Bioshock on Steam

[tigersty1e]

Does the Steam version come with securom?

 

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: tigersty1e
Does the Steam version come with securom?

Just internet connection for activation like all Steam games. It says on the bottom of the Bioshock screen that it only needs internet activation. Spore for instance says:

INTERNET CONNECTION, ONLINE AUTHENTICATION, END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT REQUIRED TO PLAY. TO ACCESS ONLINE FEATURES, YOU MUST REGISTER ONLINE. ONLY ONE REGISTRATION AVAILABLE PER GAME. EA TERMS & CONDITIONS AND FEATURE UPDATES CAN BE FOUND AT WWW.EA.COM. YOU MUST BE 13+ TO REGISTER ONLINE. EA MAY RETIRE ONLINE FEATURES AFTER 30 DAYS NOTICE POSTED ON www.ea.com.

 

[Lonyo]

Actually it says internet connection required, which is actually UNLIKE most other Steam games.
Crysis Warhead for example lists 3rd Party DRM as Securom with limited actuvations, but says nothing at the bottom of the page. GTA4 lists Securom under 3rd party DRM AND says internet activation required, Left 4 Dead has neither.

You might want to try asking in the relevant part of the Steam forums, as they would have a better idea. Usually 3rd party DRM is listed, but because Bioshock was an early addition to Steam, before they started listing 3rd party DRM, it may not have it shown. Or they removed the DRM (AFAIK it at least used to have SecuROM even through Steam).

 

[Born2bwire]

What I posted in another thread:

I have BioShock, Fallout 3, and a myriad of other Steam games. Steam has not installed SecuROM and the only registry entry I have that contains the word SecuROM is a flag for BioShock that contains the product key. I do not have the SecuROM registry entries for the software itself. As far as I can tell, they are still using the Steam DRM which can be fine tuned to the publisher. Sometimes the publisher can require only a single activation (like they have with Half-Life 2) or they can require periodic activations (like with BioShock and Fallout 3). I do not always have internet connection but I have never been inconvenienced by this. The product activations for Fallout 3 and Bioshock behave the same for me.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Yes and the free Bioshock demo on steam (and normal) will install SecuROM on your computer as well (no activation though for the free demo, afaik).

 

[Born2bwire]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
Yes and the free Bioshock demo on steam (and normal) will install SecuROM on your computer as well (no activation though for the free demo, afaik).

Are you sure? As far as I can tell I do not have SecuROM installed.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Born2bwire
Are you sure? As far as I can tell I do not have SecuROM installed.

I have not verified it myself, link

What 2K has failed to address is the the SecuROM service installed on your computer when installing BioShock, which is also included in the demo.

 

[Born2bwire]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

Originally posted by: Born2bwire
Are you sure? As far as I can tell I do not have SecuROM installed.

I have not verified it myself, link

What 2K has failed to address is the the SecuROM service installed on your computer when installing BioShock, which is also included in the demo.

Yeah, I can verify that I do NOT have the SecuROM registry keys. The only thing that even comes up in a search of my registry for SecuROM is a flag in the registry entry for the Bioshock game in Steam. The value is just the game's product key. So my guess is that they kept the "SecuROM" authentification interface in Bioshock and just had it communicate with Steam, maiking behave as a black box, as opposed to any actual SecuROM software. Fallout 3's hard copies have SecuROM but the Steam registry entry does not have a SecuROM flag like Bioshock. They both behave the same though, when I start up the game, once in a while I will see a quick message saying that they are authenticating the game. I recall an interview with Valve that discussed their DRM and the flexibility of options that they offered publishers and they have a variety of option in terms of authentification that the publisher can choose from.

I think one thing confusing the situation is that SecuROM, reportedly, stays installed on a system so people could be confusing a previous install of SecuROM for being installed by Steam's Bioshock. My computer is fresh since July and I have not installed any non-Steam games that had SecuROM. Personally I don't care either way. Despite the brouhaha over DRM and SecuROM I haven't had any problems with DRM interfering with me playing any games and as long as that happens I could not care less. Hell, I still remember stressing out over losing code wheels. I even had to get a new wheel for The Secret of Monkey Island from Lucas(Film/Arts) Games way back in the day. I recall having to send in the original first disc of the game as proof of ownership or something. Now that was annoying, although I have to admit the copy protection for Sam and Max Hit the Road was amusing. Each page of the manual had Sam and Max dressed up in a unique outfit created from a paper doll minigame and you had to dress them up in the outfit from a desired page.

 

[Canai]

Originally posted by: Born2bwire

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

Originally posted by: Born2bwire
Are you sure? As far as I can tell I do not have SecuROM installed.

I have not verified it myself, link

What 2K has failed to address is the the SecuROM service installed on your computer when installing BioShock, which is also included in the demo.

Yeah, I can verify that I do NOT have the SecuROM registry keys. The only thing that even comes up in a search of my registry for SecuROM is a flag in the registry entry for the Bioshock game in Steam. The value is just the game's product key. So my guess is that they kept the "SecuROM" authentification interface in Bioshock and just had it communicate with Steam, maiking behave as a black box, as opposed to any actual SecuROM software. Fallout 3's hard copies have SecuROM but the Steam registry entry does not have a SecuROM flag like Bioshock. They both behave the same though, when I start up the game, once in a while I will see a quick message saying that they are authenticating the game. I recall an interview with Valve that discussed their DRM and the flexibility of options that they offered publishers and they have a variety of option in terms of authentification that the publisher can choose from.

I think one thing confusing the situation is that SecuROM, reportedly, stays installed on a system so people could be confusing a previous install of SecuROM for being installed by Steam's Bioshock. My computer is fresh since July and I have not installed any non-Steam games that had SecuROM. Personally I don't care either way. Despite the brouhaha over DRM and SecuROM I haven't had any problems with DRM interfering with me playing any games and as long as that happens I could not care less. Hell, I still remember stressing out over losing code wheels. I even had to get a new wheel for The Secret of Monkey Island from Lucas(Film/Arts) Games way back in the day. I recall having to send in the original first disc of the game as proof of ownership or something. Now that was annoying, although I have to admit the copy protection for Sam and Max Hit the Road was amusing. Each page of the manual had Sam and Max dressed up in a unique outfit created from a paper doll minigame and you had to dress them up in the outfit from a desired page.

The Steam version of Bioshock does indeed still have SecuROM, but it's just not 'active' and the .dlls are hidden, locked, and unviewable. Every time Bioshock dials home, it's calling SecuROM, but since the activation limits have been removed, the majority of the local SecuROM files are no longer needed.

SecuROM has not been removed -- just the activation limits on number of installs and number of computers you can install BioShock on simultaneously.

-2K Elizabeth

from the 2k forums

Fallout 3's hard copies use a low level version of SecuROM that only performs DVD checks, which is why the (DVD less) Steam version does not have it.