[url=]http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/01/pc-gears-of-war-drm-causes-title-to-shut-down-starting-today.ars[/url]
Obviously, Epic didn't MEAN for this to happen and claim to be working on it. Nevertheless, is this the first time our worst DRM dreams actually came true? A DRM'd game someone legally purchased just magically gets kill-switch'd?
That's pretty creepy.

Scary yes, but by having a game with DRM basically means you're licensing the game, not actually purchasing it.

your link does not work

Sorry, I keep forgetting I take Linkification for granted. Does it work now?

Interesting. This is one of those 'what if' scenarios that opponents of DRM were told were just extremist fantasies and would never happen.

thats rampantly unprofessional. Honestly it's rather a surprise from epic, they might be slack with patches and kind of crap at fixing glitches but game destroying problems are a new low. It is a good piece to point to for "look how fucked DRM can be"

This isn't the first time this has happened. My copy of Spellforce Platinum complains that my "temporary key" has expired. There is a replacement executable to fix it though.

I hope I'm not the only one who isn't the least bit surprised by this. While this sucks for those whose copies of Gears of War have stopped working, I'm personally cheering as this will serve as a major example to the masses as to why games that contain DRM should be avoided. It also makes the "no DRM" selling point for GOG all the more poignant.

Was the mistake that they added an expiration date, or that they added the wrong expiration date. It makes me wonder when all of my games will no longer work. At least there is a workaround with setting your internal clock back, but how long is that going to work. If games are going to start expiring on purpose, then the publishers will probably find a way around that.
Im probably just being paranoid though. I cant imagine them actually adding expiration dates to games.

Yes.
On a more serious note, the inclusion of any kind of expiration data was an incredible screw-up, far beyond the typical PHB-led screw-ups common to the industry. Even with serious damage control this is something that many people will not be forgetting anytime soon, and will also provide a very concrete example whenever someone asks why they should be concerned about DRM in their games.

These guys are just shoving people toward the shadier parts of the internet.
I don't have this game but I'm pissed that any of us have to experience this kind of unecessary and totally avoidable crap.

yeah, it's insane. I really think Epic hates PC gamers, I really, truly do.

Not only is this an awful example of the downside of DRM, various 'areas' on the internet now gain another point for their cause. Sadly, some get a bit fanatical and silly about it, but damn! this is one mistake they are going to have on them for a while.

I actually have the PC Gears, and really...I'm not surprised in the least. I got it to play co-op with a friend and GfWL lost our saves, somehow. Another friend of mine couldn't play it at all on- line as the service wasn't usable in their country.
Hrm this is all more GfWL then the game itself, but I'm still not surprised.

Definately everybody loses in this situation. Epic loses customers, but more importantly gamers of all kinds lose. How many people who aren't as familiar with the details of this incident might be turned off from this hobby as a whole. Everybody loses.
It just angers me.