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Well done folks, here are the four winners of Mass Effect 2 [Digital Deluxe Edition], courtesy of Direct2Drive:
Andy (Anarki)
Rory Porteous
Scott Maxwell
Jennifer Allen

Well done to the winners, I hope you enjoy the game. The winners of the Bob came in pieces competition will be announced shortly.

Last week, Ubisoft announced their Online Services Platform. A mechanism by which they can offer gamers “exceptional gameplay and services that are not available otherwise“.

Upshot: If you go to a video game store/download service and purchase a Ubisoft game for the PC, you will not be able to play this game unless you are connected via the world wide web to Ubisoft servers. If you are playing a game, and your internet connection cuts out, your game will pause until it is able to reconnect. In return, there won’t be any CD checks, and they will offer (translation: force) cloud saving. The first game to be affected is going to be Settlers 7 (£26.73 delivered), but you can expect Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, Silent Hunter V, Splinter Cell: Conviction, R.U.S.E., Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and other future titles from Ubisoft to use the online services platform.

I have lots of thoughts about this, which I’ll get to eventually, but I thought now would be as good a time as any to take stock of the state of DRM in general, and some of the surrounding issues. I spoke to lots of different people, all with different perspectives on DRM. Here’s what they said. (more…)