I am a HUGE proponent of games on PC whenever possible, especially games that are available on the consoles. You know, to promote the PC platform and protest artificially high prices on consoles... like Shadowrun PC vs. Shadowrun X360 and now Bioshock.
But now something else is tearing apart PC gaming: Retail vs. Digital Distribution. Without retailers on-board, you can't compete with the consoles and games will stop getting PC support. Microsoft's Games for Windows "Activation" crap is now RUINING every advantage retail PC software had, such as tangibility for selling and trading. Microsoft basically took every advantage retail had over digital distribution and threw them away without giving a single advantage or reason for the consumer.
I bought Bioshock for the PC even though I now own an XBOX 360. Why? Because it was $34.66 + Reward Zone points. The savings from buying PC games instead of console games are actually significantly more in most cases, enough to EASILY pay for the more expensive hardware and then some if you are a heavy game player that would otherwise be buying these games on a console. Shadowrun launched for $37 with a free $37 Flight Simulator X and then included Halo 2 for free the very next week! This is compared to $60 for XBOX 360 with nothing included. Half-Life 2 Collector's Edition with T-Shirt went down to $18.96 at Circuit City while it was still $85 on Steam. HL2: Episode One was $7.99 the week after it launched at Circuit City and that 110% price-matched to $6.XX when I picked up mine. Heck, SiN was the same way a month before that. Hell, when Spideman 3 launched for $60 and $70 on the PS3, I got paid for buying it on PC instead! I just 110% price-matched at Best Buy to get it for eight-something and then took the SM3 ticket stub I already had and spent the included $10 check at the theater snack bar (actually, you kinda have to pay me to take that piece of crap, but I have the other two movie games so...).
I've been trying to call 2K support to bitch about Bioshock: I have multiple PCs I could chose to activate and play it on (exclusively):
A gaming laptop with a Core Duo, 2GB DDR2 and an X1600
An XP MCE SFF general-purpose desktop (for most XP-only games) with an HT P4 3.4GHz, 2GB DDR and a 7800GS
An XP MCE XPC SFF (for home theater) with a 2.5GHz 500MHz FSB Athlon XPm (Barton), 2GB DDR, and a 7800GS
My old high-end gaming system (being replaced) with Athlon 64 X2 3800+, 2GB DDR, and 2x7800GT SLi
My new high-end gaming system with Core 2 Quad Q6600, 4GB DDR2, and a borrowed 7800GT SLi (until I settle on some DX10 cards).
How do I choose? I won't. The only one with Windows Vista is the 64-bit 4GB C2Q system that is currently borrowing non-DX10 video cards with no HDCP. Without finalizing the video card selection on the new high-end gaming system, I won't activate Windows or any games on it (certainly not a DX10-featured game like Bioshock with DX9 cards). Like I said: I won't chose a system to play it on. That crap is going right back to the store and I am going to download the Steam version.
Now, If I bought the XBOX version:
I could play it in our (my and my twin brother's) shared entertainment room in my backyard building.
I could play it at my brother's apartment on my 52" XBR LCD HDTV (he keeps his 30" XBR CRT HDTV at "the barn"/entertainment room)
I could go over to my friend's house and show him. He could even borrow it.
My brother could go over to his neighbor's apartment and show him on his neighbor's console.
He could take it to work and play it on their XBOX 360 (it's a cable Internet company, so they keep one in the office for XBOX Live testing and they are encouraged to use it).
We could take it to the apartment building's community room and play it on that XBOX 360 (as well as arrange LAN parties and social get-togethers).
Until recently, we could do all these things with PC games too but, thanks to Games for Windows Product Activation, I must now pick ONE PC to activate it on and hang on to my second activation like a life-raft in case it's ever needed (it's not like I keep the same PC around forever).
The Steam version gives me all the same freedom as the console version and then some (I don't need the disc)... well, except that I can't resell it. Heck, actually, it's simply against the rules to sell it. I very well could register each Steam game with a different email account and sell the account. That's something I can not do with the retail version once it has been used/activated.
This activation is completely different than Halo 2, which functioned without activation (Bioshock requires it). Halo 2 only needs it to play online and play without the disc. It's also completely different from Flight Simulator X, which only needed it to play online as I was told (or to play online without a time limit... something like that). That's also different from Shadowrun, which only needs it to play on Live against XBOX 360 players. That, too, is different from Lost Planet, which activated online with Steam. So far, all of these have been GFW games but, in turn, they are all different still from EA online games and their "Internet activation required" ones (like Battlefield 2142). Here, it simply means that your key is locked to your online account's login & password details (not to a particular PC). Hell, that should be what activation means universally! Why the heck does activation need to be anything more than that?! At least you could re-sell a game with your account details. What ticked me off was when I had Battlefield Complete Collection and Battlefield 2 in my backlog and I loaned them to friends for them to play while I played through other games in my backlog. Sure enough, when I got to them, I found that they were already used and EA would not let me reset them. My friends had long forgotten the details or used their other EA accounts, considering them like one-time hassles for a game they would only be playing for a week or two. Those two in particular (BF Complete and BF2) did NOT have the "Internet activation required" banner like their later games.
My point is, because the definition of "Activation" is not consistent even across Games for Windows products (Flight Simulator X, Halo 2, Shadowrun, Lost Planet, Bioshock), it is not sufficient to simply put "Internet required for activation" on the Bioshock box (in small print on the back, but that's not the point...). All that did for me was make me think "Good, I simply wont activate because I don't need to play without the disc like Halo 2 does. Tangibility is more important to me." I was set up for a rude awakening. "Internet required for activation" is not the same as saying "Internet activation required" like Steam or EA games, yet it absolutely does require it like they do while at the same time not giving you any of the benefits those two have (use on any PC for EA and Steam, use without physical media EVER for Steam, etc).
STOP TAKING MY RIGHTS AWAY FROM ME. You are killing retail PC gaming.
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