After a six month investigation in cooperation with Microsoft’s Counterfeit Investigation unit, the Singapore police last week seized over a thousand pieces of pirated Microsoft software as well as twelve tablet PCs that had unlicensed Windows 7 installed.

The police raided warehouses in Changi, Pasir Ris, Chinatown and Bukit Batok to uncover a covert counterfeit software ring that operates across China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia.

…

Driving a bulldozer over a bunch of illegal set-top boxes seems to be part of the job of an assistant vice-president in StarHub these days, a photo that we just received from the company appears to suggest.

We’re told later that AVP for pay-TV services, Andrea Tay, didn’t really operate the bulldozer – because you need a licence for that – but instead she was posing as part of a StarHub campaign to show how it is dealing with the persistent threat of pirated pay-TV boxes.

At a Kranji recycling company this morning, the company destroyed about 3oo set-top boxes bound for Singapore homes. According to a StarHub spokesman, they were intercepted at various customs checkpoints on separate occasions and rounded up for destruction today, though she declined to say when these boxes were picked up.  …

First it was Dawn Of War 2, and now it is Empire Total War. War is out in the open, but the battle it seems is against piracy.

ETW is the second game I have reviewed this month that also needs a Steam log-in, and therefore Internet access, to activate and play the game, even if you are just up against the computer AI.

This is a big problem for users who do not have regular broadband access as it can take several hours just to update the first round of patches, and that’s on my 100 Mbps line. After you activate the game for the first time via Steam, you can choose to run the game in “offline” mode which then lets you run the game without Net access but you will still need to have the game updated to the latest patch for this to run. In other words, you cannot quite play a Steam-enabled game without Net access.

The good thing about Steam is that it handles all your game patches automatically so your game is always updated to the latest patches. Steam is also a form of anti-piracy tool since you always have to log-in before you start the game. The really cool thing about Steam however is that you all the games you have purchased, whether as a direct download or from retail shops, can be downloaded into any other PC although you can only play on one at a time.                

There has been some discussion lately about Dawn Of War 2 and how it is sucky becoz we have to install Steam to play the single player campaigns even. Here’s something I wrote recently on this issue.
IT JUST does not make sense that a single-player PC game, which you play on your own, would require you to have an Internet connection for you to play against the computer.

However, that is exactly the case with the just-released Dawn Of War 2 (DOW2).

As I was tearing the shrinkwrap off the box of this THQ-published title, I was surprised to see these words in red: Internet Connection Required.

…

Yes. you heard it right. Even if you are playing a single player campaign or a 1vs1 skirmish against the computer. You need to first launch Steam and log in to Steam for the game to even launch. And this is not just for initial activation, but for subsequent plays. So when I tried to run the game without logging into Steam, nothing happens at all. The game doesn’t even launch. I log into Steam and the game loads.

It’s quite obvious what these guys are trying to do – they are trying to fight piracy. But they end up alienating the users. I have played RTS since the first Dune 2, and I have never had to go online to fight against the computer. In fact, I have never played a PC game that requires me to do this, unless it is an MMOG like World Of Warcraft.

I understand that piracy is really killing the PC business, but in an environment where console games are outselling PC games (revenues for console games are about 8x more than PC games worldwide) and beating the shit out of them, you don’t want to make you legitimate PC gamers angry.

And what about selling to the countries without much of a Net penetration? Or have they given up on these countries altogether?

Update: Some forumers are asking if this will work if Steam is running in offline mode. I will try that tonight. Another issue is whether you need to have a Windows Live account logged-in to play. Will also test that tonight. But having played this game for about 6 hours, I do like it a lot.