Still frothing at the mouth from the destruction of all things PC sacred that was Modern Warfare 2, I was looking forward to 2010 as a bit of a redeeming year for PC gaming. Bioshock 2 in particular had my attention. I was looking forward to the multiplayer aspect of it; the simultaneous use of plasmids and weapons in sounded like a refreshing experience after the binge of mediocre shooters that was 2009. That was, of course, until I heard that BioShock 2 was to make use of Games for Windows Live and SecuROM.

‘œAbandon all hope, ye who enter here.’ Those familiar with the Divine Comedy will recognize this as the last line of the famous inscription on the entrance to hell. PC gamers will recognize this as the inscription on the back of every ‘œGames for Windows’ box.

If you’re unfamiliar with GFW Live, take the standard Xbox Live client, slow it to a crawl, then beat it within an inch of it’s life. Finally, take the population of Xbox Live and reduce by 90%. The system is infamous for causing problems will DLC downloads and receives a jokingly small amount of updates to fix said problems. I’d be willing to excuse some of these problems if there was a rich amount of content that set GFW Live apart from Xbox Live, but there isn’t. Instead, GFW Live is just a hollow, featureless port of Xbox Live dumped onto a game to try and make PC gamers feel unique.

What’s that you say, GFW Live doesn’t ruin the game enough for you? Not to worry. Digital rights management has the solution your looking for. Now the game you paid full retail for comes with SecuROM, copyright protection software that causes an array of known compatibility problems! On a completely unrelated note, I would like to point out that Spore, a game released in 2008 containing SecuROM, was the most pirated game of that year with an estimated 1.7 million illegal downloads.

I’m a firm believer in community standards. What a developer thinks the community wants isn’t always correct. Steam, and to a lesser extent Direct2Drive and Good Old Games, have become community standards for digital distribution on the PC. I wish Microsoft would quit trying to push what is so obviously a half-assed attempt recreating what Steam has done.

I’m no Steam fanboy; the program has more than its fair share crashes and problems. I’ve just never once thought to myself ‘œThis gaming experience would be so much more streamlined and enjoyable if I could just access GFW Live.’ The fact that PC gamers now have to use Steam, GFW Live and SecuROM just to play BioShock 2 adds a completely unnecessary layer of bloat to the game. Me paying for the game over Steam isn’t convincing enough for you, 2K Games? Would you like a blood and urine sample every time I want to play as well?

I refuse to believe that SecuROM is necessary. If your game isn’t a pile of steaming garbage, then piracy wont impact the sales enough to warrant using invasive DRM software. Spore was the most pirated game of 2008, and it included SecuROM. Modern Warfare 2 was the most pirated game of 2009, which besides heavy security took away dedicated servers to try to prevent piracy. Seeing a pattern here? Screw the PC gamers, they’re going to screw you back. Does this mean the PC community should pirate games that do something annoying? Of course not, but the numbers don’t lie. Piracy is orders of magnitude higher on games with obnoxious DRM software or games that pull a stunt like MW2.

Perhaps BioShock 2 is just doing this as some backwards publicity stunt. When MW2 announced it was taking PC gamers and shipping them off to labor camps blessing them with IWnet, the press exploded with articles about “PC gaming is dying” and “Is this the nail in the PC gaming coffin.” MW2 took the concept of any publicity being good publicity and ran with it. And it worked. The game’s raked in a billion dollars so far, despite the various PR bumps and bruises leading up to its release.

2K community manager “2KElizabeth” recently addressed Steam users complaints by saying nothing in a roundabout fashion. One could paraphrase the entire post as: “We acknowledge your concerns, they are correct, and nothing is changing.” Lady GaGa would be disappointed, 2K. I read your poker face before the game began.