Kevin Levine, explain yourself to the public

[irrationallevine]

And 2.0 shader support is "extremely subjective"? Or isn't? Your shiftiness in answering direct questions is certainly not helping your case...

Shader 2.0 support would come under the category of feature requests. Here's a repost of what I wrote before to give you a sense of how we approach these things:

Here's how post-ship game development works:

You spend a fair amount of time compiling issues, feature requests and optimizations. You then decide which of these you think are reasonable and possible to address. You then sit down with your development team and build a schedule for how to do this.

Then you get to go do the changes. Then the fun part comes: testing those changes over and over again to make sure they have no negative unintended consequences.

[Jebrobins]

In other words, extremely subjective... Well at least you answered the question, thanks for that...

[Obturator]

Activation problems are not subjective. Legitimate users should be able to activate their games. 2k is working on this.

What about uninstalling games and getting activation credits? There are a ton of things I mentioned that you dodged. Are we to believe that the removal of the securom rootkit is off the table, steam users can forget about taking their games to multiple machines, and the circle of technical support will probably continue?

This is what I mean by generic answers. Legitimate users being able to activate their games has nothing to do with the majority of what I posted and says nothing about the biggest issue with people not getting uninstall credits

And there are still far more unanswered questions than those. To date nobody has bothered to explain other issues like how people are supposed to install this gamer if the auth servers get flooded or if they are taken offline. This is just one in a long line of questions people are asking that nobody at 2K feels is worthy of an answer.

Maybe it doesnt matter. I still really want to buy this game but so long as you continue to treat legitimate users as criminals I cant go ahead with the purchase. It makes me sad to see such a beautiful game trashed because of the actions of the publishing dept.

[Viz79]

Shader 2.0 support would come under the category of feature requests. Here's a repost of what I wrote before to give you a sense of how we approach these things:

Here's how post-ship game development works:

You spend a fair amount of time compiling issues, feature requests and optimizations. You then decide which of these you think are reasonable and possible to address. You then sit down with your development team and build a schedule for how to do this.

Then you get to go do the changes. Then the fun part comes: testing those changes over and over again to make sure they have no negative unintended consequences.

Well I hope you realise the case of 'reasonable and possible' to address when HALF the gamers that want to play your game can't may be something you want to try rather hard at solving. I am not really sure I see the brightest future here to be honest with you the way this is going.

[Jebrobins]

I realize that this is slightly off topic but in respect to the report I just read about 2K's stock being up 10-20% since sales of Bioshock began, I wonder how long it will take for the enormous community backlash which is currently taking place against no 2.0 shader support to reach the ears of the stock traders.

The stock market is fickle, and given the fact that about half of the current gaming community (reflected by a recent Steam poll) is faced with a mandatory upgrade of $150+ for a $50 game, I wonder where they'll be placing their bets for the holiday season? After this debacle, I certainly won't be purchasing anything from any company affiliated with this release, nVidia included.

I'm usually not a fan of large corporations buying out other competing businesses, and I certainly never thought I'd be saying this, but I truly hope that EA can sort you guys out because this is shameful. Good luck in the new year!

[Obturator]

Well I hope you realise the case of 'reasonable and possible' to address when HALF the gamers that want to play your game can't may be something you want to try rather hard at solving. I am not really sure I see the brightest future here to be honest with you the way this is going.

I am seeing a pretty dark path of things to come. Securom isnt going away, its going to be something they try repeatedly to force down peoples throats. Dont believe for one minute that this is the last game it will be on.

[Yosharian]

Thanks for the thoughtful note. We're not actually reeling from the concerns. We've been doing this for a long time. Game launches are always interesting times!

Hmm, my thoughts. Not directed solely at you, Ken, it's just that you're an easy target (sorry). I think the main issues here are:

1) The internet activation method does not stop piracy, at most it inconveniences amateur pirates. Was it worth all this negative publicity? With the server failure, you have actually ENCOURAGED people to pirate the game, since this is the only way they can play it! Hilarious!

2) The 'rootkit' is a complete debacle, especially the fact that it was hidden in the DEMO for pity's sake. Deception is never a good ploy to use when marketing a game. Of course, you had no choice: you know that a large percentage of gamers won't touch games with rootkit DRMs in. And now, even funnier, you refuse to arm gamers with the knowledge of how to remove this blight from their systems.

3) You (that is, 2K) and SecuROM were woefully unprepared for this. The fact that SecuROM were actually referring gamers back to 2K to obtain new keys is proof of this, as is the server breakdown, as is the rather amusing sight of 2KElizabeth rushing around the forums today frantically trying to appease angry gamers and create informative stickies. (whatever you're paying her, it isn't enough.) The "we've been doing this for a long time" comment is rather ironic. You should have been far better prepared than this, and having a deadline to meet does not excuse it. You know, I am no PR guru, merely a humble gamer, but I think a public apology would work wonders here.

4) Supposing that you sort out the method for obtaining a new activation key, what will happen in 10 years time when I try to indulge in some old school gaming, to find that the company SecuROM is long-dead, or that they no longer support the game? I think you have grossly underestimated the need for constant re-installation of games, as well as their shelf-life. I still occasionally play games that I bought 5-10 years ago. I just recently re-installed Baldur's Gate II and replayed that, modded up to the eyeballs. No DRM, no problem. You want to use DRM, fine. Put the systems in place that enable us to use your software for as long as we want. (or more accurately for as long as we have purchased)

5) Most of all, the whole situation reeks of a terrible breakdown in communication between us, the gamers, and you, the developer/publisher. The 2K forum has been swamped with angry gamers over the past few days, and small wonder given the total lack of information given to them by you. The deception that has been employed in order to foist a terrible DRM system upon an unsuspecting gamer community has backfired spectactularly. Yet if the information we required to make informed judgements about not only potential purchases but also about purchases that we have already made, existed on your main website or in a prominent place in the forums, this uproar would have been far less damaging.

Probably, even people that don't care at all about the issues (be it DRM, internet activation, or whatever), have panicked, or created a fuss, or spent hours talking to beleagered customer sales, simply because they did not know what was happening!

I feel sorry for you, I really do.

[B-shock]

I do agree that Shader 2.0 is a feature request, because afaik the requireent is been published.
Yes it may be possible to run it under 2.0 (and would maybe save some resources?), but that`s a choise about art and additional time invested - time which could be spend to fix the major bugs or other more anoying things like the activation.

And the activation IS as far as I can retell from the options postet in the forum the most discussed and most devasting feature which at least on my personal point of view is prior to any other feature requests.
Why?
Lets think about you get your widescreen support and you get your shader 2.0, but you don`t get an update about the activation. Yihaa, you can play the game on a shader 2.0 with widescreen and then you lost both intall points for some crashes (new features may cause new bugs to smash), what do you have then? Nothing. And be sure about it, if people do agree that they won`t buy that CP in it`s current state there won`t be the big sale which is also a hugh argument whether or not the game is to be developed further.

just my 2 cent

[Obturator]

Hmm, my thoughts. Not directed solely at you, Ken, it's just that you're an easy target (sorry). I think the main issues here are:

1) The internet activation method does not stop piracy, at most it inconveniences amateur pirates. Was it worth all this negative publicity? With the server failure, you have actually ENCOURAGED people to pirate the game, since this is the only way they can play it! Hilarious!

2) The 'rootkit' is a complete debacle, especially the fact that it was hidden in the DEMO for pity's sake. Deception is never a good ploy to use when marketing a game. Of course, you had no choice: you know that a large percentage of gamers won't touch games with rootkit DRMs in. And now, even funnier, you refuse to arm gamers with the knowledge of how to remove this blight from their systems.

3) You (that is, 2K) and SecuROM were woefully unprepared for this. The fact that SecuROM were actually referring gamers back to 2K to obtain new keys is proof of this, as is the server breakdown, as is the rather amusing sight of 2KElizabeth rushing around the forums today frantically trying to appease angry gamers and create informative stickies. (whatever you're paying her, it isn't enough.) The "we've been doing this for a long time" comment is rather ironic. You should have been far better prepared than this, and having a deadline to meet does not excuse it. You know, I am no PR guru, merely a humble gamer, but I think a public apology would work wonders here.

4) Supposing that you sort out the method for obtaining a new activation key, what will happen in 10 years time when I try to indulge in some old school gaming, to find that the company SecuROM is long-dead, or that they no longer support the game? I think you have grossly underestimated the need for constant re-installation of games, as well as their shelf-life. I still occasionally play games that I bought 5-10 years ago. I just recently re-installed Baldur's Gate II and replayed that, modded up to the eyeballs. No DRM, no problem. You want to use DRM, fine. Put the systems in place that enable us to use your software for as long as we want. (or more accurately for as long as we have purchased)

5) Most of all, the whole situation reeks of a terrible breakdown in communication between us, the gamers, and you, the developer/publisher. The 2K forum has been swamped with angry gamers over the past few days, and small wonder given the total lack of information given to them by you. The deception that has been employed in order to foist a terrible DRM system upon an unsuspecting gamer community has backfired spectactularly. Yet if the information we required to make informed judgements about not only potential purchases but also about purchases that we have already made, existed on your main website or in a prominent place in the forums, this uproar would have been far less damaging.

Probably, even people that don't care at all about the issues (be it DRM, internet activation, or whatever), have panicked, or created a fuss, or spent hours talking to beleagered customer sales, simply because they did not know what was happening!

I feel sorry for you, I really do.

I agree with nearly everything you said. This whole thing is a train wreck. I really wanted to buy this game and to enjoy it. Now their tactics have made it impossible for me to support them

2K, kill the DRM and I will gladly purchase this game.

[flapjacks]

The rootkit is actually Securom's problem not 2K's. That is part of the DRM, not part of the game. But if nothing is going to be done about the activation limit (it's ok as long as you don't go back and forth between a bunch of computers), they should at least get Securom to remove the rootkit.

[Nexxus6]

I disagree. They bought the DRM and sold the game with a rootkit.

[flapjacks]

I disagree. They bought the DRM and sold the game with a rootkit.

But again, that is Securom's fault. I would contact them directly and tell them to remove the rootkit from their DRM. And not just some tech support guy. Demand to speak to someone with authority (that probably won't work, but at least you would have tried).
The rootkit thing is ironic, as Securom is part of Sony (I'm pretty sure), and we all remember how that last rootkit fiasco turned out for them (hint : I already said how it turned out)

[flapjacks]

As they are licensing the DRM from securom, they probably would violate some contract by going in and removing the rootkit themselves.

[Teknoman]

The way this has been handled has been terrible. 2K definitely paid off the magazine publishers for these great reviews. There is no way any game can have a review above a 7.0 without dishing out the big bucks.

No one paid off reviewers. It may have happened in the past with other companies, but dont you think EVER big company would do that? Hell EA's boogie is getting bad ratings across the board, and they have TONS AND TONS of cash.

Dont believe Ondore's lies!

[Spikeles]

Just wanted to post this bit:

http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html

If i understand that correctly, over 23% of Steam users are still using SM 2 restricted cards. That's 258 thousand users.

[lostmongoose]

Just wanted to post this bit:

http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html

If i understand that correctly, over 23% of Steam users are still using SM 2 restricted cards. That's 258 thousand users.

And according to that same survey, 200k+ users still have DX7/8 cards cards. By your logic, Bioshock should support them too.

[Spikeles]

And according to that same survey, 200k+ users still have DX7/8 cards cards. By your logic, Bioshock should support them too.

Actually i never said i wanted them to support them, i was merely pointing the survey out for those who hadn't seen it. I'm on the sidelines of the discussion at the moment, as a developer myself, i realize the limitations of the different shader models, and i love it when you don't have to worry about instruction set size restrictions or the availability of things like conditional statements. But i also owned a TNT2 so i understand the criticism of the developers for their lack of backwards compatibility. If i remember correctly, Oblivion suffered the same backlash(if you can call it that) when it was released and i believe a user mod called Oldblivion was made that enabled older cards to run. I also understand doing something like that would ruin the intended "atmosphere" of the game. As i said, i'll wait and see what the result is, whatever it is :P

[Trackah123]

Let's go all back to Commodore Amiga 500 Bioshock would probably look like a cool-cartooney platform game on it hehe

[Idylla]

When will a games publisher be bold enough to publish a game without any DRM infested draconian methods.

When one finally does, they will realise that instead of 'losing customers to piracy', they may infact GAIN customers that would have otherwise pirated the game due to the invasive and annoying DRM.

[upstart_69]

When will a games publisher be bold enough to publish a game without any DRM infested draconian methods.

When one finally does, they will realise that instead of 'losing customers to piracy', they may infact GAIN customers that would have otherwise pirated the game due to the invasive and annoying DRM.

Google Stardock and Galactic Empires 2. You can install the game without choosing to enter the serial # or activating. You can do this to get patches, but its not required just to play the game.

Galactic Civ 2 - A little known turn-based space game from a little known publisher - it went on to outsell many games by giant publishers with well-known brands. It was in the top 10 NPD selling PC Games for 5 or 6 weeks, if not longer.

[upstart_69]

Forgot to mention, you could also install Galactic Civ in as many machines as you wish - no cd checks whatsoever.

[Obturator]

Forgot to mention, you could also install Galactic Civ in as many machines as you wish - no cd checks whatsoever.

Read some interviews with the Galciv developers. They have stated that their losses from piracy are way less than anything publishers have taken from them in the past.

[OompaLoompa]

also please patch the stuttering issue on high end pc's/mouselag