Reclaim Your Game, a company that promotes and specializes in removing DRM schemes to make lives easier for both consumers and companies, offers a story about one of its members who has written a strong letter to Cyanide Studio about the DRM used in Blood Bowl. The fantasy sports title set in the Warhammer universe uses SecuROM as its weapon of choice against piracy. The letter, penned by Lachlan Kingsford, can be found below:
"To Whomsoever at Cyanide Studio this concerns,
I've just finally finished my Steam download and am really disappointed to find the inclusion of an install-limited version of Securom. I know that I should have seen it whilst purchasing the game - or more precisely, preventing me from purchasing the game, but now I feel really very ripped off, and just a little violated.
Given how secure SteamWorks as a non intrusive, account limited DRM is, are there any plans at all to release a DRM removal patch or switch it across to SteamWorks in the future? If not, could I please beg of you to consider it. Blood Bowl is past its peak of sales, and removal of the overly strict DRM in favour of a non-limited one (such as SteamWorks) could only possibly increase future sales - any quick search over the internet quickly reveals people unwilling to even buy the product at 80% off due to the limited activations of Securom.
As somebody who barely plays multiplayer games, I feel like I'm getting a worse quality product then if I pirated it. Which is really disappointing, because it looks like a fascinating game that I'm looking forward to playing - only, with my consistent reformats as a minor game developer myself, it looks like I won't be able to play it long. I understand that there is a de-activation/uninstallation tool, however I don't understand why it is necessary to treat me like a thief when I do the right thing and purchase your game. And I shouldn't have to do a full restart because I'm running some tools I use to develop that happen to be detected by SecuROM - your game isn't the only thing I use my system for.
I've seen various people state that you care about customer feedback - and I beg of you to consider this piece of it. Until you remove SecuROM, I won't be purchasing any more of your games - which is disappointing because you seem to have some original games. I'll simply have to go without.
Yours legally and legitimately
Lachlan Kingsford"
Cyanide has not responded to Kingsford's letter as of this writing.
Source: RYG
Comments
Re: An Open Letter to Cyanide about SecuROM
"I feel like I'm getting a worse quality product then if I pirated it."
That kind of tells you about all you need to know about DRM schemes.
Re: An Open Letter to Cyanide about SecuROM
While I have a few issues with the letter as written, I still have to agree with the sentiment expressed. As someone who has purchased Blood Bowl for PC twice (both the original and the Legendary Edition versions), I find that the strongest draw is easily the online multiplayer. A basic CD-key check on the matchmaking servers would still prevent pirated installs from accessing multiplayer, thus gating off a rather critical chunk of the game for anyone who didn't pay for their copy.
Re: An Open Letter to Cyanide about SecuROM
Ya the basic key+server check works and is cheaper to implement, the trouble is they think more restrictions do not have any negative consequences.
Copyright infringement is nothing more than civil disobedience to a bad set of laws. Let's renegotiate them.
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