Crysis Warhead DRM FAQ; our stance on testing hardware with Warhead

Crymod.com has posted a Crysis Warhead copy protection FAQ that outlines EA’s position on the DRM implemented in Warhead, and clears up some of the confusion out there surrounding it. The FAQ begins with a letter from Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli:

Our passion is making quality games. We put our heart and soul in every game and hope that our fans will enjoy them as well. For years, Crytek fans have been passionately supportive of our efforts and we appreciate all of your dedication.
We realize that copy protection and piracy is a very emotional and hotly debated topic. It is very hard to find a solution that fits both our needs. We need to make an effort to limit piracy but we do not want to limit the experience of our fans.

Warhead uses online authentication and allows up to five activations. This gives you the opportunity to install the game as many times as you want on five different machines.

We also know that multiplayer gamers have different needs, so Crysis Wars does not have an activation limit, but requires the game to be unlocked online once you start the game for the first time. Afterwards it will be possible to play in LAN without any online connection. The CD-key is only required when playing online.

I sincerely hope that you will enjoy playing Warhead as much as we enjoyed making it. We are very proud of it. Our community is the main reason we make games. If there is something you feel we could improve, please tell us what and why and we will do our best to listen to you.

Sincerely, Cevat Yerli

The FAQ goes on to state that once the game is installed and activated, you no longer need the DVD in your drive to play the game. You can install the game on up to 5 different PCs.

EA has announced that they will be providing an authentication tool for both Warhead and Spore that will allow end users to deauthorize old PCs. Once this tool is in place, Crysis Warhead and Spore will finally be on par with Apple iTunes, which has a similar DRM scheme. We should also note that the Steam version of Warhead has the same SecuROM copy protection measures in place as the DVD version. This also includes the 5 PC limit present on the DVD version.

Despite EA’s efforts to clear the air on this topic, I think we here at FiringSquad will not be using Crysis Warhead for any of our hardware testing. We’d initially planned to use the game, but will stick with the original Crysis instead. Now some will argue that BioShock shipped with similar copy protection measures last year and obviously we’re using it for our hardware tests, but the difference between BioShock and Crysis Warhead is that BioShock no longer imposes the 5 PC installation limit, making it much easier for us to use the game for testing.

Once we’ve seen how EA’s authorization tool works we will certainly reconsider testing with Warhead, but considering that EA hasn’t provided any ETA on when the tool will be released we remain skeptical.