Grand Theft Auto IV DRM debacle
Another week, another heinous DRM debacle. This time the travesty is with the recent release of Grand Theft Auto IV for the PC, a game that I was really looking forward to because I enjoyed all three of its predecessors on the PlayStation 2, but do not own a “current gen” console system on which to play it. Unfortunately, it looks like the PC release has been completely botched by poor quality control and Digital Restrictions Management issues, to the point that I’m not even considering wasting my money on it.
Let’s do a quick comparison between the console experience and the PC experience for Grand Theft Auto IV, shall we?
- Console
- Put the game disk into your console and it works.
- Computer
- Put the game disk into your computer.
- Go through multiple stages of authorization, including DVD validation, entering a serial key, and entering a code from the manual.
- SecuROM gets installed (naturally).
- Mandatory sign-up for both Rockstar Social Club and Windows Live, both of which require email validation.
- Download the decently sized Windows Live update.
- The game menu takes forever and a half to display, because the menu is downloaded dynamically from a heavily overloaded server on the Internet each time you launch the game.
- The game is buggy as hell, with lots of crashes to the desktop, and performs poorly even on high-end hardware.
The game cannot be played without Internet access, even if you are just trying to play the single-player mode. So much for gaming on the go. And if you’re running Windows Vista 64-bit, which you should be because the limit of 4 GB RAM with the 32-bit version is turning into a huge liability, you’re hosed, because the game flat-out does not support 64-bit operating systems.
I have a simple message to the craven idiots responsible for the release of Grand Theft Auto IV on the PC: This is why gamers migrate to consoles, you fools! Instead of wasting your development time on DRM and activation features, you should have spent it on 64-bit compatibility, stability fixes, and performance boosts. In an age when most higher-end PC graphics cards have two GPUs on a single card, Grand Theft Auto IV’s developers had the utter shortsightedness to not even bother including dual-graphics card support, thus guaranteeing that no one can get high quality performance in the game.
Grand Theft Auto IV suffers from a lethal combination of obnoxious DRM and terrible quality. How much longer can this situation go on for before PC gamers collectively exclaim “Enough!” and refuse to buy the rubbish that publishers seem so intent on feeding us?
December 7th, 2008 at 11:54 am
That’s an awful shame. I don’t have a current gen console and I was looking forward to trying this.
Now I’m thinking I should probably wait a couple of months. After Christmas they’ll probably patch out the SecuROM (which actually made my entire computer drive to a crawl with Bioshock and take 7 or 10 minutes to even boot up).
This is no way to treat paying consumers. They’re only encouraging piracy at this stage not discouraging. It’s like being forced to watch long anti-piracy advertisements on DVDs you buy, and that you don’t have to watch on copied movies.
December 7th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
This sort of thing is part of why some gamers have gone over to consoles, but it is also why other gamers (esp stratagy gamers) have gone over to the less well known publishers and game companies. Matrix, Paradox, and Stardock all release games with varying degrees of protection.
With all this fear of piracy and blaming it for the poor sales of games that often preform poorly on the average computer, when are they going to start blaming the game rental companies for the poor sales of games on the consoles?
April 3rd, 2009 at 1:36 am
I bought this game yesturday… installed it and started it up.
The first thing I noticed was that I needed to start up an external client to launch the game…
After that I noticed that I needed a windows live account to be registered to my name in order to SAVE MY GAME.
What is this thing doing… save my progress online?
… See, I can handle SecuROM… I don’t like it but I won’t complain because it runs silently and doesn’t get in the way. I can handle a seperate client to play online, but don’t force me to use it when I want t play a single player game as well… and then whats up with making me sign into my hotmail account to save my progress… I’ll be returning this game to the store first change I get today. This anti-piracy countermeasure basicly causes people to pirate the game… just because they won’t have to deal with these countermeasures…
Cause no gamer should have to wade through this horse maneur in order to play something that he/she bought
September 9th, 2009 at 3:12 am
Sadly im a massive fan of GTA i have bought every version from the first version on PC right through to GTA-SA, i dont mind paying a premium for such a game as it is worth every cent. But i have seen GTA IV as nothing but a great idea which the end result for PC opwners with capable hardware limited due to the imposements of no dual card support no 64 bit support and a really shoddy optimization or port from console to PC. thos things in time could have been ironed out i guess but my valid reason i did not buy this game is that unbeleviably condescending anti piracy routine that makes the enjoyment of loading the game and going to play and save it an insult to what the developers think us users will endure.
I dont see why legitimate users always have to cop the brunt end of things i.e like mentioned above anti piracy advertisements on movies etc, all this does is promote ppl to go the other route as none of this nonsense is on them, as for being lesser quality thats crap we all know that the other route has no issues when quality comes into it, yes ppl re endocde movies but most do so at a 30% compression factor not picked up by the human eye (only in a diagnostic tool would you realise its lowerbit rate) As for games .exe (NO CD) the end user doesnt have to go through the rigmorale of installing and wiating on a disc to be detected by some condescending anti copy protection. Its obtrusive an invasion as the least and points the finger at teh legitimate user as if they would pirate something they own!
damn right dumb
June 30th, 2010 at 2:47 am
Grand Theft Auto is so damn addicting game. I play 8 hours a day of GTA.~`,
July 21st, 2010 at 12:17 am
the latest version of Grand Theft Auto have more detail on its graphics, nicely done…`