I hate product keys

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I hate product keys

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Topic: I hate product keys (Read 6517 times)

Koowluh
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Re: I hate product keys
« Reply #15 on: March 12, 2006, 03:53:22 pm »

I myself don't hate the product keys. I always keep the dvd case and the booklet with the key, so the chance of losing it is small. What I do hate about this copy protection frenzy is the so called "CD checks" . To prevent you from copying the CD, manufacturers add pieces of unreadable data for a CD/DVD writer, and as a result, some of these players (most of my CD/DVD players, which are not that 1 or 2 percent the companies claim only have that problem) are not able to read em.

On top of that, you are NOT allowed to play the game without the CD, because hey, you might take it over to a friend and give him/her a free game. The result? A Diablo II LoD CD getting hot as the hell that spawned it and a CD player buzzing like a jet engine the whole time you're playing the game.

Copying a game? Don't feel like it, never did. Playing it? I don't bother anymore either. Buying it? Why bother? My player can't read it anyways. Result: even more loss for those "poor" companies.

Give me a product key over a CD-check any time.


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Novus
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Re: I hate product keys
« Reply #16 on: March 12, 2006, 05:35:23 pm »

Seeing as all major titles (and most minor ones, I guess) are cracked pretty soon after release anyway (or, in some cases, can be copied or cracked with existing software), copy protection is in my opinion utterly useless and a waste of both consumers' and developers' time and money. If you can execute it, you can copy it, especially if it's designed to be executed by a programmable computer under the consumer's control. Alienating your paying customers is one way of encouraging piracy.

Product keys make more sense, as they are essentially secret identification numbers for licenses. All you have to do then is track the usage of each key, which is almost trivial for e.g. a MMORPG with servers run by the company that wrote the game itself and quite nonintrusive. "Phoning home" and checking product key validity makes a lot of sense for any commercial product that requires Internet access, as it requires no extra effort for the user. However, forcing checks for single-player gaming (e.g. Half-Life 2) can be annoying.


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Koowluh
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Re: I hate product keys
« Reply #17 on: March 12, 2006, 06:33:35 pm »

Well, I finally managed to get one of those no-cd cracks to work with the "new" Diablo patch. So now I can play in "silence" again and keep my original cd's safe as well.


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