Grand Theft Auto IV Is Broken

PC opinion by Bart Robson, published on Sunday 7th December 2008

I was pleasantly surprised, the other day, to find a copy of GTA IV on my doorstep. GTA has always been best on the PC, with fast performance and a great modding community. I’ve honestly been looking forward to this version.

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The installation has taken me nearly two hours. The game itself is on two DVDs, amounting to a whopping 14GB of data plopped onto my hard drive. That’s more than Crysis. Still, I’m a PC gamer, so I’m used to big games. Then the activation came. GTA IV uses SecuROM, that garbage software that ruined Crysis: Warhead by giving you only three installs, and connecting to the internet every time you wanted to play. After waiting for GTA to install, I was ready to play.

The game wasn’t, though.

First, I had to activate the game through SecuROM. Fine. However, the application refused to connect to the internet, declaring I was “offline”. Really? News to me, considering I’ve been playing the copy-protection-free World At War online all day. Apparently, this isn’t an uncommon problem, since Rockstar and SecuROM have a website dedicated to creating an offline activation fix. How is SecuROM still in business? What company in their right mind would choose a security method so secure that it doesn’t let anyone play?

screenshot

After generating my offline activation code, which required a code pulled from GTA’s install and my serial key, I was getting a little cheesed. Still, the game wasn’t ready to let me play. I had to sign up for Rockstar Social Club, a stat-tracking website I honestly don’t care about, and linking that account to my Windows Live account, in turn linked to my Xbox Live Account. The amount of tabs and windows open in my browser was ridiculous. Do you know how many browser windows I should have open when I’m installing a game?

Zero.

I’m installing a game, not signing up for Netflix. Finally, after creating this unholy trinity of accounts, I clicked “play”. Oh dear, now I have to wait for the Rockstar Social Club application to update. Hooray, that’s updated, time to play!

Nope!

Time to download the new Games For Windows Live client. Are these people serious? Did anyone sit down and run an install during QA and think “this is acceptable”? If they did, fire them. This process is tedious, unnecessary and above all, stupid. I should not have to have Games for Windows Live and Social Club running to start the game. How many extra applications should I have when I run a game?

ZERO!

After this odyssey of boredom and frustration, I was finally able to play the game. My beast of a PC would finally display Liberty City as I’d never seen it before. Not so: According to Rockstar, “Most users using current PC hardware as of December 2008 are advised to use medium graphics settings. Higher settings are provided for future generations of PCs with higher specifications than are currently widely available.”

screenshot

An offline activation tool was available, on the site mentioned above. I put in my code, serial number, etc, and finally installed the game properly. In the game however, I’ve made no progress. Games For Windows Live, Microsoft’s attempt to unify the PC as a gaming platform, is required to play GTA IV. Not just to play it: to save it. What on Earth? What is the point of that? I can understand it being required for online play, but to disable something as basic as saving progress offline is utterly dumbfounding.

It’s a shame, really. GTAIV was my game of the year on the Xbox 360, and it’s sad to see a port so crippled by DRM software and poor application integration. I’m not the only one, either - Kotaku posted a comprehensive article on the bugs, install errors, and woes experienced by unlucky gamers. Nvidia has released a set of beta hardware drivers to increase performance in the demanding game.

Grand Theft Auto IV is a masterpiece of a game. Unfortunately, it looks like not many people on the PC are going to think so; this version of GTA IV will become the posterchild for the negative effects of DRM. The game is so frustrating to install, so infuriatingly intent on preventing piracy that it shoots itself in the foot. The ridiculous level of security in this game is only going to inspire pirates and discourage customers. I just feel lucky that I received a free press copy. If I had paid for this, I’d be livid.

Comments

Matt Smith
7th December 2008

This is completely unacceptable. I would have liked to play GTA IV multi-player on a PC, but alas, Rockstar apparently has decided the whole "making money" business plan is for losers.
Josh Kramer
7th December 2008

It's astounding to me the lengths companies go to actually ENGENDER piracy. Take the simple concept of regional lock out, for example. Back in the PSOne days I imported some games and had to mod my system to play legitimate Japanese software. Because my system was modded it could also play pirated games. Do you think when a friend offered to give me some of his copied PS titles that I turned him down?
Frisk
7th December 2008

And that's why GTA will always be best played on consoles….
Mteinarmzcksfn
7th December 2008

Frisk, GTA has always been best on PC. GTA IV is bad because Rockstar decided to be idiots.
mich
7th December 2008

all this to protect a game that has already been cracked? think of it no game goes to the market without being cracked really companies should not waste their time on such nonsense and start focusing on improving their games
Alex
7th December 2008

Pirated copies don't activate online, duh.

The rest problems do exist on legal copies too, but you wouldn't know.
Jeroen Brattinga
7th December 2008

My installation didn't take nearly as long (about 30 mins). And I already had the latest G4WL (since I also play Fallout 3 and Flatout Ultimate Carnage) and a Rockstar Social Club account (read about that before the game came out).

I know this won't sound comforting, but not everyone had the same experience you had. It looked great on my (older) 8800GT and it really kicks ass on my new GTX 260.

Say what you want, but the game is really amazing. Too bad not everybody can enjoy it in its full glory.
grew
7th December 2008

Yeah, but that's not really the point. NO games should require extra programs, and the fact that a game like GTA shouldn't run like crap on a high-end PC. The HIGH settings are locked if you have less than 820mb of VRAM or so, which is just silly…
Prototype
7th December 2008

I installed this game in no more then 30 mins, and was able to play right out of the box. Windows live is kinda nice if you ask me (maybe becuase I already have a Xbox gamer tag). The game gave me no errors, the only thing I can complain about is it doesn't run to great and it doesn't have SLi support yet. And you don't need to have it on high to look loads better then the console version, and it pretty much always plays better if you ask me.
sid
7th December 2008

I bought this game the day it came out, yeah the DRM sucks, and you are limited to crappy video settings, its a good fun game though, just hope they sort out the problems in a patch, (i have a 9800GX2 on medium settings, boo!)
John
7th December 2008

I couldn't wait for this game. Took the time to install and register both at the Social Club and Games for Windows Live. I think it only took me about an hour to install and register. Then at that moment of anticipation when you first fire up the game… "ERROR MMA10". What the hell does that mean? After about an hour Googling and forum reading, I found that if I didn't log into Social Club, I could start the game and work around this error. Eventually they fixed it, but I had friends get the same thing and got refunds from Steam. Too bad though, it is a fun game.
Hadge
7th December 2008

The whole DRM and secureROM thing is a joke, its seriously getting to the point where people who would normally go out and buy games will end up downloading them since the hacker groups all seem to be able to disable the security anyway. Is it just the extra graphics which mean that the pc version is 2X the size of the xbox one? or is there extra content?
GeneralTar
7th December 2008

Yep many issues with GTA IV I broke down and had to buy it, but now I feel like with a patch and a good set of ongoing content updates GTA IV should shape up really nice for the X-box and the PC both. Saints Row 2 will still own this in a matter of more crazy/fun things and better coop hands down. Ive been down with GTA since day 1 and I have to admit Saints Row 2 and 3 will cripple R*'s GTA franchise a bit for the first time ever.
Jamie
8th December 2008

THIS GAME IS BULLS&%T!! Why oh why on earth have a game like THIS… and NOT be able to SAVE YOUR PROGRESS, simply because I don't want to play it online? RIDICULOUS!! I want my $47 back!!
HAXXED
8th December 2008

I got a cracked copy at a lan. installed the game skipped any key authentication and played. Tada! 1hour after sticking the virtual image on my pc im of and playing and i CAN SAVE!!!:O

now all of you are probably going @_@ bonkers at me. enjoy your DRM :D
Tarao
10th December 2008

Well done rockstar, well done. See you in hell.
tito
29th December 2008

Hi
I just want to ask you how did you get the serial code becasue i can't find it,i would really appreciate it if you would help me.thanks.
Gerardo
11th January 2009

I too, need the serial number :(
i lost it and only have the cds remaining and now i cant play it unless i have the serial number.
Matt Wadleigh
11th January 2009

You won't find any of that stuff here, guys.
Kamigawa
20th January 2009

I just started to look around on the internet becouse I find installing all this s*** cant be possible if you only wanna play offline, so I thought there might be like a different installation menu or whatever! I mean it's rockstars, they usually think about everything! (right?)Then I read this article, and now Im just going to put the game on the shelf and let it collect dust and play some vice city instead!
As have been said before…
Great job rockstars… FAIL! You just lost a big fan!
Stymieblue
27th January 2009

Ok, first of all, if you need to find the serial code it is located where most codes are…on the back of the handbook contained within the legal copy of the retail version in stores.

Second, this story read exactly as my own does, onyl difference is, I paid for this peice of crap, and when I put in my serial code, it too said I was not connected to the internet. But if that wasnt enough, the serial I have is apparently not a valid serial…go figure.

$50 bucks out the window, I am taking this one back and saving my money for a couple more months of Warcraft. As long as companies make it un-fun for people to play a game, then those same people are eventually going to stop gaming on the pc and move on to something better.

If anyone ever finds out why this serial is invalid, please forward your finding to me.

Waiting on a reply from Rockstar…
Eric
17th March 2009

I love this article, its a good thing it made me laugh cause I just bought the game and I was about to flip until I read this article. You did a great job in making it farther than me though. Either I am missing the game manual (all my box came with was the “Survival Guide To Liberty City” and the poster with the map on the back), or Rocktard (that is how I have started referring to them) didnt print the Serial Key on the back of my manual (that is if the manual is “Survival Guide To Liberty City”).
NavinJohnson
25th April 2009

I wish that I had seen this review before forking over the money for this piece of garbage. If I had known that I would have to sign up for two POS accounts with RS and Microso$t, I’d have put it right back on the shelf. I buy it, it’s mine. No on-line gaming, no Rockstar Friends, I don’t care.

So, having actually paid for the game, I install it (45 mins). Then, it asks me for two accounts (30 minutes). Activation requires another 15 minutes. After that, I try to start it…. CRASH. Looking for some kind of support on Rockstar takes another 20 minutes, with no luck. Then I finally find a patch, download and install takes 10 minutes… and the game still crashes. (My PC is brand new, bought four months ago and has no visible problems even with Adobe CS4.)

So now I have a non-working game, full of DRM garbage that has all kind of requirements and I’m extremely pissed off. There’s no support, just visible happy messages from the marketing department.

Save your money and don’t buy this game. I’m never, EVER buying a Rockstar product again.
Dave
28th April 2009

I went and bought this last night and i don’t have internet at all on my computer, so i frigging install it go through all the BS serial codes and activation crap for offline stuff, and finally it accepts my offline activation code. OK so start it up hit the play button and… verifying release date… wait a second i just did this manually!!!! i try to click the manually activate button again? no, it doesn’t do anything. . . well, fuck i guess I’m gonna have to go find some public internet to play this ridiculously protected and overburdened piece of software. Still haven’t got it working though so i wasted forty bucks on a game that’s not user friendly at all, and i don’t know why it wont work but really i don’t care. i just felt like *****ing cause i stayed up all night trying to figure this piece of crap out. Wish me luck tomorrow…
Chris
2nd June 2009

got gta 4 pc from tesco the other day, £24. i dont have internet so tried to install it using my dad’s computer and the offline activation tool. all i keep getting is ‘application terminated.’

Well ya know what rockstar, ‘you’re terminated’ i’m never buying one of ur games again.
Nate
8th June 2009

It takes one !@#$ of a game to get me to overlook such barbaric and game-ruining practices. similarly, MGS4’s online counterpart requires an absurdly long registration process (that near requires a separate computer) along with two accounts, several unique names and passwords with different requirements (all #’s mix of #’s and letters, mix with capital letters… crazy stuff you’ll never remember). It’s the only reason I haven’t purchased the add-on content, I don’t even remember the “wil I ever use this” password needed.
Weaver
8th June 2009

My game installed and runs just fine, the driving controls are such a mess though that it completely makes the game unplayable.
SuperSparky
9th June 2009

When it comes to stupid stuff in software, it almost always involves the Marketing Department. If there’s one thing that screws up a great piece of software, is when the marketing department puts in their requirements. All of that extra software is for marketing to track your usage, to give them “demographics data” to target advertising and other specifics in a game.

Seriously, these people get off on numbers and statistics. Anything that keeps track they want.

I’d be willing to bet it was the Marketing department that made exclusive rights deals with Microsoft and Windows Live. I can assure you all of the “crap” was a result of idiots in suits, and not the programmers.
Phade
9th June 2009

This is why I pirate games. I downloaded GTA 4. Once it was finished I spent half an hour installing it (ISO’s install faster than dvds) and I then could play it. Of course I bought the game at the first moment I could but the box still lies unopened in my desk. If this happens again I intend to just stop giving my money to companies who obviously don’t care about their customers. What happened Rockstar? You used to be cool
Sean
10th June 2009

1) Go buy a 360 or PS3. Consoles are quickly approaching and/or surpassing computers on all gaming fronts except RTS games and Mod Community. I don’t even have to push a specific button to turn on my 360. Disk goes in, game starts, I’m 2 hours into GTA4 while you’re still bitching.
2) Shut the hell up. I’m sick of reading articles from PC gamers about problems that routinely show up in what seems to be 70 percent of PC games. Buy a console or don’t complain
3) Why the fuck is stumbleupon bringing up articles 6 months old?
Bart
10th June 2009

Sean, I’ve been a PC gamer for years and I’ve experienced minimal problems with most games. I’m sorry if my “bitching” offended you, but it wasn’t designed as a pro-PC or anti-console piece: I own GTAIV on my Xbox 360, also. I was just excited about the prospect of it running on PC, considering the past GTA games have had a great mod community and have generally run better on a PC. Turns out, that wasn’t the case with IV. At any rate, if you hate PC-related things so much, I’d suggest not bothering to click them when they show up on StumbleUpon.
Aleks
10th June 2009

Get it on Steam. Period.
Derben
12th June 2009

Hi there. Yes, it is absolutely not acceptable, and i have no idea what is going on at QA there.

I think this usage of DRM will only drive away more
and more customers. There is absolutely no way more people are going to buy a game, especially is you need a master degree just for installation.
Its ironical that the pirated version installs very smooth without messing around with you.
Squiggoth
13th June 2009

Dawn of War 2 has the same problems: you have to install Games for Windows Live AND Steam

Oh, it’s also horsepiss compared to the first Dawn of War, they basically decided to themselves “Gee, we’ve got a game on our hands that is capable of giving Starcraft 2 a run for it’s money, what should we do?”

“I know, let’s completely fuck the dog on this one and remove everything that made the first game good to make it Dawn of War: Company of Heroes 40K”
G. Lynn
16th June 2009

To Sean: Hear Hear.

The real problem is people wanting their pc to do as well at playing games as a game console. This is, as several important historians have put it, “stupid”. What is truly ironic here is that, with its otb support for a secondary oss, the ps3 makes a better pc most pc gamers already have. Plus it’s harder to trade in your last gen pc hardware every few years then a game console. So, quicherbichen, and shell out the few extra bux to play your games properly, on a console
Nick Akerman
16th June 2009

G.Lynn, I think you’ll find it costs more to run games on a PC…especially high-end stuff.
James
17th June 2009

Important historians play PC videogames? How does history show that PC gaming is crap when the format has been on top in every generation other than the current one? If anything it would show that using a PC for gaming is a big advantage, surely.
Matt Wadleigh
17th June 2009

I don’t understand the “anti-PC” gaming movement. I’ve not had an issue installing and playing a PC game in years and I’m hardly a technical expert. Playing games on the PC is easier than ever. It might not be quite as simple as popping a game into a console and playing it, but I’m not a retard, either.
mixerman3d
20th June 2009

and best of all, I was playing a cracked version that was fully working within 1 week of it coming out…and it ran better then the retail version

all that work to protect the game was pointless in the end
mixerman3d
20th June 2009

@G. Lynn,

the problem is…first person shooters are probably the least fun on consoles. and pc games are modable. people can make as much content as they want or even transform a game into something completely different. anyone that has played games from valve would respect this. consoles are for casual gamers. why dont you spend the actual money and be a real gamer. not to mention…pc’s have already surpassed the consoles in graphic capabilities and you get to wait another 5 years for next generation of consoles again!
J.T.
24th June 2009

Its sad to see that the the software blocking piracy are actually making it more appealing to pirate a game.
Jay
27th June 2009

isn’t GTA IV available on steam? and if so, is it any better? im thinking of buying this game on my steam account but after reading this im not so sure.

cheers.
Tyrone
27th June 2009

Funny, a “friend of mine” pirated this game cracked and didn’t have to deal with ANY of that crap. As long as the pirates deliver better customer service than the game producers themselves, piracy looks like the way to go.
funny
28th June 2009

What’s most funny about this is that if you pirate the game you don’t have to deal with some of the annoying things you’ve mentioned. So basically, heavy copy protection only encourages people to find the pirated games that have been stripped of the more frustrating parts of DRM
Hivemind
19th July 2009

Just get the one on Steam, minimal fuss and works great. Still needed those stupid accounts though…
Anthony Gaglianese
23rd July 2009

Reasons like this are why, although I find the experience vastly superior, I have all but given up on PC gaming. It is getting to the point where pointless DRM management and all these other things used to make the gaming ‘experience’ more ’socially connected’ are getting in the way of ACTUALLY PLAYING THE DAMN GAME.
g
2nd August 2009

as u can see the fault has only appylied to some cars there be something wrong in the coding of the handling.cfg file
Steve
9th August 2009

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! That was funny. I got the game off of steam and I had to only the social club thing. After that I could play the once downloaded then I could save and do all of that other stuff offline. It might have been online but I don’t think so because I my internet fails most parts of the day.
Shabbir H.M
24th December 2009

GTA IV Such bad game ever realsed. Securom , windows live and social club very bad things in gta iv.