14 DAY TRIAL // Alpha Protocol has been much delayed, but it seems that the spy-oriented, role-playing action hybrid will be launched on May 28 in Europe and three days later in the United States. And, now, SEGA, the publisher of the video-game, has announced that it plans to use the Uniloc Digital Rights Management solution in order to limit the impact of piracy on the Alpha Protocol.
The Uniloc system has also been used in Football Manager 2009 and some players have reported having problems with the online authentication process. SEGA has then said that high demand for the game and a problem with how the keys are printed are to blame for issues with Football Manager 2009 and that Uniloc is not to be held responsible.
The official Uniloc site says, “SoftAnchor provides a single set of tools for all the pieces of the licensing, digital-rights management, and distribution solution that you choose to implement. There's no need to send your staff away to ‘tool camp’ to learn a battery of new tools and techniques. Just learn to use one part of SoftAnchor and you're completely covered across the board.” The site also mentions that the solution is handling the issue of DRM “politely” and “unobtrusively.”
The announcement related to the Alpha Protocol is a surprise because high-profile SEGA releases like Napoleon: Total War used the Steamworks system offered by Valve. It's not clear whether the Alpha Protocol will use both systems or just one of them. Uniloc lists Merscom, Maximum Software and Markzware among its customers, but SEGA is the biggest profile customer it has.
Recently, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 launched on Steam using SecuROM protection, but DICE and Electronic Arts removed it in one of the patches that it had launched. The same might happen with the Alpha Protocol when it comes out.