Activation Etc For FM2010

Are you any nearer stating exactly what the position will be regards installation & activation, is it going to be DRM again??

Hope not as I loathe it.

Not using steam either.

Might be a good idea to let people know what the situation is as it may help in pre-order sales or of course put people off completely.

I like DRM

Are you any nearer stating exactly what the position will be regards installation & activation, is it going to be DRM again??

Hope not as I loathe it.

Not using steam either.

Might be a good idea to let people know what the situation is as it may help in pre-order sales or of course put people off completely.

Why?

5 mins when you buy the game hardly the end of the world.

Why?

5 mins when you buy the game hardly the end of the world.

Personal preference ..... just waiting to see what they announce before deciding whether to buy it or not. I did n't buy FM2009 due to the shambles with activation etc plus as I've said I don't wish DRM on my computer from any game.

Don't believe the bandwagon hating DRM.

I also like DRM. I wish 07 had had it. However, with no phone activation, it sucks. I can't play EA games any more

SEGA (not SI) will announce the situation when they see fit.

Are you any nearer stating exactly what the position will be regards installation & activation, is it going to be DRM again??

That decision is not up to sports interactive. Its Sega that decide that. I'm personally not really bothered what they decide though.

I like DRM

I also like DRM.

Me too

Steam is a must, a great way to keep games IMO

Steam is a must, a great way to keep games IMO

I am completely anti all forms of DRM. After all, it is your copy of the game / DVD / Album / Single you purchased, so you should do with it as you see fit.

I do get the point that without DRM, people could simply download a dodgy copy wihtout paying, which means less revenue for the developers and therefore less money to put towards future games, but I think that no matter what DRM they put on, people will find a way around the DRM if they wanted to.

I think DRM actually hinders people's experience in general (all things, NOT just FM), as it often prevents you doing something you want to do, which is perfectly legal. Example: copying my DVD to my ipod to watch on my commute...

Having said that I think the only issue with FM was that Steam were simply not prepared for the level of demand on the opening day. If steam is used, thier servers need to be able to cope. If not, go back to the old style codes, so people can actually use the game they paid for..

Whilst I agree with the principal that when you buy a game it should be entirely yours, in a legal sense this is not the case at all. The only thing you purchase when you buy software is the license to use said software, and as long as this is the way the system works, DRM is an unfortunate must. The only problem I have with DRM is that 99% of the time it is more of an inconvenience to the consumer than it is to the pirate.

How does DRM work with FM, for instance if its the limiting how many times the games is installed on the computer that that is not a good idea, unfortunately ive had problems which as affected my FM 2008 game over the past year and i have had to install it a number of times due to varying reasons. So if it is going to be used on FM10 or used this method on FM09 i would/could have big problems.

It would end up affecting the honest user more as piracy thieves will always find a way around whatever system is put in place.

Im not saying nothing should be done, but Sega must beware how it affect the honset person

Personal preference ..... just waiting to see what they announce before deciding whether to buy it or not. I did n't buy FM2009 due to the shambles with activation etc plus as I've said I don't wish DRM on my computer from any game.

seriously?

each to their own i guess ..

I don't really care what DRM SEGA use as long as I can play the game after I've bought it.

Not really bothered what they use. I just hope they implement it better.

I bought the game in Australia recently from Electronics Boutique. I knew i would have to activate it over the phone as i dont have internet, no problem that will only take me 10-15 mins i thought. Upon instsalling the game and entering the unique code in step 1 i then get to the phone list and find they have no phone number listed for Australia. Puzzled by this i decide i will call the suftware support. So i call the software support only to get a recorded message saying it is only available Monday-Friday 9-4 (i phoned on the Saturday). Now this presents a bit of a problem as i, like most people i assume, actually have a job and have to work during these hours (and i dont tink the boss would be best pleased about me phoning up sega customer service at work).

In the end i had threw a sickie on the Monday and got the game activated. As i said i accept that they need thesde systems to try and prevent pirates (not that that will ever work) but at least make sure that you have things like phone numers for countries you sell it in and so on in place.

Sorry for the rant but needed to get that off my chest.

Whilst I agree with the principal that when you buy a game it should be entirely yours, in a legal sense this is not the case at all. The only thing you purchase when you buy software is the license to use said software, and as long as this is the way the system works, DRM is an unfortunate must. The only problem I have with DRM is that 99% of the time it is more of an inconvenience to the consumer than it is to the pirate.

This is exactly it.

There is a black market, so what should we do? Punish the people illegally downloading it? Punish the people illegally sharing it? No, lets punish the normal consumer by preventing them from using their software...

I am Anti DRM, but until a good alternative exists, DRM is here to stay. DRM does prevent piracy by stopping people illegally sharing the game, but it needs to be properly managed; having a support network / call centre available for the consumer should they have issues in activating, with the consumer having the ability to actually use their license when they wish. Also, how many people have had issues with steam locking them out of their accounts, thus preventing them from using their legally purchased game? What about it preventing you using the game, the message saying you have used your 5 licenses, when you only have it installed once?

All these issues need to be addressed, with Steam having enough bandwidth to cope with demand, as well as some form of support available outside office hours so that consumers can actually use the game they purchased.

DRM does not prevent piracy really, it makes it a bit harder, but still possible. Take Spore for instance, used DRM, and managed to become one of the most pirated games in history. I am sure if you search around you will find cracked versions of FM09 too, in spite of its DRM.

Cracked versions that aren't the full game and don't work 100% properly, perhaps...

I bought it off Steam last year - a terrific move. Good for the planet (no packaging, no manual, no distribution), a quick download, easy... I'll likely plump for that again, though there are some great pre-order deals around. Very tempted by getting a free FM2010 mug or journal with the game!

Sorry, what I meant to say was the DRM does prevent piracy to a large extent. I am sure the cracked versions out there are a lot less in number, and harder to get hold of.

I can assure you all that DRM does not work at all, and the pirated versions do work 100% and you can patch them, the only difference is the time it takes before it gets shared. But todays DRM are ****easy to bypass. Its more of a haggle for the consumers that buy the real product then anything else.

If you belive that the DRM prevents piracy you are a tool, Im sorry to say it, but every DRM will be cracked either you believe it or not. And the pirates even gain something from it, they get a DRM free copy and does not need to worry about the whole hassle everyone has with it.

Hell, FM09 came out on private trackers the day it went gold, thats how well the DRM works. Ugh, DRM is just the devils tool to prevente the people that actually BUY the game have more hassle with it then it prevents the pirates, totally useless really.

nonsense...DRM does not help in any way against piracy. All DRM games get cracked and FM is certainly no exception.

DRM Pros:

-effectively stopping the second hand market

-no store returns since stores dont take DRM games

DRM Cons:

-Authentication problems ****ing off customers

-Informed customers are boycotting your game

-Bad customer reviews (ie amazon)

-Wasting money buying the license for DRM without stopping or even slowing down the amount of piracy

-Costly technical support for customers experiencing DRM related problems

-Cost of running the authentication servers and related services for many many years. (probably wont happen and they will just shut them down leaving you with a nice coaster)

So IMO the cons seriously outweigh any pros. And from the customers point of view the pros are actually cons.

nonsense...DRM does not help in any way against piracy. All DRM games get cracked and FM is certainly no exception.

DRM Pros:

-effectively stopping the second hand market

-no store returns since stores dont take DRM games

DRM Cons:

-Authentication problems ****ing off customers

-Informed customers are boycotting your game

-Bad customer reviews (ie amazon)

-Wasting money buying the license for DRM without stopping or even slowing down the amount of piracy

-Costly technical support for customers experiencing DRM related problems

-Cost of running the authentication servers and related services for many many years. (probably wont happen and they will just shut them down leaving you with a nice coaster)

So IMO the cons seriously outweigh any pros. And from the customers point of view the pros are actually cons.

yep plus if cm-02-03 wass DRM and there was no one to Activation your game .how would you play it some 6 or 7 years later ?

its all just madness

I would expect most decent companies to release a DRM free patch a few years down the line.

SI/Sega have already stated they will be doing this in the future.

I think a lot of the problem, (at least to users like me), is that we don't have information available in advance in order to make an informed opinion.

Here is what I mean.

When I first started playing FM, my pc was used only for playing FM. I'm sure that many other people were in a similar boat. Now though, pc's are used are far more often, (in general), and for far more wide-reaching reasons. The problem though, is that for old technophobes like myself, all this stuff is simply beyond me, (and if 12 year old Jimbokav Jr doesn't know about it then I'm stuffed).

Firstly, I have absolutely no idea what DRM stands for or means.

My problem is that I have a very limited knowledge of how my pc works. I had got quite good with XP, but Vista seems like the Bermuda Triangle and trying to much about with it is pretty much hard graft.

Now when I get the game, I want it to be easy and simple to instal and play. The problem is that it isn't anymore.

If you use Steam to install, (which is recommended and which I think it sort of pushes you towards using), then you have to continue to use Steam to launch the game, (or so I thought for a long time). Actually you can create a shortcut and launch the game from there, (which someone was happy to walk me through), but I still have no idea if I can actually delete Steam, (which I want to do), without deleting the game itself, (which I obviously don't want to do).

To people like myself, the instalation of FM09 was our first experience of Steam. It seemed to be suggested that everyone should know what Steam was and how it worked in advance, (as regular games users). The problem which SEGA don't seem to have grasped, is that unlike many other games, many FM players do not play other games. They therefore can often have a very limited knowledge of many of the stuff more commonly involved in pc based gameplay now.

I suppose what I am trying to say is that now SI are no longer responsible for this part of the game, the whole system seems less personal and user-friendly.

The fact that so much of last years system didn;t actually work properly is irrelevant. Even if it had worked effectively, I do not feel that the COMMUNICATION pre-install was good enough.

The reason is simple. SI deal with the game itself, (and do it well), but the activation has been farmed out to a 3rd party by SEGA. What happens then is that you are expected to know what to do and what your options are, and the truth is that many of us simply didn't, (and still don't).

We are all customers of SI.

SI in turn are customer of SEGA, (as distributors of the game), I think that's how it works.

Feckwittsareus, (or whoever), are the company who deal with the activation of the game. Their customers are SEGA and SI. So they don't give a monkeys about us, (as has been evidenced post the release of FM09), and as a result the communication between them and us as we prepare to go through the activation process, is almost non-existant.

I would suggest that players of FM are not in the main typical of PC based gamers on the whole. As a result we need to be treated differently, (and have some of the basics spelled out to us on occasion).

I cannot stress how frustrating it is that so much of SI's hard work seems to be undone by such a ridiculous, (and unimportant to the customer), part of the process.

I really do understand that companies need to protect themselves from piracy, but there needs to be a balance between that and a little old thing called customer satisfaction. It is my opinion that there is no such balance in that area at all at the moment.

We are nearer to making an announcement but we're not quite ready yet. We're working with SI to make sure we come up with a good solution for all parties.

I'd say there's a chance it'll happen next week. Until then I suggest you hold fire on your opinions, I'm sure you'll be needing them...

The activation process was poorly implimented in FM09 and made the game purchase less enjoyable and very frustrating.

Hope they have taken on board all the problems which occured and try and rectify the situation.

Wink Wink Nudge Nudge Matt

We are nearer to making an announcement but we're not quite ready yet. We're working with SI to make sure we come up with a good solution for all parties.

I'd say there's a chance it'll happen next week. Until then I suggest you hold fire on your opinions, I'm sure you'll be needing them...

Thanks for taking the time to reply to this thread!

Now I am anxiously awaiting the announcement regarding the game's DRM, although I'll buy it regardless of what DRM is used.

Me and my housemate, both long time fans of Football Manager (going back several years) found last year's 2009 version an absolute shambles when it came to getting it actually working. I got mine working okay actually but it ran too slowly for me to enjoy the game, despite the same machine having no problem with 2005, 06, 07, 08 etc. My housemate's experience was even worse. His machine was able to play the game quite fast but after a few sessions of play he kept getting a message saying he wasn't connected to the internet and thus couldn't play (or some b_llocks).

I've got no problems with initiatives designed to ward off pirates, but if they are to the detriment of satisfied PAYING customers then those initiatives should be scrapped and re-designed from the beginning.

I can't even play FM09 anymore because of DRM. Hooray! and the Fixtool just crashes

i dont think the choice of activation was bad for 09. it was just the implementation. if they get tht sorted then i dont see a problem.

The only game I ever play on the PC is Football Manager; I have an Xbox, and PS3 which I use for general gaming.

So when this DRM was announced I simply had no idea what it was or how it would work.

Then on the day of the release I had to wait until 9pm (I think) to actually get through to the activation website only to find out the key they wrote on the back of the manual was wrong or not clear, which in turn I had to waste another 1hour to figure out the correct key then finally get down to playing.

Now if I had any idea this was how hard and difficult it would be then I would of frankly stuck with FM08.

Absolute spot on points you raise Jimbokav1971, I agree with you entirely

Jimbo does make a good point actually, about the need to tell people what we're doing - we were able to provide, in the box for Empire Total War, a bit of information as to what Steam actually was - as we'd been told that people wanted to have a better idea of what it was before they installed it.

I'll ask if we can do the same thing - it'd probably be nice to add some info to the website about why we use it etc etc so that people can see and understand before they buy, too.

I'm on it..

Miles lets hope lessons have been learnt from last year!

nonsense...DRM does not help in any way against piracy. All DRM games get cracked and FM is certainly no exception.

DRM Pros:

-effectively stopping the second hand market

-no store returns since stores dont take DRM games

DRM Cons:

-Authentication problems ****ing off customers

-Informed customers are boycotting your game

-Bad customer reviews (ie amazon)

-Wasting money buying the license for DRM without stopping or even slowing down the amount of piracy

-Costly technical support for customers experiencing DRM related problems

-Cost of running the authentication servers and related services for many many years. (probably wont happen and they will just shut them down leaving you with a nice coaster)

So IMO the cons seriously outweigh any pros. And from the customers point of view the pros are actually cons.

Other pros:

If you lose the disk, you don't lose the game

You don't need to take out whatever disk is in the drive, put in the FM disk, load FM, take that disk out and put in the previous disk.

You can play on five computers at once without too much trouble (so, for example, two teenage brothers who go halves on a game can both play at once).

SCIAG will post nice things about DRM on your forum, instead of conspiracy theories.

I'm using Steam and I have absolutely no problems with it... if it helped reduce piracy on this game, even better.

It was the first time that I had used Steam and I am a older gamer and I had no problems at all, common sense and follow instructions carefully always works I find.

Other pros:

You can play on five computers at once without too much trouble (so, for example, two teenage brothers who go halves on a game can both play at once).

Urm No.

I'm fairly certain this is technically illegal and a breach of the EULA.

Other pros:

If you lose the disk, you don't lose the game

You don't need to take out whatever disk is in the drive, put in the FM disk, load FM, take that disk out and put in the previous disk.

You can play on five computers at once without too much trouble (so, for example, two teenage brothers who go halves on a game can both play at once).

SCIAG will post nice things about DRM on your forum, instead of conspiracy theories.

1.) unless you used uniloc and your computer crashes or the game decides that you didnt authorize yet

2.)true...its a bit of an annoyance but i can live with it. More consumer friendly companies tend to remove it in later patches (not SI unfortunately)

3.)thats actually piracy. Its also funny that you are advocating DRM because you find it easier to pirate

How does Uniloc work??

1.)2.)true...its a bit of an annoyance but i can live with it. More consumer friendly companies tend to remove it in later patches (not SI unfortunately)/QUOTE]

They've said countless times that they will, originally the quoted timescale was about 18 months after release, it would be interesting to get an update on that.

I just want to check with Miles that you will still be using Phone activation as i dont have net (on work comp at moment) and if so will you actually have phone numbers for all countries it is sold in. If you dont know what i am talking about see my earlier rant in this thread.

One thing is sure, i wont buy that STEAM ****. People that buyed the game first day last time couldnt even activate the game.... :-D

That unilock is less evil, at least the only thing you risk is that you´ll wait couple of hours to be able to play your new game. And you´ll also be able to decide witch patch to use unlike STEAM who allways forces you to play the latest one.

The way software companies are behaving is actually forces people to use pirated versions. Can you believe it, if i had downloaded a pirated FM2009 last year i wouldnt be forced to wait the servers to become less busy like i had to with Unilock...

I am against STEAM as well. As long as I can buy a boxed copy and call up someone and start playing without worrying about using an internet conection, i will be a happy camper.

One thing is sure, i wont buy that STEAM ****. People that buyed the game first day last time couldnt even activate the game.... :-D

That unilock is less evil, at least the only thing you risk is that you´ll wait couple of hours to be able to play your new game. And you´ll also be able to decide witch patch to use unlike STEAM who allways forces you to play the latest one.

The way software companies are behaving is actually forces people to use pirated versions. Can you believe it, if i had downloaded a pirated FM2009 last year i wouldnt be forced to wait the servers to become less busy like i had to with Unilock...

Hmmm - I'm not sure you're as well informed as you could be - let me help.

You don't have to buy Steam - it's free.

The activation issues were nothing whatsoever to do with Steam - they affected all versions equally.

Steam doesn't force you to use the latest patch - you can run the game from your local executable.

There was no pirated version of the game available at the point where the activation issues happened live last year so that assumption is incorrect.

Lastly - nothing excuses playing pirated versions - and we'd appreciate it if you could keep the suggestion that it's acceptable to yourself. You're in the minority here with that opinion and we won't tolerate anyone encouraging that within this community.

fuzzrabb - there has been no official confirmation on what we're doing yet. As per my previous note, we'll look to do that very soon. After last years issues we're very keen to get it right for our customers this year.

Cheers

Matt

Cheers for the reply Matt. looking forward to FM10 just remember to put in an Aussie number for activation. ;-)