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Now users who buy the game cd from retail outlets will not have to activate at all but on the downside will have to keep the cd in the drive where as with FM2009 you could activate through through steam and not have to have the cd in. This is a major problem from most but im sure this will frustrate some people.
Then users who purchase the game through steam will have to activate through steam using their own DRM protection but personally ive always found this to be really straight forward and easy so users should not have problems then.
Users who buy the digital download version elsewhere will use the protection provided by Uniloc, now I dont know anything about them and don't own any games that have used this DRM protection so I can give any views on this but I would be interested to hear from anyone that has?
We can only hope that this year it runs smoothly and you have to say there is no doubt SIgames and SEGA have worked hard to resolve this problem because it is simply not good enough to get these kind of problems ever.
Miles at Sigames posted the following on the forums:
Quoted
First off, installation of the PC version.
PC users will have 2 choices when installing the boxed game as Ben mentioned above.
The first is a DVD based copy protection system that requires you to have the DVD in the drive at all times whilst playing. This is something that we hadn't considered previously, as we know a lot of people listen to music when playing our games, but with music being so digitally based in the modern era, we hope it doesn't cause too many issues. With this method, there is no registration required, nor do you have to be online at any time to play the game. This method is not auto-patching, so when patches and updates are released, you will need to download them manually (we will be providing patches and updates via the BitTorrent method and any mirror sites of the file that appear).
The second is via STEAM, which is an online based system. By installing via this method, you need to be online the first time you install the game and can easily set it up to play offline in the future. By using the STEAM route, you will automatically receive any patches or updates that we provide for the game in the future (as long as you are online, of course).
There are also extra benefits this year from installing via STEAM. One of these will be a STEAM exclusive skin, which is an updated version of the FM09 skin (including tree menu) which will be available a few weeks after launch.
The second is achievements. STEAM as a platform have had achievements available for many games over the years, and we will have 60 achievements that are attainable to give you bragging rights over your mates. For those who have played the Xbox 360 releases of Football Manager in the past, you will be well aware of some of them, and I'll be giving the full run down of the achievements in a future blog.
The third is that with STEAM you can play the game on any PC that is connected online by downloading the STEAM client and logging in with your user details, with no need to take the DVD with you.
As STEAM is not available for the Mac, Mac boxed copy users will just have the one method of installing, which will require the DVD to remain in the drive whilst playing the game. Mac patches will be provided in both bittorrent and download form.
We are still partnered with IGA (in game advertising) for at least Football Manager 2010. It will (as introduced in a patch for FM2009) be possible to turn off the hyperlinks on the adverts. You will only be served adverts if you are online whilst playing the game, and the adverts only appear in situ, so are only on the advertising hoardings around the side of the pitch.
With stat collection, we have read the concerns that were brought to our attention when we spoke about this earlier in the year. We have therefore spent some time splitting off the stat collection from the other areas of the game where it was integrated, and there will be an "opt out" option in the games preferences screen.
However, we would really encourage people to allow us to collect the hardware stats that we do. It's made a massive difference to us as a dev team to be able to deliver a better gaming experience to people by being able to see our users hardware information. We're able to concentrate the functionality and compatability testing for the game much better by using these stats, which will mean that the game should play better on any system that was able to play the game last year, and make the game more compatible out of the box with some of the graphics cards that had to download files separate to the game last year to get it up and running.
Cheers
Miles
