In the face of increasing pressure, BioWare and publisher Electronic Arts today relented, updating the official Mass Effect PC FAQ to note that validation will now only be required when the player downloads new game content.

Q: If the game isn't going to require an authentication every 10 days, will it ever require re-authentication?

A: Only if the player chooses to download new game content.

The publisher further noted that the protection will still only allow users to authenticate each game on up to three computers. Approval of further authorizations... Read more

The executive suggested that it was unfair to steal content from the same developers who are struggling to keep the PC gaming market alive in a market dominated by surging console sales.

"I think that we've arrived at a point now where I don't know how anyone could ever possibly justify pirating a game," Taylor told Eurogamer. "I just don't know how anyone could consider that a cool thing to do - it's not. It sucks."

"One of the things that I find frustrating is that PC gamers tend to be very passionate, and they love the people that make great PC games. If you ask any PC gamer what they think of John Carmack, they'll say he's a hero. What do they think of... Read more

Original story: BioWare technical producer Derek French has said that the PC versions of both Mass Effect and Spore will make use of copy protection that will require online validation every ten days in order for the games to continue working.

"After the first activation, SecuROM requires that [Mass Effect PC] re-check with the server within ten days (in case the CD Key has become public/warez'd and gets banned)," said French in a post on the BioWare forums.

If customers do not come online after ten days, the game will cease to function.

"After 10 days a re-check is required before the game can run," added French. "..An internet connection is not required to install, just to activate the first time, and every 10 days after."

The check is run when users activate the game's executable file, with the first re-check coming within "5 days remaining in the 10 day window."

According to French, Maxis' Spore will also make use of the same scheme: "[Electronic Arts] is ready for us and getting ready for Spore, which will use the same system."

French also noted that the online requirement will be clearly labeled on the games' packaging.

"We are going to support PC, but not exclusive anymore," Crytek president Cevat Yerli told PC Play. "Similar games [to Crysis] on consoles sell factors of 4-5 more. It was a big lesson for us and I believe we won't have PC exclusives as we did with Crysis in future."

The studio had previously revealed it was working on at least one console title and a non-FPS game along with the still-underway efforts to bring its CryENGINE 2 technology to consoles.

The Crytek president noted that piracy had significantly hurt the retail... Read more

"The research I've seen pegs the piracy rate at between 70-85% on PC in the US, 90%+ in Europe, off the charts in Asia," Fitch wrote. "I didn't believe it at first. It seemed way too high. Then I saw that Bioshock was selling 5 to 1 on console vs. PC. And Call of Duty 4 was selling 10 to 1."

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare developer Infinity Ward recently expressed similar dismay at the high levels of piracy for the PC version of its popular first-person shooter.

Fitch explained that piracy doesn't just harm sales—Titan Quest took a big hit in word of mouth when pirated copies of the game crashed after various failed security checks, prompting a negative response by those who had illegally acquired ... Read more

After using his blog to reveal that the developer is quite happy with the recent number of PC owners playing the game online, the studio's community relations manager fourzerotwo expressed amazement at how many of those players were running a pirated copy of the game.

"What wasn't fantastic was the percentage of those numbers who were playing on stolen copies of the game on stolen / cracked CD keys of pirated copies (and that was only people playing online)," he posted under the heading "They Wonder Why People Don't Make PC Games Any More."

Renowned development houses id Software and Epic Games chimed in on the matter last year, with both noting that they were pursuing multiplatform development due to piracy of their PC titles. Two of last year's biggest PC titles--Epic's... Read more

"For this study," the report reads, "IDC used proprietary statistics for software and hardware shipments gathered through surveys of vendors, users, and the channel, and enlisted IDC analysts in more than fifty countries to review local market conditions."

Piracy continued to worsen in the Middle East and Africa, leading the worldwide ... Read more

Comments made by Epic's Capps carried a similar tone. "PC gaming is really falling apart," he revealed. "It killed us to make Unreal Tournament 3 cross-platform, but Epic had to do it," adding "the market that would buy a $600 video card knows how Bittorrent works." Epic is currently developing Unreal Tournament 3 for the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in-house.

Meanwhile, Firaxis designer and programmer Soren Johnson remained confident in PC development. He suggested that "game design on the PC is going to bend toward persistence," noting Blizzard's World of Warcraft is "successful because you can't pirate WoW. You cannot pirate an MMO. Period."

You can't stop peer-to-peer file sharing. So the best route to combat it is to subvert it, and turn it around to your advantage. For example, we will release a version of our game that looks like it's been hacked at the same time as a pirate version gets out - usually a couple of days after release.

Our version, which is modified, repackaged and distributed by our user community of around 1000 active participants, looks like the real game, but is in fact a demo. After the third time of downloading the demo, the peer-to-peer user will be very, very frustrated, and will do one of two things; give up or buy the game from us. We subverted the Bit Torrent network for Darwinia very successfully this way, and to a lesser extent eMule / eDonkey.

Arundel also comments on more intrusive copy protection systems, noting that many of them detract from the experiences of legitimate gamers. "We can't win the war on piracy, but if you work smart, you can definitely reduce it," he said. "The golden rule I think is to keep things simple - especially for the legitimate user." (Thanks GilesH!)

So what if there is a piracy crackdown here at LAN parties. How hard would it be for someone from the SPA to hook up to the LAN at QuakeCon and find hundreds of copies of Photoshop and Office floating around? Or what of the thousands of gigs of MP3's being shared? Who will be held responsible? I'll admit that I know nothing about these laws, so I figured I'd pose the questions to you guys.

Software companies have tried for some time to persuade China and other nations to strengthen and enforce intellectual property laws. "There isn't a sufficient local interest protecting intellectual property," Kruger said of those countries. "But that's kind of a circular argument. Until you protect IP (intellectual property) you won't be able to create the growth of an IP industry."

AOL appealed the case, basing at least part of its defense on the assertion that it could not be held responsible for, or even monitor, everything its millions of users send, just as the mail service is not held responsible for illicit material that passes through post offices.

... and I really wonder if we want to even attempt to allow file attachment options in msgcenter. Heh.

Microsoft says that product activation does not scan a user's hard drive or register the make and model of the PC with the company. Instead, a random installation ID is generated using unnamed parts of the hardware configuration, and the Product ID, and that number is registered along with the Product ID at Microsoft. Users concerned about changing their system's configuration have nothing to fear: Microsoft understands that people upgrade components in their systems and their product activation scheme takes this into account. If a user completely recreates a system from scratch, say replacing the motherboard and other main components simultaneously, they will need to call Microsoft to activate the product when it is re-registered. This process will make it impossible to reinstall the OS on the old system.

The demo has gone final and will be available through Sandpiper in a few hours.

I've gotten a lot of feedback from people regarding the use of authentication servers. Yes, John Carmack has a nice car from his hard work, but unfortunately software piracy has become such a serious issue that we need to use schemes such as CD keys to protect our future sales. Games cost large sums of money to make and market, and if you want to have software developers continue to develop games then piracy, understanding it, and addressing it, needs to be part of the development process...

Is piracy of id products the only way the community has prospered, grown and sustained itself all these years? It’s true a certain number of you will always pirate a game and never make the purchase. But a whole bunch of you are raving, fanatical loyal id fans with money in one hand and EB on speed dial in the other to see if Q3A is in stock. If you help the community by helping to stamp out piracy, then I think you’ll see that the community will be just fine and who knows, software prices might fall, Doom 2000 might come out, or the Y2K bug may not burn us all.

So yes. Use a SOCKS server (we will authenticate multiple CD Keys off a single IP), open up those ports on your firewall (you can resolve master.quake3arena.com and just use that IP address), but please don’t belie our intentions. We’ll work extremely hard, 24 hours a day, to make everything in Q3A work flawlessly for you, but we’ll also work on another game with the money we get from sales of Q3A, and by the time it’s done we may be able to release on DVD-ROM and piracy will be a non-issue. But alas, I fear, if it’s there, it will be copied.

These are my views, although I think id also frowns at piracy.

...only a few said they would actually walk up to Microsoft admitting their deed if they were. Some even ranked shoplifting a candy bar as a worse crime.