To the Development Team and Publishers:

I've been playing the Divinity II: Ego Draconis Demo, which I downloaded via Steam.

Good news: I LOVE the game! It's fun, populated by some very interesting characters, the environments are great, the music is wonderful, the art style and character modeling are gorgeous, and the story is highly engaging.

Bad news: You've chosen to use SecuRom with an activation limit, which is thoroughly unnecessary when you sell a game through a service like Steam. Why did you do this? It's as if you're saying you believe that everyone who has a copy of the game have pirated it or will attempt to do so. Treating paying customers like criminals is not a good business policy, especially when the service they buy your game through has a means of proving the legitimacy of the purchase to you. I have a very strict policy of not buying games that use SecuRom with any sort of activation limit, and I am not alone in this. The very thing you meant to ensure legal purchase of your game is the very thing guaranteeing I, and many others like me, will not buy it. I have no intention of attempting to pirate the game either, mind you, but I will not support the use of this sort of DRM. Steam has given you all the DRM you need. Remove the SecuRom, and you'll have scored yourself a good number of new customers, myself included.

I wish you all well, and thank you for giving an ear to my request.

~Kodraenir

It's as if you're saying you believe that everyone who has a copy of the game have pirated it or will attempt to do so.

If you lock your front door, it's as if you're saying that everyone who walks by will rob you or attempt to do so.


Developers do not pick the copy protection, in most cases, publishers do.

The game does not use Steam's copy protection, just Securom. Presumably the publisher(s) wanted to stick to one copy protection system through all the various distributions.

If you are online when you uninstall the game the activation will automatically be revoked; if you are not online then (or can not do a normal uninstall), Securom has a web form on their site to manually do so. It is possible to get the install limit reset if you contact support; the limit is to stop multiple people from installing the game, not to keep one person from installing it as many times as they need to.

Larian is currently looking at doing a patch to remove the copy protection (Update on DRM Removal?).

With the disk version of DKS (probably hard to find locally in the US or UK, as there were no official PC DVD releases there), the disk is only needed to install the game; there are no subsequent disk checks.


Welcome to the forum.

I personally don't have a problem with a 5 activation limit as I don't reguarly re-install windows or buy new PC's every year. I keep most games installed even when I have finished them unless I really have no intention of ever playing them again.

I can see why it pi**es legitimate customers off though as no matter how good your copy protection is, someone will always find a way to crack it. Hence why need to have it at all?

Huzzah and thank you to both Larian and Focus for removing the SecuRom DRM on this game.I just bought a copy through Steam, as did my S/O, and we are both very much looking forward to playing it. Thank you again for hearing me, and I'm sure a number of other voices. This is how you turn critics into customers!

To Arokh and Raze, I appreciate your comments. My issue with an activation based DRM, be it in this game or any other piece of software at all for that matter, is that it limits the way I use it, and inconveniences me if I upgrade or do major maintenance/repairs to my PC more often than the publisher thinks. As a custom builder, I'm likely to do just that. It is my wish to avoid unnecessary time trying to hash things out with tech support because I want to install a piece of software I legally purchased, and that the company has a clear record of me purchasing. This is a waste of everyone's time and resources, when other methods are available.

I do share your concerns over activation and computer upgrading, but most systems now should be relatively tolerant of upgrades (after the backlash with early implementations). IMO it is still a necessary evil to be avoided if possible, though.

Anyway, have fun finally playing.

I'm on the opposite side right now :

I won't buy anything that has Steam. No way.

I'm rather preferring good old disc check against Steam's implicite "always on" DRM.

Which implies that I don't like a limit on activations, either. It's to me as if I was only allowed to drive a car 1000 times.



But the Steam DRM is still there ...

But the Steam DRM is still there ...

No, it isn't. You would need to go through Steam to re-download the game, but other than that you can start it directly and don't need the Steam client running. Starting the game through Steam does let it keep track of how long you've played, etc, though.

What Raze said. Afair, game has integrated Steamworks for achievement tracker and such, but it is not a crucial requirement. You an play it without steam directly via EXE after your installation complete.

The exe on steam is exactly the same one as on larianvault, meaning you can simply start the game from windows explorer without steam running. As Raze said, there is no DRM on it at all, steam only distributes the version to you.

You won't even have the problem of having to download via steam, as you can simply copy the entire directory in your steamapps and copy that to a different pc, just like you would be able to with the larianvault version.

If I got the game via Gamers Gate I assume it also has secuROM? So the patch is in order? Thanks

The Gamers Gate web page for DKS still lists the DRM as Securom. If you didn't need to activate the game then they may have just not updated the details, otherwise you should get the DRM free executable.

I did have to activate it, so I'll get the patch. Thanks, Raze.

Thank you for the clarification.

I must admit that I'm getting more and more grumpy regarding Steam.