Mass Effect copy protection adjusted after protest

EA and Bioware’s plans to have the PC version of Mass Effect call home every ten days has met much opposition from the online community. The developers have therefore reversed their decision.

Originally it was intended that the upcoming PC version of the rpg Mass Effect checks during installation over the internet whether the included installation code is legal. A similar check would then be carried out every ten days. Thanks to the online check if the game is being used legally, the disc should no longer need to be checked and it no longer needs to be present in the drive during gameplay.

A similar protection was also used in the PC version of BioShock, and this caused a lot of criticism at the time. After protests on the Bioware forums and elsewhere on the Internet, the developers decided to make copy protection less intrusive. Community manager Jay Watamaniuk has on the Bioware forum announced that from now on the copy protection Securom will only carry out the online check during installation or when downloading additional content. The other conditions remain intact, such as the requirement that the game may be installed on a maximum of three computers at the same time. It is unknown whether the game will also check Spore less often, which will also use the modified Securom security.