Below is a cut/paste post from EA games user forums. Its found under technical help which has received 800,000+ views since it was written. It speaks volumes for the problems pc gamers face just when buying a new game. Gamers, real gamers (consoles are for kids), typically face a mountain of problems getting the latest titles to start/run properly. Driver conflicts, bugs and glitches have often made us reinstall an entire operating system to get a damn game to work. I have been searching forums to find a fix for Crysis which is preventing me from completing the game because of repetitive crashing. The antipiracy software (punkbuster,gamespy,VAC, and countless other bullshit ip/serial key loggers) that get installed when you load your new game is often the reason you cant play your new game to fruition. The packaged anti-cheat software is usually outdated by the game’s ship date, and almost always has conflicts with other software on your rig. Problems ALWAYS occur with every new PC game released, some companies are better than others at getting updates and patches released asap. If I buy an Xbox 360 game and load it up, it almost never has the fatal glitches and bugs that the PC version has. Of course you sacrifice playability, speed, and frame rates by stepping down to a console, so we are forced to wait for patches. While I was digging for a patch tonight for my legitimate copy of Crysis I found this:
FYI: Warhead is the latest Crysis installment from EA games, EA has the WORST support and help of any of the major game companies. And since EA keeps buying up every independent software companies, problems with new games are on the rise. Its usually in the best interest of your personal sanity to wait a month until the developer has created the first round of updates.
Give me a reason not to pirate Warhead, since I bought it and it won’t run.
Here is the game, sitting on my desk. Staring at me, mocking me. Electronic Arts’ ridiculous and completely pointless use of DRM in Crysis Warhead is preventing me from playing the game I purchased.
Why do I know it’s the DRM? Because the exact same problem happens with my ALSO LEGITIMATELY PURCHASED Spore installation, and we (the users) have determined that it’s a DRM issue. This is further supported by the only possible solution to the problem yet offered by EA customer support – the uninstallation of the game, creation of a new administrator account, and the reinstallation within the new account. This doesn’t work, by the way.
What happens is this : The game doesn’t run. It installed fine, without any issues at all. When I double click on the desktop/start menu short cut, nothing happens. All that results is that crysis_activation.exe sits in the background in the task manager and runs indefinitely, eating up CPU cycles until I forcibly end the task tree.
This exact some problem occurs in Spore. Some people have been able to get around it by running the executable from the Spore root directly directly, or by simply replacing the Spore exe with a cracked version to get around the DRM. Of course, this isn’t a viable option in Warhead since apparently, crysis_activation.exe doesn’t exist
So, since I don’t expect EA to help me with this issue, I’m wondering/hoping that other people have encountered the same issue and might know how to fix it.
See, running the game off the copy I bought would be unless the desktop/start menu shortcuts are run. great, but if I don’t find a solution to this problem that is effecting BOTH my recent EA purchases, I see absolutely no reason to continue supporting this god damn company by actually buying their games when I could just get them for free and not have to worry about any of this DRM nonsense at the same time.
Message was edited by: Atheist_*** (Spore)
Of course this was edited by the thought police division of Electronic Arts, here was the reply to the above:
Go ahead and pirate it
DRM is a disease and BitTorrent is the cure
Search for it on ISOhunt. com and sort by the most seeders
the top 3 hits are working virus free copies.Crysis Wars has also been released as a standalone copy
by PROCYON. It’s about 5.5GB’s….. works only on LAN though.The more money EA loses as a result of DRM protesters the better.
So to all the software companies I’ve given thousands of dollars to over the past 20 years, drop the background bullshit that slows our fps, and causes frequent crashes. We have legitimate serial numbers for our games and should not suffer the consequences of your virtual spyware that runs on our machines and essentially waits for us to do something illegal so you can revoke our serials and ban us from your servers. Quit punishing your true customers.
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