Riddick & His Struggles with DRM

This has been one of the most busiest days that I can remember since the Launch of Red Alert3 back in October 2008. As promised now that Riddick has hit shelves nationwide its time to put the DRM to the test.

Securom is nitpicky piece of DRM like no other. While testing the limits of Riddick I got varied results. Atari's Authentication server didn't want to cooperate 90% of the time. I was able to kill one copy of riddick pretty quickly and the dvd is now a frisbee. Here's is generalization below.

Alienware Laptop: installed and uninstalled 3 times and authenticated when Atari's server wasn't burping. Upon 4th install and authentication it was a no go for launch.

Custom Built PC #1: Same result as laptop

Custom Built PC #2: Installed 10 times and Uninstalled and authenticated with ease. DRM now acting as Atari said it should be.

Final Results: Depending on the hardware in your PC or laptop you should be getting a 3 separate machine install limit. Provided you don't change any serious hardware or reinstall your OS you should be able to install on the same 3 machines multiple times. NOTE: If you have DVD Burner drive with emulation software then you run into problem as my Laptop had an embedded emulation software code in it's burner which triggered the extra activations during each reinstall.

Conclusion: Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is a "BUY AT YOUR OWN RISK" situation here. Your machine may or may not cooperate with the DRM. I firmly recommend experiencing this game through the Xbox 360 or PS3 versions.

My personal feelings on this matter is that Atari has broken the law in some ways here. DRM warnings should have been on the packaging in the first and I foresee atari getting reemed in court over this. EA, Ubisoft and other publishers are now labeling DRM warnings with their game and now Atari must do the same or face the consequences.

PC Gamer was indeed with their inital DRM listings however it just wasn't clear enough is all. I will admit that I was partially wrong during this fiasco based on the early information I had but my sources have confirmed that I reported appropriately to the pubic and it was justified.

We need to get all the publishers on the same page here to post DRM warnings on retail packaging as it's a way to keep us pc gamers informed.

More DRM news will follow tomorrow and hopefully Riddick will be a thing of the past.