spyware in games?

I was thinking about buying red alert 3 or crysis since they are both cheaper than COD4, but know i've found out that both those game install spyware crap on your pc and only let you install the game five times or something like that. EA sucks. so i want to know if COD4 has this as well, or anything like it. I will gladly pay the extra $15 for a game that will still work in five years.

on a side note, how is the online action for COD4 doing now that COD5 has come out? are the servers still really active?

 

Red alert 3 and crysis DO NOT install spyware. They install a program called securom that forces you to install the game with an active internet connection, and limits you to 5 installs, even on the same pc if you for some reason have to reinstall windows. I personally think it's complete bs and shouldn't even be legal, but there's nothing I can do about it.

CoD5 isn't out yet... But I'll have you know that CoD4 is still MORE active than CoD:WaW. Not everyone likes both, and there's still over 20,000 servers for CoD4, and at least half of them are very active. So set your filters to search for servers with people playing, and you'll always find good active servers to play on with tons of other people. CoD4 doesn't install DRM like securom, and you can install it and play it on any number of computers that YOU own.

Lastly, the first crysis has no install limit and doesn't require online activation, only Crysis Warhead does.

 

i guess its not malicious, but securom sure sounds like spyware to me.

good to hear that COD4 is still very active. I'm torn between it and far cry 2. both look like they have amazing multiplayer.

i've pretty much ruled out crysis because it doesn't have team deathmatch. that's like my favorite mode.

 

Far cry 2 has the same 5 install limit DRM. Also, it's multiplayer uses matchmaking similar to the Xbox360's Live service, on it's terrible, you always get random matches, and most of the time they'll be on the other side of the world, so the whole experience in FC2's online is a laggy mess. Crysis Warhead's multiplayer does have team deathmatch, it's called Team instant action, and it's actually really fun, plus warhead has full custom map support. The first crysis doesn't have either though.

 

if its a toss up between COD4 & FarCry 2 then i would go for COD4 every time. far cry 2 is ok but im actually playing far cry 1 instead and liking that more at the moment (and its only £4.99 / $10 on steam at moment).

with this so called 5 limit installs, does that include steam installs or just from disk?

this does get confusing for some people as COD World at War is also called COD5 WAW by a lot of people and that is where the confusion comes in.

i had the beta of COD WAW but much prefered COD4

 

You can revoke your license though, I have with Far Cry 2 (as a side note go CoD4 instead of that one, it's boring). I was able to as well with Alone in the Dark. All you need do is uninstall the game through Windows with an internet connection and you will get the option to revoke the license.

 

Well yea, Far Cry 2 does have a revoke system, and even if you do run out of installs, you can email support and have your installs reset, but the process is annoying and takes weeks in some cases.

In the case of EA's games, Crysis, spore etc. you can pretty much forget about ever playing the game again if you run out of installs because they'll ignore your messages.

Also, I have the disk version, while I have over 30 games on steam, I hate it because you can't let friends play any of your games while your playing one or it'll boot you out of your game and close down your steam, which I find rediculous. Basically, If I'm playing Left 4 dead, and someone wants to play crysis on my steam games, it'll boot me out of L4D and close my steam. Sure they can log into offline mode, but not play anything online.

 

I thought CoD WaW is Cod 5?

I also think the implementation of the "installation limits" and "online activation" is total bs and shouldn't be allowed.

I don't have any problems with securom in terms of it affecting my system but to have to jump through hoops and spend an hour or so installing a game (as was the case with GTA IV for me) is just not on.

I pay for a game, I should have every right to install, uninstall at will and play the game without having to activate it over the web.

It's about time companies realised that is what most gamers want and stopped using securom to limit installations, it doesn't stop the pirates one little bit.

And Steam is just as bad imo.

 

hmmm securom...read what i found on wikipedia...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securom

 

To be honoest there shouldnt be any copy rights on any game...they don't hep only make things worse..there suppose to not be pirated yet they are so there pretty much pointless...

 

So whats the use if we are not able to play the game that we paid for??
5 installs for lifetime??
Also cannot sell the game...

 

Yeah, that's basically what SecuROM is trying to do, get rid of the used games market.

 

then I guess razor1911 will only be the option!!!

 

No, Most Dev studios that do use securom use a modded version of Securom that "refunds" an install when you uninstall thus guaranteeing lifetime installs.

Far cry 2 and GTA4 on the PC use this version of suckyourom.

Dont get me wrong securom is still nothing but trashware and an insult to the consumer, i dont support titles that choose to use it, it doesnt prevent thefts and punishes legit uses.

 

Securom is there to prevent two things. Day zero cracks, and preventing you from giving the game out to all of your friends. I think epic games said something similar to this a few months ago "Any PC gamer who knows how to upgrade a video card knows how to pirate a game." It's very true, and as microsoft also said about the windows OS, "you cannot stop people who want to pirate software from getting a hold of it. If you can code it, someone can crack it."

Piracy is still a major issue, and Securom is doing what it was intended to do at this point, but it's causing a HUGE amount of problems and severly complicating PC gaming. The average person does not want to be on the phone with tech support for a whole day, or spend a month or more emailing a company just to play the game they bought because of the DRM methods used. I still don't see why game companies can't just scrap these current DRM methods, and instead create some kind of physical disk protection method. You should be able to launch a PC game from the disk drive, or better yet a specially encoded SD card or something. There's absolutely no reason why games cannot be released completely uncompressed on specialized SDHC cards with hardware encryption. They could still create a folder in program files to save things such as game saves, user mods, etc, but it would only work in one PC at a time, and would be as simple as console games. It would also be more sensible for notebook gamers.