I used to play the old Red Alert RTS games on my PC a few years ago and loved them. I noticed there is a new one out now. However, looking on Amazon for a deal I read the reviews and they all slate it. Not for the game play, but for the Spyware software the game installs and somthing about only being able to load it five times.

Im not a computer geek and dont understand all the babble they are on about, can anyone tell me in laymans terms whats going on and why its got such a poor rating ?

Quite a few of the games companies are now installing a software checking system on your PC without your knowledge and particularly without your consent. This makes sure that you don’t make or try to run illegal copies of the game. In many cases this software doesn’t appear in the add/remove programs panel and can’t be easily uninstalled. It also runs all of the time on your system not just when you start your legitimate version of the game. Which leads people to brand it, quite rightly, as spyware.

Personally I don’t believe piracy will ever be gotten rid of (there is too much money to be made). This is another pathetic, ham fisted attempt to clean up the situation which only serves to annoy legitimate owners.

I have no idea why it’s limited to 5 installations. It’s rather stupid and will cause no end of legal wranglings.

Spore is another game which has this DRM system in place.

I’ve got it.

I bought it off play.com for £14 before they realized there mistake and put the price up to £34 🙂

It’s a good game Red Alert 3 – not without it’s annoying bugs though. Bit different to Red alert 2 though.

As for the DRM on it – you can install it up to 5 times – but there is an option to deauthorize an installation so you can install it over and over really. Its just a copy protection thing that doesnt really work to be honnest.