The ‘Uniloc: SoftAnchor’ DRM is activated once online with limited installs for different PCs, and it gives users ”full control over their license”.
”The system will allow the user to activate Alpha Protocol online immediately out of the box and once activated the user never needs to worry about activating again,” explained Sega on their official forum, reports CVG.
”The activation can be used on a limited amount of PCs, and can be deactivated through our online servers allowing the user full control over their license - should they need to re-install, swap machines or suffer a catastrophic hardware failure on their normal PC.”
This is a major step in the right direction - away from demanding users to be ‘always-on’ like Ubisoft’s recently launched PC DRM that Assassin’s Creed 2, Splinter Cell: Conviction and The Settlers 7 all use. It’s worth noting that all those games have been ‘cracked’ according to piracy groups, playable without the need of Ubi servers.
To sweeten the deal even further, Sega announce that in the future an update for Alpha Protocol will be released removing the Uniloc system.
”In the future, SEGA will be releasing an unprotected patch of the game to alleviate any fears of not being able to play the game when the Uniloc servers won’t be around anymore. We also do not use Steamworks - the Steam released version will use Uniloc DRM.”
Let’s all hope that more publishers choose this DRM, which appears to be the lesser of many evils out there in PC DRM land. Requiring an Internet connection is still ‘wrong’ for singleplayer games but at least it only needs a quick link up during the install.
Alpha Protocol releases on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC May 28th in Europe.
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