News
Gamers 'angry' over N-Gage DRM
Michael French May 23 2008, 9:46am
Comments (1)
BBC report says players have 'hit out' over Nokia's digital rights management.
Users of Nokia's new N-Gage mobile games service are being 'angered' by its DRM according to the BBC.
The anti-piracy measures in the new N-Gage platform lock each game bought and downloaded not to each user's account - but to each handset, so if a player upgrades a device they will have to pay for all their games again.
Now gamers are apparently up in arms about it.
"It's a bad idea for everyone... the N-Gage platform, gamers and third party publishers," the BBC quotes site All About N-Gage as saying.
Nokia's terms and conditions read: "Content shall be [...] limited to one private installation on one N-Gage compatible Nokia device only."
But now gamers are campaigning Nokia to change the situation.
In a post on the official N-Gage forum, one user said: "Changes need to be made soon, and sticking one's head in the sand will not change anybody's mind."
The Telegraph prints a response from Nokia which reads: "Our policy is that the N-Gage activation codes only work on the device where they were first activated. As with any digital media there is a potential risk of piracy and this policy is one of the ways we are dealing with piracy and ensuring our partners receive their rightful revenues from our platform. If users need to repair their device, the activation codes will be reissued."
Comments
“What's the problem?”
Posted by: Ozzy - May 28, 3:21pm
Not sure what the fuss is about here - on every other handset downloads are also limited to that handset at that time.
Of course, it's hardly the best way to stimulate the mobile games industry, but that's not what Nokia want - they just want to move people off the operator deck and capture them on the handset portal instead. It's such a tiny slice of thier business, I doubt they (Nokia) really care if a few people are bothered.