in the last years as I keep receiving the following error, even after applying the latest patches:
DVD not found, please insert the original DVD in order play Gears of War
Let me state the obvious, it is the original DVD. It's just 3 years old. Now I wouldn't want to do anything illegal (like download a no-cd patch) as that could mean banning of my Live accounts (or worse trojans and viruses). So I had very little other options besides returning to the store. The store owner told me that he was not responsible for this kind of damage as it is not part of any warranty or other support program. So I went to the support department and made a support ticket and received no answer. Currently this means I cannot play this game anymore, just 3 years after I initially bought it and paid $75 for it (in Europe we unfortunately pay 30% more for game software, which is a whole different 'open letter' entirely).
But there are other issues as well with using my $300 SATA DVD-Ram station as a dongle.
The spin-up and frequent usage of the disc means extra wear and tear on my hardware and the original DVD. Because publishers have decided that it's good practice to spend as little money as possible on the actual discs themselves the protective layers become thinner and thinner with each new game meaning about half of the games I originally bought are unplayable due to my drive not reading them anymore, some of which are only several months old.
But there are more issues still.....
Because much of your DRM solutions see virtual drive managers as potential security flaws I cannot have PowerISO or any other virtual drive manager like Deamon Tools installed on my system. This means that when needed I cannot mount the images I receive via sites like MSDN to install new software, nor make backups of my own system. All because you needed to use my $300 SATA DVD-Ram station as dongle and subsequently disallow virtual drive manager software.
There are even more issues to consider here..
Namely, the lifespan of the games that use CD verification. If either the disc stops working, or the DRM implemented requires activation of new hardware this means extra measures need to be taken when DVD hardware is changed. Most often in such cases support departments ask the customer to reinstall the game, which takes time.
Because of all of the before mentioned reasons I hereby respectfully request you to reconsider your DRM measures to exclude this method of verification.
Sincerely,
A 35 year old Gamer who has been supporting your market since day 1.
