Activation

From BioShock Wiki

BioShock on the PC has a limited number of 'activations' , which will eventually stop you from installing the game altogether. This has been criticised by the community, since a game that you can only install and play a limited number of times is a rental, not a purchase.

As of June the 20th, 2008, all activation limitations were removed meaning the game can be installed on an unlimited number of computers.

[edit] The situation

Activation in Bioshock (PC) is from a new version of copy protection by Securom, which actively monitors the number of times you have installed and/or activated your copy of Bioshock and will eventually stop you from using the game altogether. Securom has been compared to a rootkit, and meets some of the criteria for being a rootkit.

At the time of shipping you were only allowed to activate the game twice.

An activation is also used up every time you play the game from a new user account.

This meant that when the game was originally shipped, if you installed the game from an administrative account, then only one person could play the game. If you ever needed to reformat or reinstall the game, you would not be allowed to do so.

Although this activation limit has been upped (to five times on a single machine), this is a number of installations which will still run out fairly quickly amongst people who regularly update their machines.

As of October 11th, 2007, an "Activation Revoke Tool" has been posted to the Cult of Rapture website. This allows activations on a computer to be revoked, effectively allowing the recovery of all five activations, assuming this is done prior to uninstallation, updates or change of hardware. It is available here.

It is also possible to have the support team manually revoke the activations from the server in the case of multiple formats or hard drive crashes (and thus replacements), and in special cases extra activations may be given should a legitimate activation key be provided. If multiple revoke/access attempts have taken place from several different IP addresses, proof of purchase may also be required.

[edit] External links

• http://www.2kgames.com/cultofrapture/articles.html - search for "UPDATES ON SECUROM™, PC ACTIVATION, AND A TECHNICAL FAQ"
• http://www.2kgames.com/cultofrapture/revoketool.html - Activation Revoke Tool Article