arstechnica.com - 1/30/2009
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Gamers who tried to play Gears of War on the PC Thursday ran into a slight snag: it seems that the digital certificate that allows the game to run expired on January 28, 2009 . Basically that means if you keep your PC's clock up to date, you can no longer play the game. The ...
ripten.com - 1/29/2009
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ripten.com —
Users on the Gears of War official forums
are reporting that the digital certificates for the game...
have expired, as of 28th January 2009. This means that the game will not launch at a system date post-28th Jan. Obviously, this is awful news for those ...
(more)
Gears of War PC digital certificate expires, kills the game
techdirt.com - 1/30/2009
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techdirt.com —
It's almost getting silly to post these examples,
but it's yet another reminder of how much damage...
DRM can do to legitimate customers. The latest victims? Purchasers of the PC version of Gears of War . Paul Brinker points us to the news that due to a ...
(more)
Gears Of War DRM Makes It Unplayable As Of Yesterday
torrentfreak.com - 1/30/2009
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torrentfreak.com —
We’ve covered DRM problems in the past ,
but we’ve never come across DRM before thats deliberately...
designed to terminate a game regardless of the consumers actions - until now. The Microsoft published Epic Studios game, Gears of War , is ...
(more)
DRM Jams the Gears of War: Crysis and GTA IV Next?
Comments
Blog Reactions
Epic Fail: DRM expiry date makes Gears of War unplayable
Tech Digest —
... run the game with modified executable code. Please reinstall the game." Currently, the only fix is to turn your system clock back. An administrator has posted a message on Epic's forum to the effect of "We have been notified of the issue and are working with Microsoft to get it resolved", but in the meantime, it's another example of DRM only punishing legitimate customers. Anyone who pirated the game won't have run up against this problem. Forum thread (via Ars Technica) Related posts: Apple releases the chains on iTunes DRM | ...
Buy the game, its own DRM kills it - pirate the game, it works fine
TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home —
... That’s the story as reported by Ars Technica today. The game, Gears of War, came with a hard coded shut-off date of January 29,2008. All those gamers who bought it had their game shut down yesterday. Epic is supposedly working with Microsoft, the publisher, to fix the problem but has released no news. ...
Gears Of War Shipped With DRM That Shuts The Game Down After 01/28/09 [Drm]
Consumerist —
... I had to change the date and time (from PM to AM) and I am able to get in just fine," one frustrated gamer posted. "I also changed it back to the current date and time and it didn't work. Change it back to yesterday AM and it works fine... EPIC games won't be on my list anytime soon...." If you want to continue playing the game, you can adjust your system clock while waiting for a presumably forthcoming patch. Of course, if you pirated the game, you don't really have a problem. Gears of War DRM screwup makes PC version unplayable [Ars Technica] (Thanks, Mike!)
Gears of War grinds to a halt... thanks to DRM snarl
Yahoo! Tech Advisors —
... cough ) it all blew up in their face. This time the bug involves a digital certificate that lets you play the game. No problem... except the certificate expired on January 28, 2009, meaning that players that fired up the game on Thursday or later were abruptly locked out . The gaming community is of course up in arms about the issue, and Epic has yet to release a fix. Oh, but there's one way around the problem: Change the time and date on your computer to an earlier day, then the game will run normally. Of course that begs the question of what protective value this digital ...
Gears of War bug kills all PC copies
Obsessable News Feed —
... What the? You didn't modify anything; you bought a retail copy, installed the game, and haven't messed with any of its files. What's going on? For thousands of gamers trying to play Epic's Gears of War, they were locked out of their copies due to some shoddy coding. ...
Related: gears of war you cannot run the game with, gears of war drm expired, gears of war digital certificate, gears-of-war-pc-digital-certificate-expires-kills-the-game/
Grab the in-game Gears 2 Gold Lancer for free
xbox.joystiq.com 1/28/2009 — If you picked up your copy of Gears of War 2 used, you now have a chance to get your hands on the elusive gold-plated Lancer, which was -- until today -- only available via a voucher code included with new copies of the game. It's available now on ...
DRM Shuts Down PC Version of Gears of War —
Slashdot
carlmenezes writes "It seems that the DRM on the PC version of Gears of War came with a built-in shut-off date; the digital certificate for the game was only good until January 28, 2009. Now, the game fails to work unless you adjust your system's clock. What is Epic's response? 'We're working on ...
DRM Shuts Down Gears of War PC Edition —
AppScout
Poor DRM can't seem get any breaks. First it sparked a multi-year major backlash against the music industry, and more recently it's begun to do the same for gaming, proving to be the one major black mark against EA's otherwise well-received game Spore. Now Gears of War's DRM is the latest to ...
Microsoft DRM shuts down Gears of War —
p2pnet news
p2pnet news view DRM | Games:- Microsoft DRM is has jammed Gears of War.
“Gears PC owners who tried to fire up the game yesterday were met with a rather jarring response,” says The Escapist , going on an error message, “tells users to reinstall the game, which ...
Gears Of War DRM Makes It Unplayable As Of Yesterday —
Techdirt
It's almost getting silly to post these examples, but it's yet another reminder of how much damage DRM can do to legitimate customers. The latest victims? Purchasers of the PC version of Gears of War . Paul Brinker points us to the news that due to a digital certificate expiring, PC players of ...
Epic Explains Gears Meltdown [Gears Of War] —
Kotaku
A digital certificate that expired on Wednesday borked the original Gears of War for PC players; Epic is working up a fix. Meantime, VP Mark Rein has given an explanation and an apology.
Rein said...
DRM Jams the Gears of War: Crysis and GTA IV Next? —
TorrentFreak
We’ve covered DRM problems in the past , but we’ve never come across DRM before thats deliberately designed to terminate a game regardless of the consumers actions - until now. The Microsoft published Epic Studios game, Gears of War , is now unplayable to all purchasers, due to its ...
Gears of War PC certificate expires, breaks game —
Joystiq
It looks like whoever pushes the button that renews the Gears of War PC certificate -- perhaps the relative of the guy that pushes the Zune button -- fell asleep at the switch. As of January 28, 2009, the certificate for Gears of War on the PC has expired , rendering it unplayable for any ...
Zero Punctuation chainsawdomizes Gears of War 2 —
Joystiq [Xbox]
After what seems like a breathless eternity, Yahtzee has finally reviewed Gears of War 2 for Zero Punctuation . The verdict: He likes it. Naturally, he levels a few complaints at the game, most notably the strange abundance of chest-high walls on the planet Sera. Overall, the review ...
Gears of War 2: Microsoft flubs gold Lancer offer —
Joystiq
A Microsoft representative has informed Joystiq that the public availability of the Gears 2 Gold Lancer was made in error. Yesterday, we reported that the exclusive Collector's Edition weapon had appeared on the Xbox.com Marketplace for all to wield. According to the rep, everyone who ...
'13 Days of Gears' sweepstakes shells out $25K in prizes —
Joystiq [Xbox]
We thought Epic and Microsoft would use a patch to entice players to play Gears of War 2 , turns out the plan is to use $25,000 in prizes! For 13 days in February, Microsoft is giving away $25,000 in prizes to random Gears of War 2 players, in celebration of the upcoming movie, Friday the ...
Wiseman: Gears of War movie like harder-edged Lord of the Rings —
Joystiq
In all fairness to director Len Wiseman, that comparison, gathered recently by Bloody-Disgusting , is in reference to his desire to make a trilogy of Gears of War films . It's in much the same way that one might refer to a box of Cheez-Its as "like a cheesier, more cracker-like Beatles box ...
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