An Open Letter to Activision

Game Diary / February 23, 2006 / John / 2

Dear Activision,

Recently, my ten year old son purchased Lionhead Studios’ ‘The Movies’. On attempting to install it, however, he discovered that the DVD drive in the computer he proudly assembled himself would not read the DVD. It reads all other DVDs just fine. He asked if I could try the disk in my computer and it worked fine. Thinking that there was a problem with the disk we asked to have it replaced but were informed that, as the game had been opened, it could not be returned due to piracy concerns.

We then spotted the tiny text on the back of the game box which states that the anti-piracy software on the disk may not be compatible with all types of DVD reader. There is no list of which DVD readers are incompatible. This leads me to suggest that an exact list of incompatible devices isn’t known.

As a result of this, my son is unable to play his game unless he also shells out for one or more DVD drives until he happens upon one which you deign to support. If Activision, as a company, seriously believe they can justify treating legitimate paying customers like thieves and criminals then I suspect they’re going to have a short-lived business. I for one do not intend randomly replacing bits of hardware until a piece of Activision software approves of my configuration. I simply will not buy any more of your products, and I’ll do my best to make sure my friends and my sons friends do the same thing.

As a postscript, I have it on good authority that the only way the game can be played in our circumstance is to use the type of no-cd crack usually employed by software thieves. It would appear that the only way to play legitimate software from your company is to behave like a thief. As we’re being treated that way anyway, I suppose it makes some kind of sense.

John Dow, 23rd February 2006

John

UNIX geek, wannabe cook, musician, book-lover, and all round good-guy.