MaximumPC 2004 06

THIS MONTH: The WatchDog goes after...

Pirates Screw Everybody

This month, the Dog sifted through the pile of mail

and noticed a distinct pattern of chatter: The latest

round of anti-piracy software is totally whacked, to

use the parlance of our times.

DEAR DOG: I know you deal more with hard-

ware, but I figure a hardcore dog like yourself

might also frag like the rest of us. I bought

Unreal Tournament 2004 after playing the

sweet, sweet demo. After installing all six discs,

though, I received the following error message:

“Insert the original disc instead of a backup. See

http://www.securom.com/copy for more details.” That

web address at SecurROM.com tells you noth-

ing more than: “You are trying to start a copy-

protected application which requires the origi-

nal disc to be in the CD/DVD-ROM drive. Please

check to make sure your disc is an original.”

Boy, did my jaw drop! I spent the next few

days trying to get it to work with very limited

success. Atari has yet to answer my e-mail and

the community is pretty mad too!

I don’t know where we’ll be come

LAN-party time if we can’t use UT2004.

We might have to revert to playing, ugh,

Counter Strike. Help!

— Aaron H.

DEAR DOG : The Far Cry demo was fun to play,

and I would buy the game except for the tiny

warning at the bottom of Ubisoft’s shopping

site: “This game contains technology intend-

ed to prevent copying that may conflict with

some disc and virtual drives.”

I understand the need for copyright pro-

tection, but will Ubisoft refund my money

when its game refuses to run on my drive,

or will I be bounced back and forth between

software company and retailer? Watchdog,

please warn the public.

—RON HARPER

THE DOG REPLIES: If you see a

pattern, raise your paw. It appears

that game publishers’ latest anti-

piracy software takes issue with

the virtual drive software that lets

people copy an application to

their local hard drive and run it as

though it were still on the CD or

DVD. This may not be by mistake,

either. While virtual drive apps

are mostly used for legitimate

purposes, such as on a mini-

laptop or Tablet PC that lacks an

optical drive, it’s also become a

recognized tool of game pirates.

In some cases, the conflict results

from legitimate commercial

software such as Norton Ghost ,

Nero , and WinImage because they

install a virtual drive to work. And the problem isn’t

confined to Far Cry and Unreal Tournament 2004

either. We’ve heard similar reports of problems

with other new games, such as Painkiller. Often,

disabling the virtual drive software is enough to let

the game run, but the Dog has also heard reports

that the software must be completely uninstalled

for the game to work.

Even worse, sometimes the software’s not the

problem, and the hardware is. Some older CD-ROM and

DVD-ROM drives can’t work with the latest anti-copy-

ing software. Game publishers are advising people

who experience problems to get the latest firmware

update, but older drives are often unsupported.

So where does that leave the consumers who

legitimately purchased a game they’re now unable to

play? Ubisoft, publisher of Far Cry , told the Dog that if

a consumer has exhausted all troubleshooting meth-

ods, a replacement or exchange is possible. Atari,

publisher of UT2004 , says it has a special executable

that should correct the problem for most consumers,

but the executable must be obtained by directly call-

ing Atari’s support line.

While some of the blame should fall on the game

publishers and the anti-copying vendors SecuRom

and SafeDisc, much blame also rests on the shoul-

ders of game pirates who have put the publishers in

this precarious position. The Dog has this message:

If you love PC games, buy them. Woof.

TDV Is MIA

DEAR DOG: My fiancé gave me a 17-inch TDV

Vision LCD monitor as a Christmas gift last

year. She purchased it at a Tiger Direct ware-

house in a nearby suburb. It worked for about

five weeks and then began flickering. I tested

the monitor on another computer and it did

the same thing. I tried calling the manufac-

turer but the phone number was disconnect-

ed. The company’s web site is also gone. I still

have the manufacturer’s three-year warranty.

Did TDV Vision close up shop leaving me and

other customers in the dark or are they still

in business? I would appreciate any help get-

ting in touch with them so I can send in my

monitor for replacement or repair.

—JOHNNY

THE DOG RESPONDS: TDV Vision has appar-

ently blinked out like a 10-year-old 14-inch monitor,

but there may be some hope for non-CRT owners.

Game Pirates >TDV >Lik Sang

Say hello to Cleo,

WatchDog of the Month.

WatchDog (^) Maximum PC takes a bite out of bad gear
24 MAXIMUMPC JUNE 2004
People who run virtual CD programs will never know this
kind of paradise, thanks to a new generation of copy-
protection schemes.
”
I DON’T KNOW WHERE WE’LL BE COME LAN-PARTY TIME
IF WE CAN’T USE UT2004. WE MIGHT HAVE TO REVERT TO PLAY-
ING, UGH, COUNTER STRIKE.
”