Taldrenites > Starfleet Command CD Key Issues
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, Part Two
**DONOTDELETE**:
Thank you Blitzkrieg.
I just wanted to be sure that wasn't directed at me.
Sorry If I jumped.
cherokee158:
I agree with Blitzkrieg that we should all weigh our words carefully when commenting on Taldren's product. And I sympathize for the developers, who care enough about what their customers think to provide a place for use to voice our opinions, and to wade through a lot of abuse on these forums in search of feedback.
But I feel quite entitled to complain about a company(Activision) that treats me as if I am less than human. And by human, I mean someone who sometimes loses things. Someone who thinks something as immaterial as a twenty cent jewel case with a numbered sticker on it should be easily replaceable. Someone who prefers to talk to people long-distance, rather than play twenty questions with a machine.
I am most impressed that some extraordinary people here clearly do not suffer from these human weaknesses. (although I am concerned that they find it difficult to break a flimsy plastic jewel case without considerable effort. Perhaps a few push-ups?)
And I understand perfectly well that game companies struggle against software piracy, and are constantly striving to protect their profits. I also know that the movie and music industry has been forced to come to terms with the same thing. And, despite their constant laments of lost profits, both Bill Gates and Mike Eisner seem quite comfortable to me.
The fact is, most people are genuinely honest. (and, of the remaining dishonest people, the vast majority prefer to avoid criminal charges) And most people are willing to pay for reasonably priced entertainment, especially if they have confidence that their money is going to the entertainers they love. It's quicker, easier, free of guilt and the money goes to make more entertainment.
It is only companies that abuse their consumers by overcharging them, releasing sub-standard products and providing lacklustre customer service that need fear piracy. In my youth, I did not know a single person who did not own a bootleg cassette tape of some band or another. And yet, somehow, the music industry survived...if you can call mansions in LA surviving.
Even with all of this dreaded piracy, computer and console game companies outgrossed movie makers last year. So you will forgive me if I fail to see the peril inherent in making life for the honest user just a little bit easier by helping a paying customer revive his product by issuing a replacement number, or placing an additional sticker on the CD, or simply foregoing the CD key altogether. (After all, it is already a criminal offense to use a no-CD crack under the DMCA. What further copy protection do you need? Isn't it enough that people guilty of a fifty-dollar theft can be convicted of a felony?)
It is my belief that software companies have let the fear of piracy erode the value of their product by making it so user-unfriendly that many of us no longer feel it is even worth paying for. (witness the latest batch of copy-protected audio CD's that won't play at all on many players) Since I am generally an honest person, I have simply chosen to stop buying games from Activision. (For this and other reasons...I have not been impressed by their prior releases, either) I have also chosen to say so in a public forum, which is my right. (for another few years, anyway) I believe my comments are constructive, in that I have identified a problem and suggested several possible solutions. I have voiced them here in hopes that the powersthat be may actually notice, and reconsider their self-destructive policy of treating all customers as if they are potential criminals.
And if someone out there thinks I am a moron for losing my jewel case, well...I look forward to the day it happensto them.
Promise I won't laugh.
Ex Malterra:
i hope you find your jewel case.
Aliasalpha:
Quote:
So you will forgive me if I fail to see the peril inherent in making life for the honest user just a little bit easier by helping a paying customer revive his product by issuing a replacement number, or placing an additional sticker on the CD, or simply foregoing the CD key altogether. (After all, it is already a criminal offense to use a no-CD crack under the DMCA. What further copy protection do you need? Isn't it enough that people guilty of a fifty-dollar theft can be convicted of a felony?)
--- End quote ---
There are still some games that don't have a CD Key, ironically one involving activision (Jedi Knight II). I share the frustration with crappy support, the play CD for my copy of Neverwinter Nights has a whacking great crack in it (so big that I'm beginning to doubt the integrity of the disc). This was an acknowledged problem & the replacement CD was free, I contacted customer support & got a referral to the australian support people & sent them an e-mail. Several months later & I'm STILL waiting for an answer (Well, I'm not waiting but you know...). Now I'm forced to use a crack to circumvent a crack...
Microsoft's tech support is still the worst. I once wanted to ask a simple question about win95 (about networking I think). After playing button bash for 5 minutes struggling through their sh*tty phone menus I wait on hold (long distance hold at that) for 15 minutes. I FINALLY get onto a human operator who'd have to take a postgraduate course to be called a moron & then he has the hide to say he was gonna charge me 40 freakin dollars (about 20-25 $US) just to ask one simple question!
cherokee158:
I paid fifty dollars for SFCIII, a great game by a great developer, which I enjoyed immensely. I then managed to lose the jewel case and it's all important CD-key, either through my own carelessness, or because one of my kids scampered off with it. So I did what any self-respecting consumer who abused their product would do...I called the company for help. What did I get?
The most fascinating and irritating game of toll-call phone button roulette I have ever had to play(and I am a pro). After a long and expensive round of twenty questions with a voice-activated computer who made the AI in SFC look like Hal9000, I finally managed to reach a live human being, who cheerfully explained to me that I was, quite frankly, screwed. They cannot give me a new key. If I send in my CD, they will replace it... but they will not replace the jewel case, unless I send in the old one. (If I had the jewel case, I would not be calling, would I? And what good is a new CD without the jewel case?)
So now I am ten dollars poorer on a long distance call, and I still HAVE NO MOUTH AND I MUST SCREAM.
Y'know, as much as I would like to support Taldren by giving them another fifty bucks, I have a real ethical problem with supporting a company(Activision) that has so little regard for their paying customers. I will never buy another Activision product, I will tell all of my friends never to buy an Activision product, and when the jack-booted soldiers of the DMCA come to my house wanting to know why I downloaded a bootleg copy of SFCIII from the net, I will punch the Activision representative with them in the mouth. (before I get hauled away for twenty to life for circumventing a copyright device on a fifty dollar piece of plastic...ah, Amerika.)
Sorry, Taldren, I love your stuff, and you guys deserve my money. But Activision doesn't.
BTW, the guy on the phone says it happens a lot. (He seemed to feel genuinely bad about telling me to go jump off a bridge) Maybe it would be a good idea to rethink the CD-key thing? Isn't requiring the CD to play the game enough? Even Microsoft isn't that paranoid about piracy. At the very least, a small sticker on the CD with the serial number on it would have saved me no end of grief.
I am, at times, apalled at how quickly we consumers have come to accept these daily insults to our integrity and intelligence. It takes me twenty minutes just to OPEN a CD, after peeling off the multiple little pieces of tape designed to disintegrate instantly when they come into contact with human flesh and painstakingly removing the multiple layers of heat-sealed plastic wrap. I used to be able to open an LP with my thumbnail in seconds. It takes a half hour with bleeding knuckles and a screwdriver to remove an overpriced diecast "collectable" from the multi-tentacled grip of it's box nowadays, when less than ten years ago you could find a toy truck floating around loose in your box of wheaties. And my twenty year old copy of Monopoly STILL works, even after upgrading my kitchen table three times. And yet we all buy and buy again. It's a truly amazing(and disturbing) triumph of marketing over common sense.
Well, I'm done paying for this abuse. I'm not buying from any company that is staffed by people who cannot treat a fellow human being with sympathy and respect. My next gaming dollar will likely go to funagain.com, a marvelous and very aptly-named board game store I just discovered on the web.
If I lose my dice, I can always replace them for about 98 cents.
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