EA Recommends Hilarious Work-Around For RA3 CD-Key

sunderbear noted that EAs Command & Conquer 3 shipped missing the last digit of the CD Key. He writes "EA's brightest minds have put their synapses into overdrive in order to whip up a comical work-around. 'There is currently a work-around that may allow you to bypass this issue. Since you have the first 19 characters of the code already, you can basically try guessing the last character,' said a note on EA's customer support site. Yes, they're serious. 'To do this, simply enter your existing code, and then for the last character, try the letters A-Z, and then the numbers 0-9. You should eventually get the right combination, and be able to play the game.'" It appears that the helpful hint has been purged.

No longer true

[404 Clue Not Found (763556)]

My god. The summary links to an article that links to an article that links to the actual customer support post.
Direct link: http://help.commandandconquer.com/cgi-bin/eacandc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=20760 [commandandconquer.com]

The post no longer mentions the workaround (the summary even mentions this now, so why even post the story?). It merely says to contact EA Customer Support now. The same page also says that the problem only affects SOME, not all, units. Full quote:

Q:
What can I do if my Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 install code is 19 characters instead of 20?

A:
If you are trying to install Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 and the code is only 19 characters long, then it is missing the last letter or number. This was due to a misprint on a small number of manuals and we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

In order to get a replacement code, please click the "Contact Us" link on the left side of the page to send an e-mail to our team.

If you would like you can also contact us by phone using the number found on page 28 of your manual.

Re:No longer true

[by Anonymous Coward]

What if the phone number in the manual is only 9 characters instead of 10?

Re:No longer true

[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

What if the phone number in the manual is only 9 characters instead of 10?

Well, you guess. In this case guessing might be a lot more fun.

You: "Huh? Only 9 digits...let's try lucky 7 for the last number."
Phone: *ring*
Phone: "Helllloooo. You've reached the HOT line, where sexy women are waiting to hear from you. Please press 1 nowwww...."

HOT sexy women

[Sparr0 (451780)]

They would probably be more helpful...

Re:HOT sexy women

[Hinhule (811436)]

Well, their job is all about service mind.

Re:HOT sexy women

[Hydrian (183536)]

"Sorry sir, this is not not a domination and submissive line. We do not do Command & Conquer"

Re:No longer true

[indifferent children (842621)]

I have no idea why.

In the US, local governments are allowed to place restrictions on 1-900-based sex lines (I know someone who worked at one). The caller-id info from the incoming call is checked against a database, to see if the 'actor' must limit their conversation to: 'G', 'PG', 'R', or 'X' content. I assume that this is a "local standards of decency" argument, that does not apply if a non-toll line is used (if a toll-line is used, then the business that is charging you (the phone company) is necessarily within your jurisdiction; if you use a credit-card then it is "interstate trade". IANAL).

If you ever call such a service, and the actor speaks in euphamisms ("I love to lick lollipops, stick to tip, for hours"), then you probably live in a restrictive jurisdiction. The service usually won't tell you about the restriction (or how to get around it by using a credit card), because they want to keep you on the line. And no, that doesn't make sense to me either; they should be able to reap higher revenues by having you call back with a credit card to get what you really want.

Here's a neat idea

[jonaskoelker (922170)]

Here's an idea: have a steamy hot sexy female voice say, to those who aren't allowed X-rated content,

For X-rated content, dial back with your credit card

and continue the call as normally.

On the other hand, I must admit that I do like the idea of gnawing on melons while my new greasemonkey friend works on my gear shift while oiling up before taking a joyride. Nothing like fresh fruit when you're fixing cars with friends.

I must confess, though, that I've always wondered why women are so impressed with my ABS and the size of my drive shaft :-?

Re:No longer true

[Bandman (86149)]

warfail?

Re:No longer true

[Dunbal (464142)]

the problem only affects SOME, not all, units.

      Yes, and we trust EA on that one, right?

      Yet another reason not to buy anything published by EA.

Re:

[poetmatt (793785)]

Don't worry, I think RA3 uses securom as well.

They'll learn, someday, but remember! they'll use less DRM just like the last DRM they used! /sarcasm

Re:No longer true

[theaveng (1243528)]

>>>EA will learn, someday

I'm sure they will eventually stop using DRM, but corporations are a lot like women. Reluctant.

At first.

Re:No longer true

[Lumpy (12016)]

the problem is they took westwood studios and turned them into festering crap.

I so wish EA would go away. They keep consuming game companies that are good and turning them into poo...

Re:

[icepick72 (834363)]

By clerical error the Contact Us link and page 28 of your manual are also missing.

Re:No longer true

[d0n0vAn (1382471)]

What if I paid with only the first 15 digits of my credit card?

Electronic Asshats

[mfh (56)]

This new sub-game called "CIA unlock" puts you in the shoes of a CIA agent attempting to gain access to a secure terrorist computer subsystem. The first 19 characters are given to you, but you need to randomly crack the last digit before the timer runs out and the game deletes your hard drive. If you win the game, you get to play again by pressing a reset button.

Rumors are circling from insiders at EA, that the next amazing title from EA will enable players to enter the shoes of Joe a shoe salesman from Kentucky. Joe has a problem. He can't find the right shoe for his fat smelly customer. Players will only be able to play if they purchase and install the F.O.U.L. hardware (FOUL stands for Fresh Olfactory Universal Layer.), and you get more points from actually smelling and withstanding more and more disgusting customers. The final boss of the game is a 700 pound woman that has never bathed, and who has developed nearly every possible degenerative skin condition. The game fills your house with something totally unbearable and if you can find her a pair of good shoes after she tries on about twenty or so different ones and tells you about her whole life history, then you get to have an achievement added to your online profile, aptly named the Bundy award, named after Married With Children's Al Bundy, a reputed shoe salesman with class and pinache. Pre-orders start tomorrow and EA expects massive sales on this amazing title, that is loaded with DRM that actually forces customers to perform lude acts with garden utensils for the purpose of cultivating data necessary for visual biometrics to prove the copy of the game is legit. EA denies that anyone who cracks the game will not be able to play, and a spokesperson from EA that shall remain nameless, went on record saying that customers would never play without FOUL hardware because they wouldn't have the benefit of the use of the FOUL hardware, which is revolutionary and next generation by design.

Re:

[theaveng (1243528)]

>>>you get more points from actually smelling and withstanding more and more disgusting customers.

I used to be a shoe salesman in college. Contrary to the post above, you actually get to meet lots of young high-school or college-aged women who are often very beautiful (being young), and often dress with low necklines. When they bend over, they expose all their "charms" to the salesman's eye.

Best. Damn. Job. Ever.

For a college student anyway. ;-) The pay was decent too because I averaged $15 a

Re:Electronic Asshats

[truthsearch (249536)]

"People who work putting shoes on fat women who wear dresses should not have 20/20 vision."

"Let me explain. It's just like an elevator. There's a 2 ton weight limit on those shoes..."

"Sure selling shoes is fun. But behind the glamour, it's like any other minimum wage slow death."

- Al Bundy

Circumvention?

[IndustrialComplex (975015)]

Certainly they didn't just post details of how to circumvent a copy protection measure, right?

Re:Circumvention?

[LordKronos (470910)]

No, they didn't. Are you circumventing the copy protection when you enter the CD-Key that they give you? Of course not, so how are you circumventing it when the company itself tells you how to register its own product?

Re:Circumvention?

[Objix (1354161)]

Well, that's the whole point. They HAVEN'T given you a CD-Key. If they did, you wouldn't need to guess. What they have given you is a unique hint at a CD-Key. Guessing the remainder of the CD-Key is circumvention.

"without the authority of the copyright owner"

[tepples (727027)]

Guessing the remainder of the CD-Key is circumvention.

But because the copyright owner (EA) has authorized this circumvention, it doesn't violate USA anti-circumvention law. From 17 USC 1201(a)(3), with my emphasis: "to 'circumvent a technological measure' means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner".

Re:Circumvention?

[raehl (609729)]

UHV2 MCHT IMON YURH NDS

Re:Circumvention? (Yes it is)

[John Jamieson (890438)]

It is circumventing. The protection/DRM is designed to require a whole "CD-Key" and lock out anyone who does not have it.

Whether you are missing one letter or 15, you are employing a Brute force attack to circumvent the system that requires a whole key.

Whether it is endorsed or not does not change what it is.

An Aside - I would not call this DRM Copy Protection. It does not prevent copying the DVD, just using it. (minor quibble, but that is another topic)

Re:Circumvention?

[by Anonymous Coward]

To circumvent entirely, simply repeat the guessing procedure with characters 1 to 19.

Re:Circumvention?

[skuzzlebutt (177224)]

That was my thought as well...guessing one digit is OK, but guessing all nineteen is a brute force attack? How many digits can I guess before I am in violation of the DMCA?

Re:Circumvention?

[swillden (191260)]

That was my thought as well...guessing one digit is OK, but guessing all nineteen is a brute force attack? How many digits can I guess before I am in violation of the DMCA?

Feel free to guess them all. Failure to circumvent copy protection is perfectly legal.

Another helpful hint

[joeflies (529536)]

Statistically you should be able to guess the right letter/number in half the keyspace. But in practice, it will always be the very last character you need to try.

So take the character that you were going to start with, and take the very opposite character in order to improve your chances of getting the correct entry faster.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

So take the character that you were going to start with, and take the very opposite character in order to improve your chances of getting the correct entry faster.

What's the "opposite" of seven?

Re:Another helpful hint

[Pvt_Ryan (1102363)]

Statistically you should be able to guess the right letter/number in half the keyspace. But in practice, it will always be the very last character you need to try.

Are you retarded??

Of course it will be the last letter you try.. Why on earth would you keep guessing after you have got the correct character??

Re:

[Pvt_Ryan (1102363)]

^^ Sorry that sounds a tad harsh, was meant as a jibe. Insert similies where applicable.

Re:Another helpful hint

[lazynomer (1375283)]

Insert similies where applicable.

Not sure how that helps. *shrugs* But okay.

Are you retarded like a braindead gorilla?? Of course it will be the last letter you try.. Why on earth would you keep guessing after you have got the correct character?? Then you would be like a drunken anteater!!

Re:Another helpful hint

[autophile (640621)]

Sorry that sounds a tad harsh, was meant as a jibe. Insert similies where applicable.

Okay, your post was like lemon juice on a wound.

Re:Another helpful hint

[Splab (574204)]

Think the joke went so far over your head it managed to achieve static orbit.

The point is, even though you mathematically should get the right one in half of the key space, in practice it will always be at the very end - thus if you considered starting at A, reverse and go with Z.

Of course as we know this wont work since that would mean the key would be at A anyways.

Re:Another helpful hint

[gapagos (1264716)]

Statistically you should be able to guess the right letter/number in half the keyspace. But in practice, it will always be the very last character you need to try.

Reply by Pvt_Ryan: Are you retarded??

I wish we could have mod points for "astronomical retardation". And yes, I'm talking about Pvt_Ryan. :-P

Or you can presumably download it from Piratebay..

[Idaho (12907)]

.. and just copy/paste the serial from the .nfo-file once.

Not that I care about this game or am planning to buy, download or otherwise even look at it, but it's just another hilarious instance where the pirated version wins hands-down in the convenience department: apart from not needing the DVD to play the game, you don't even have to type the serial, never mind guessing what might be the last character because EA screwed up.

And even after such a major fuckup EA can't even be bothered to release a "no-serial" executable/installer themselves. Who cares, the customer^Wconsumer already paid for it anyway, what are they going to do about it?

Bruteforce is...

[hierro (809232)]

...like violence; if a little doesn't solve the problem, use more.

they don't realize the danger...

[binary.bang (1372881)]

now that they've revealed how their copy-protection scheme works, what's to stop the heinous pirates from using this advanced work around for the rest of the digits? The entire industry will crumble!

Eh, the game sucked

[FredFredrickson (1177871)]

I went out and bought the game, but to avoid their damn DRM, I instantly cracked it. I figure- best of both worlds. They get there money, I get to avoid Securerom!

But then I felt let down, it was kinda a waste of time/money...

Maybe I'm too used to command and conquer 3 and generals (zero hour), but I just cannot get used to the new computer players. I feel like defenses are severly limited in this game, and nothing is sacred. Turtling is not an option for this game. There is only one gameplay- fast, furious attacks. Don't even bother securing resources- you can't. You can't secure anything. Your job is to be the first to build a small army, and bomb the crap out of the other guys. Build resource gatherers later if you need them.

The resources usually run out just before the game gets good, and you're off to a really slow boring ending where nobody has anything left, and you're pretty much throwing sticks at eachother.

But back on the fact that you can't secure anything. They've made if very difficult to be secure. They have a few defenses- but they're typically as useful as if you weren't using them. Expect to rebuild almost every building in your base a few times- if you still need them.

I will repeat, this game is not the long drawn out strategic game as CNC, it is an abridged, attention deficit, ADHD game for those who get bored easily and don't care about building up. Hell, there aren't that many upgrades- so building up and teching up is useless anyway.

*I will admit, I wasn't an avid RA2 fan either.

Re:Eh, the game sucked

[Creepy Crawler (680178)]

That's why a bunch of us still play Total Annihilation, either straight or with a patch called TAWP.

That game allows extreme porc, octopus, rush, or hidden infiltrators. TAWP has some rather nasty vehicles (one being a bertha-car that fires 20+ screens in length). Add that to 1000 units per player for stable play, or 5k for unstable play :P

And it runs on damn near every computer since '98.

i always try to guess at least one key character

[tiedyejeremy (559815)]

It keeps my skillz l33t, yo.

Great idea!!

[PolarBearFire (1176791)]

That's the greatest idea ever! I'm going to save time by buying RA3 with my credit card and let EA guess the account number. Thanks EA!

More Fail

[canajin56 (660655)]

Man, out of all of the epic sequels released recently, it's been a giant litany of failure. Far Cry 2 with it's myriad of crashing issues, not to mention all of the instances where enemies / allies just don't appear as they are supposed to, forcing you to reload an earlier game and pray it's a one time bug. (And also the fact that it doesn't feature deformable terrain like they bragged about in interviews.) Fallout 3, with even more crashing issues, including a huge number of people who crash after the intro movie. In a move deemed "hilarious" the pirates have a patch out already that fixes Fallout 3, but Bethesda still does not. It fixes it by deleting the corrupted sound files so you miss some spoken dialog and have to see it on the closed caption instead, but at least you can play the game now. And now RA3 doesn't come with a valid CD key! At this rate the next PC release will give you cancer. And they'll still blame piracy for people not buying their "99% A+++++++ BUY OR DIE" games (according to the reviewers they own).

Obligatory Penny-Arcade reference

[gapagos (1264716)]

Obligatory Penny-Arcade reference [penny-arcade.com].

It's a Feature!

[kpainter (901021)]

You get to play this COOL bonus quest before you can play the game. Neat, huh!? It's a feature! Pretty soon, all the game manufacturers will be doing it.

Robo-DRM

[Grashnak (1003791)]

ED-209: [menacingly] Please guess the last number of the CD Key.You have 20 seconds to comply.

ED-209: You now have 15 seconds to comply. ...

Re:Why is this a big deal

[MightyYar (622222)]

I'm not sure why this is such a big deal.

People are laughing at it because it's just another example of copyright "protections" only inconveniencing paying customers. Pirates just run a key gen or download a serial online or run a crack.

So what do you want them to do?

Make it so I can put the disk in, click install, and play.

Re:Why is this a big deal

[number6ebf (739211)]

I would return the game to wherever I purchased it and ask for a replacement since the product is defective. I would open the package at the store to make sure I had a copy with the correct number of characters in the serial key. If the second copy was also defective I would continue to go through all the copies they had in the store until I either had a valid license key or until they ran out of copies. At that point I would then ask for my money back since all copies in the store are defective and I don't want the product at this point. The store should be able to return to EA for a full refund since they did ship faulty mechandise.

Re:Why is this a big deal

[Dunbal (464142)]

So what do you want them to do? Be psychic and send you the code before you even know you need it?

      No, that's what a quality assurance department is for - at least in any company that cares about the products it sells.

Yes, it would be best if there was no problem, but mistakes happen.

      Saying "mistakes happen" and leaving it at that, with no consequences, means the company is either too arrogant to admit that they are far from perfect and yet do nothing to "catch" these mistakes when they happen; or the company thinks saving $200k or so a year for a few QA people is far more important than inconveniencing their customers. Mistakes happen SO DO SOMETHING TO PREVENT THEM.

      I'd love to be able to get away with "mistakes happen" with my patients. "You didn't need that leg anyway".

Re:Why is this a big deal

[xouumalperxe (815707)]

It actually is one of the few relatively solid forms of copy protection, provided a large(-ish) part of your game is only meaningful online, preferably hosted by yourself. You just make sure you can only have one instance of the key logged in to the game. Of course, "non-official" servers ruin the deal, but not even the Battle.net emulators ever got all that far in popularity, AFAICT.