Bioshock -- every family member needs their own copy

Games
41

Another point about user accounts: It’s not necessarily “one account == one user”. It’s quite possible the same person might set up multiple accounts for various purposes, such as work vs. personal stuff. So such a restriction may be restricting the single user on the machine from playing the game when they set up a new account for whatever reason.

That said, if this restriction is to become common, it sounds like families do need to create the “Games” account that everyone in the household can share.

42

E5, which torrent???

43

QFMFTFTW.

44

Not me, not when it’s a questionable “right” to begin with that shouldn’t really affect anyone who stops to think for a second. Make a Games account, install your games there, and everybody plays the games from that same account. I’ll save my righteous rage for something that actually matters and can’t be overcome by the slightest hint of intelligence.

45

you dont understand- there is nothing crippled about playing bioshock under a non-live profile on an xbox. There is nothing crippled about any singleplayer games (maybe leaderboards?) when using a non live account (not even talking silver here, just picking a name and a gamerpic)

Also, you can indeed have 2 gold accounts logged into live on one box.

If bioshock was a multiplayer game the comparison might make a little more sense. A better comparison would be that they are treating each pc user the same as they are treating each xbox 360 console.

I guess for the extra $10 we get more users? :P

I only responded because you said something like 'why isnt anyone bitching about MS doing this with live?" when they are not doing it with live. They sell a membership.

Maybe they should offer a family one, but you right now, you are knowingly buying a single person one and complaining that it doesnt accomodate multiple users. Bioshock-PC is doing some shit no pc gamers have had to deal with before, stuff they didnt expect.

Gamertags/XBL accounts are presented as a single persons unique gaming ID.

46

Why, though? This particular issue hasn’t affected you, has it? I assume not, since neither you nor anyone else on qt3 has mentioned it before now, and we’ve all been playing Bioshock for some time.

I’m serious in wondering why we should all flip out. To me, this is such a non-issue as to be almost laughable, but I can see that it is truly upseting a lot of people. Is it a slippery slope thing I’m missing, or is it all simply about user accounts?

47

I don’t care about the inability to install across multiple user accounts; that strikes me as a simple glitch more than anything else.

What chaps my ass is the idiot saying “why should your brother play without paying?” I find it hard to imagine that guy posted that speaking as The Voice of 2K Games, but I don’t find it hard to imagine that publishers would actually like to imprint their DRM on individual people like it’s a fucking tattoo.

48

Wow, this situation is just pathetic. They are restricting access based on accounts of a single PC? God, I hate this industry sometimes. I can’t believe I bought this game and supported such trampling of the consumer interests.

49

I get your basic point, but what you are talking about is above the level of your average user.

For the 360 version, you slap the disk in the drive and play, with very little effort. The PC version should be just as easy, with as little fuss as possible. The number of barriers that are being thrown up on the PC side for this game is the reason I am not buying it.

The other thing that warps my brain is that the Games For Windows requirement is that your game properly respects multiple user accounts to be able to play the game and yet the DRM is actively preventing this? What the hell?

50

Well, they ain’t getting my money. Seriously.

51

It could just be an unintentional omission. I can easily see a programmer saying to himself “Okay I’ll just throw this registry key under HKLM\Software.…, oh wait, Vista won’t allow that without admin rights. Eh, HKCU\Software.… is good enough…” without realizing the full consequences, especially after wrapping it in DRM later on.

Really though, a “Make sure it handles multiple user accounts appropriately” should probably be part of the GfW testing criteria. Then they’re forced to at least consider it and justify their approach, and then any restrictions would clearly be intentional.

Edit: Ah, it is a GfW requirement, under section 2.6. Edit edit: Well, it’s one possible interpretation, anyway. I suppose one could argue that the requirement doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be the same license allowed in each session.

52

Did you read this before you posted it? It’s no big deal because you can circumvent it and in doing so take away one of the key features of a multiuser operating system?

You have a special brain.

53

Maybe we both don’t understand. I never said there was anything crippled about Bioshock on the xbox, or anything about any game being crippled at all on the system. What I intended to convey was that Xbox Silver is less than Xbox Gold. The comment about a crippled version of Bioshock was there to try and relate the two concepts.

Also, you can indeed have 2 gold accounts logged into live on one box.

Of course you can. However, since I’ve not mentioned having two gold accounts at all but have, instead, been speaking of having only one gold account (and wanting additional gamertags to associate it with), it naturally follows that you couldn’t login, at the same time, two gamertags associated with only one gold membership. It’s all very hypothetical and confusing, I guess.

If bioshock was a multiplayer game the comparison might make a little more sense. A better comparison would be that they are treating each pc user the same as they are treating each xbox 360 console.

Well, that’s basically what I was saying. Xbox Live Gold allowing only 1 gamertag is somewhat like Bioshock allowing only one PC user. I’ve obviously made a terrible comparison though, and you are not the only person to think so.

I only responded because you said something like 'why isnt anyone bitching about MS doing this with live?" when they are not doing it with live. They sell a membership.

I said they do something similar with Live, which they do. (Of course, it would be a better comparison if there was a crippled, or in some way less than version of Bioshock that allowed multiple PC users on the same machine just as Xbox Silver allows free but less-than-Gold membership benefits.) Bioshock allows only one PC user per copy sold. Microsoft allows only one gamertag per Gold membership sold. I promise it makes sense in my crazy head!

I apologize to everyone for what seems to have been a huge mistake in coming up with my little comparison. To me, it makes sense and is pretty clear, but I guess I’m either completely incapable of conveying what I mean, or I’m completely crazy…or both!

Maybe they should offer a family one, but you right now, you are knowingly buying a single person one and complaining that it doesnt accomodate multiple users.

I’m not the one doing the complaining at all. I’m confused at the complaining, in fact.

Bioshock-PC is doing some shit no pc gamers have had to deal with before, stuff they didnt expect.

Well, it’s doing something PC gamers haven’t had to deal with before and, by and large, don’t deal with now. I have very, very large doubts that this issue will affect more than a teensy portion of PC players.

Gamertags/XBL accounts are presented as a single persons unique gaming ID.

Well, I’d argue that you’re meshing together two different things. Gamertags are gamertags, and XBL accounts are XBL accounts. Gamertags may be presented as a single person’s unique gaming ID, but an XBL account is presented as…an account on Xbox Live. I can’t believe I’m going to go here, but a comparison could be made between, say, AOL accounts and screennames. It could be made, but I don’t want to be the one to make it!

54

Drive can’t read the securom disc, activation server is down, user account won’t let you play, uninstalls not crediting back activations, reinstalled the game after a format and ran out of activations – if you add up all issues that effect a ‘tiny percentage of users’ you start to get a not so tiny percentage of people frustrated with games on PCs.

55

It is, although not directly. That is one of the reasons that this is warping my brain. The multiple accounts thing is scattered throughout the document in sections such as 1.2, 2.1, and 3.2.

56

I don’t know that I’d call this particular issue as being a barrier, or something above the level of the average user. The average user is going to have one account, most likely the same Administrator account they setup when installing XP. In that sense, problems with multiple users aren’t going to bother them in the slightest.

The other thing that warps my brain is that the Games For Windows requirement is that your game properly respects multiple user accounts to be able to play the game and yet the DRM is actively preventing this? What the hell?

Now this is really interesting. Can you elaborate some more on this? If the GFW requirements are conflicting with the game’s DRM then that’s a spicy meatball worth looking into. It also tends to point towards the notion of this issue being more of an oversight than a planned, moustache-twirled conspiracy.

57

Not only that, but people who read forums hear about these things and go for the console version. These problems affect more than a tiny percentage in terms of buying decisions.

Fortunately, Microsoft is on top of things with its fine Games for Windows initiative. See, they support Windows gaming by…putting up some endcap displays in game stores and paying to have CGW rebranded GFW. No actual quality control behind the GFW branding though! Who needs that?

58

Yes, it is less than Gold. It’s also free. You’re saying that the problem you have with Live is that you can’t have one Gold membership that any amount of users can use on a single machine? It doesn’t quite compared to having no option for multiple users in BioShock - Live has never worked that way while PC games have always worked that way.

Also, can’t Silver accounts piggyback onto Gold accounts in some places? If you play two-player split-screen online multiplayer, you only need one Gold account. Hell, I think up to three Silver users can piggyback onto a single Gold account in that case.

59

I wouldn’t call not taking actions that the normal user never takes exactly circumventing anything. By and large, people use one user account and, as such, by and large, this issue won’t bother the overwhelming majority of users.

Personally, yes, I use a Games account. Did I create it to circumvent Bioshock’s nefarious DRM? Hardly. I created it because it’s the smart thing to do, simply because I don’t need the same processes running when I’m playing a game as I do when I’m working and I’d rather have an account that helps keep my gaming environment as clean as it can be.

I don’t see any call to be insulting, but it is, of course, your option if you have nothing better to say.

60

I don’t have any problem with Xbox Live, so I’m not saying I have a problem with this aspect of that aspect. I was making a comparison that was obviously significantly misguided and, as such, I’ll close the book on it and walk sheepishly away.