BioShock designer Ken Levine has revealed that he received some "nasty f***ing threats" over the controversial PC copy protection of his underwater FPS. Calm down, PC gamers...
Speaking to PC Zone, Levine said that as Irrational Games' front man he needed to stand his ground and take the threats over BioShock's copy protection - which required a mandatory internet connection and allowed only two installs.
"When we had the copy protection issues come out, I was out there talking about the product, I didn't run away from that. And frankly I got some nasty fucking threats," Levine told PC Zone. "I think it's important that somebody takes responsibility, and at the end of the day my job as creative director is to sort of be the arbiter of taste.
"With great power comes great responsibility right?"
Apart from taking knife slashings from angry PC gamers, the designer said he has to take the positive credit with the bad, which includes criticism over BioShock's fairly underwhelming conclusion.
"When I talk about the narrative problems in the third act, I don't say it's Bill's fault. I'd be wrong to take credit for the good stuff and not for the bad," said Levine.
"Sometimes my taste needs readjustment too, and Bill or Chris will come to me and say 'Dude, seriously, this section of the game is messed'. So I have to listen to these guys. Outside the work they're doing, their taste comes into it heavily.
"But at the end of the day, if you like it or hate it, the decision for it to be in the game was mine."
Read the full interview with Levine, along with lead programmer Chris Kline and lead designer Bill Gardner, in PC Zone issue 199, in the shops tomorrow.
There's no excuse for such behaviour over anything, just give gamers a bad rep. But in the same breath there is no excuse for DRM either. Were not all pirates. AHARR!
It's not the people that buy the game that are the bad guys, so why give us such a hard time? Forget money here, if you make it impossible to run a legit, store bought copy, why complain when people then go and pirate your game?
I bought spore but obtained Bioshock just out of spite, death threats I bet were done electronically, I can't imagine too many geeks getting the cojones to verbally threaten him. The threats are silly, but then the DRM is easily gotten around too.
I'm going to have to side with the many that did complain. If you want to put copy protection on a game that doesn't use online features, sell the bloody thing on Steam or something. Not everyone has an internet connection and the most that do don't expect to use it to play an offline game. Besides, what about proxy's and such for those in university perhaps? Can the DRM get through it? If WOW can't (and it gets everywhere) then what can?
People can be exceptionally thoughtless and pathetic - especially over the internet.
I've twice had death threats from crazy people and they're never funny.
NO ONE deserves them - especially over something as insignificant as a computer game.
I'd ask what is wrong with people, but I already know the answer...
Totally agree! Threats and knife slashings because of a piece of software ffs, get a grip, it's a game, a piece of entertainment, he didn't rape a family member.
And to all those who bought a legit copy and are p**sed off with the copy protection, it's simple, it you don't agree with DRM then don't buy the product, if enough gamers do this, the publishers will soon have to change their ways or lose that all important revenue.
Given that we're not have had Bioshock (or one or two other games) without him, it's pretty poor form to chuck toys out of the pram.
Isn't it said that 75% of communication is conveyed in body language/tone of voice? No wonder the Internet leeches any sense of perspective out of those who use it.
drm only hinders the people who buy legally, have these companies not worked that out yet, they force people to the torrent sites in some cases. im stating the obvious but thats my 2 pence worth anyway.
While there is no excuse for death-threats to the developer or anyone else involved in the game, there is no excuse for assuming all your honest paying customers are thieves either, and that is exactly what aggressive DRM like this does.
It assumes that anyone who bought the game is a thief and will crack/pirate and distribute the game at a moments notice, while for the average consumer this is definitely not true.
No matter how you look at DRM measures in games, the only people being hurt by it are the average consumers. The pirates (those who wouldn't buy the game in the first place, and as such are not a lost sale) are never affected by these security measures because by the time they get their hands on the game all traces of the security will have been stripped out leaving only the game. It is however up to the honest consumer to wrestle their way through buggy activation and authentication cycles, have borderline malware installed on their computers and have CD/DVD writers disabled for what? A 24 hour delay in the availability of a crack for the game so the pirates can have fun?
-my apologies for the rant, but needed to vent a bit of this frustration.
The purpose of this kind of DRM is not to prevent piracy, as anyone who uses bittorrent knows - but to prevent you reselling the game second-hand, forcing 2 new sales for the game publisher instead of 1.
This is one reason why I buy console games, not pc games any more.
The purpose of this kind of DRM is not to prevent piracy, as anyone who uses bittorrent knows - but to prevent you reselling the game second-hand, forcing 2 new sales for the game publisher instead of 1.
This is one reason why I buy console games, not pc games any more.
If that is really the case, when then not say so and then adopt a system like Steam or Impulse has for instance. Tie the game serial to a personal account and voila problem solved. Can not be resold, so no issue. You do NOT need aggressive DRM to accomplish that goal.
The purpose of this kind of DRM is not to prevent piracy, as anyone who uses bittorrent knows - but to prevent you reselling the game second-hand, forcing 2 new sales for the game publisher instead of 1.
This is one reason why I buy console games, not pc games any more.
If that is really the case, when then not say so and then adopt a system like Steam or Impulse has for instance. Tie the game serial to a personal account and voila problem solved. Can not be resold, so no issue. You do NOT need aggressive DRM to accomplish that goal.
I supose I should have said "I believe the secret purpose of this DRM... is to prevent re-selling". I certainly don't expect them to state on the box Warning This Game Has No Resale Value, as that would probably not do their sales any good. But I do think they disguise their illegitimate objective to stop 2nd hand sales, as a legitimate attempt to stop piracy.
To be honest, DRM is not a legitimate attempt to stop piracy, infact it only encourages it. (because those creating the cracks need a challenge, and want to be known to be the first group to crack a game's security)
I'll take Sins of a Solar Empire as an example, a game with no DRM what-so-ever. You could find it on plenty of torrent sites, but usually with the recommendation to purchase the real game if you enjoyed it because Stardock had decided against implementing DRM on it. That is the sort of response you want. The game will still be pirated, but when the pirates start recommending you buy it if you liked it, then you're doing something right.
No sympathy at all for him - simple fact was the DRM he supported, and still seems to support, hurt his legal paying customers and ONLY those legal paying customers (inc. me - took me 2 days to actually get the game to run after legally buying it as the authentication servers were down) - it acts as a boost to piracy - hell, why SPEND MONEY buying a version of the game with this s**te attached when you can download for free a pirated version with the DRM removed?
I have never stolen a game before - but I will NEVER buy a game with this sort of DRM again (Spore looking at you) and will happily and with a clear conscience steal them in future... well done Levine you f**ked over the good guys again...
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Forget money here, if you make it impossible to run a legit, store bought copy, why complain when people then go and pirate your game? 
