PC Version of SSF IV Arcade Edition to Feature Always-On DRM

Wow, they're just begging people to not buy the game, aren't they? But they'll still play it! These idiots don't realize that DRM encourages people to infringe rather prevents them from infringing.

I paid for my copy of SF IV for PC and I have come to regret it. I have reached the maximum number of installations allowable after I was forced install a fresh copy of Windows and was directed to customer support to acquire a new key. It was late at night, the support office is surely closed. Was I going to give up and wait till tomorrow? Fuck no! I went to the net and got a crack for it and I was back to playing my paid-for game in minutes without talking to an agent that probably thinks I'm a criminal.

If they treat us like our money isn't good enough to give us a game without a leash, then we'll treat their games like they're not good to buy before we can play them.

-Greevar

Clearly Capcom didn't learn from Ubisoft's fiasco of people being unable to play their legally purchased games for a month while pirates could play it a couple of days before release. I wonder how long it will be with SSF4 becoming a prime target.

Capcom and all these other companies are all just creating a self fulfilling prophecy. They take all these measures to supposedly prevent piracy though all it does is create an open invitation daring any hackers and pirates to beat their system (which they all do sooner or later). Not to mention the number of hackers and pirates created from honest gamers who just want to enjoy their PAID product without jumping through a million flaming. Personally I'd rather not have a PC port at all than have them give me a half assed games with a million flaming hoops to jump through. Then the companies have the audacity to say "you see they're thieves and pirates" when their decisions are directly creating more pirates than stopping.

I'm on the fence about GWL I don't love it but I don't completely hate it. The measures for this game suck but at least its not quite as bad as the Ubisoft always online DRM. I guess it depends just how reliable their servers are. I heard Ubisoft's servers sucked, constantly losing connection. Steam has the winning model for DRM that seems to be less inconvenient for the gamer, even if Steam is not perfect. Why other companies don't follow their model is beyond me. One thing that I've learned this last month is that the consoles are just as vulnerable as the PC is as we have learned with the PSN breach. I wrote here long ago that it was ignorance to think that the consoles are so much safer than the PC from piracy and hackers. Obviously the PSN breach proved my point. Now that people know that it can be done, we can expect more attacks on PSN along with Xbox Live and Nintendo. Once you punch a hole in the armor, no matter how well you patch that hole, everyone now knows you are not invincible and the attacks will be relentless. And all I can wonder is what will all these companies do knowing that their so called invincible consoles are just as vulnerable as the PC if not more?

"With free speech either all of it is ok or none of it is." Kyle Broflovski

I just hope GFWL has improved since it was crashing Dawn of War 2. Hopefully Capcom switches to using Steam's DRM in the future.

Why the restrictions on characters when you're offline? Would be nice to at least use training mode offline. O well, if I end up getting it, it'll be mostly for the online play anyway.

This doesn't seem too different than regular Street Fighter IV which also used Games for Windows Live and required you to sign in to play online. My guess is that they are simply locking down this game further using the same system.

Only thing I ever hated about GFWL is the DLC system and how you can't just re-install the game and auto-download everything again. Not to mention the attrocious currency system known as Microsoft Points. I'd rather just pay for whatever the DLC is worth. Not use a point balance which I may never end up exhausting entirely. This is especially ridiculous when you are using Steam which could have just as easily sold the DLC in a more friendly manner while ensuring it gets installed with the game itself.