Bioshock
Location: Forum - Games - Bioshock
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Author: Soap Merchant
User type: Standard User
Posts: 80
Date: Sept. 6, 2007, 12:35 a.m.Apparently this new game has got spyware of some sort, similar to the sony rootkits in there rubbish minidisk software. 😬
check out this page to read more about it:
http://forums.gamershell.com/index.php?act=ST&f=16&t=18034
beware if your planing on buying it.
As far as i know this only applies to the pc version though not xbox360
Its really a damn shame too. Before i knew about this bugged software i downloaded the demo and the game is simply put amazeing.
But the shock doesn't end there. Apparently they even put some rubbish in the demo.
Whats up with that man. Im just laughing dudes.
These software companys are literally shoting themselves in the foot, and no matter how many customers complain they don't listen.
And wait theres more.
Apart from some bollocky starforce stuff theres some kinda key/serial lockout thing where they use windows activation ish like mechanisms and according to a video on toms hardware if you get locked out, you have to ring them up and ask them while confirming the legitimate key you paid for, if you could activate the game.
Its all a big load of stinking dog S**T if you ask me.
That game i was talking about a while back called galactic civilizations 2 had the right approach. If you could obtain the game you didn't actually need a key to play so even though it would be considered piracy its almost like the creators were saying if you can get our game try it out.
The catch was that if you wanted to get updates, of which there where quite a few at the time and which im sure there are many more now you had to use a key.
And the updates were/are decent, significant game changes/content adds. stuff like that.
And as a result this game became either one of or the top strategy games of 2006 i think it was.
So yeah there are a few companys out there who realise that if they place there faith in there customers people will buy it if its a good product and appeals.
But loading there games up with security and makeing them like fort knocks makes no-one happy.
I even recall some customers on the official games site (bioshock) forum saying they are considering turning to cracks (these are legitimate customers i kid you not) and being forced to do something illegal so that they can run their game spyware free.
There has to be something wrong when people who have paid for a product feel they have no choice but to become pirates simply to get a functional product.
I think i heard that the publishers of bioshock have or are going to release a patch to address the problem and have publically appologised just like sony had to with there rootkits, but its a fairly weak solution to a bugged product. They should really offer refunds. But as with sony getting refunds out of some of these companys is like getting water out of a stone.
Anyway, thats my rant lol.
Just an interesting piece of IT news i came across recently.
Perhaps we'll see more of this with directx10 games.
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Author: Soap Merchant
User type: Standard User
Posts: 80
Date: Sept. 6, 2007, 12:51 a.m.go here to read more indepth about this issue.
http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6628
I don't think upon a little more reading that it has spyware as such, but its what you would term a negligible item. In other words something that may interfere with some apps on your system and something they don't tell you that gets installed.
Its called securom. And its really quite unfair on the customer.
have a read about it.
Oh did i mention if you manage to remove securom somehow from the registry if you put the cd in the game wont work. Prob have to do a full reinstall.
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Author: robvdl
User type: Administrator
Posts: 122
Date: Sept. 11, 2007, 5:51 p.m.Hey Magnum :) This SecuROM thing is sadly nothing new, quite a few games have done this in the past. They silently install this during the game setup, and it comes in the form of a hidden device driver. I read the purpose of this driver/rootkit (whatever you class it as), is to prevent the user from copying the game CD, once it is installed. I like to buy all my games anyway, either that or stick to Open Source, but I don't like the idea of a rootkit in my system either, so I normally delete this.
You can't simple delete the file, which is secdrv.sys in the Windows\system32\Drivers folder as I recall, because it is "in use". You can't remove it from device manager either because it won't show up there.
What you can do however, is install a neat little utility called "autoruns" by Sysinternals (who are now owned by Microsoft), however autoruns is still a free utility. Autoruns doesn't need any installation, just run it directly from it's location. Go over to the drivers section, and find secdrv.sys and delete the key, then reboot the machine and delete the secdrv.sys file from the Windows\System32\Drivers folder. Be careful though, autoruns is a very powerful utility! Delete the wrong thing, and your Windows won't boot anymore. If in doubt, don't use it :)
Quite a few rootkits install this way these days, in the form of a device driver, to prevent being detected, and so that you cannot delete the file when Windows is active, even in safe mode. Usually it's a matter of going through the list, finding, and deleting the entry, and then delete the .sys file after a reboot. But be very, very careful, messing with device drivers this way is dangerous, if you pull out the wrong one, your system may not boot.
