DRM is still one of the biggest topics this year. Some people hate it, some people don’t care, and a few people are sympathetic to the fight against piracy.

Well, it seems like EA decided to make DRM unbelievably obnoxious fun by making the game’s registration a cute little number puzzle. And by “cute little number puzzle,” I mean a bunch of copies of Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 were shipped out with only 19 characters in what is supposed to be a 20-digit serial number. EA’s first word of advice? Why, just try guessing the last number of course!

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. 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. If this does not work, you can follow the instructions below.

The instructions they refer to are other ways of contacting them (such as phone or email). So while the first reaction to EA’s “solution” might be WTF? it seems that they’re at least offering a something besides going through a half hour of pre-recorded customer service messages. In fact, you could even sit there trying to plug in numbers while you’re waiting on the line to speak to a customer service rep.

So readers, do you think this is a viable solution or a cop out? How many of you will be puzzling over the mysterious 20th digit?

Source: Gizmodo via EA

Tags: Command And Conquer, customer service, DRM, EA, Red-Alert-3

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3 Comments » Jonathan Zungre on November 3, 2008 2:50 pm wow. i usually don’t have any sympathy for the DRM issue, but this is pretty bad. Sam Naylor on November 3, 2008 2:59 pm The keys have been around for yonks, and letting customers know that a guess will suffice is a good strategy. It saves everyone time and money. Carl on November 3, 2008 3:23 pm Ea understands that you should punish the people that pay money for your games. Thus reward those that steal them. It is simple business 101 and EA really understands why you want to piss of the consumer. RSS feed for comments on this post. Comment Now Note: Commenting on Ripten does not currently require registration, however to be eligible for contests on the site, you must be a registered user. Name (required) Mail (will not be published) (required) Website Commenting Rules: No hate speech allowed. If you must argue, please debate intelligently. Comments containing selected keywords or outbound links will be put into moderation to help prevent spam. Ripten reserves the right to delete comments and ban anyone who doesn't follow the rules. Thanks. Notify me of followup comments Tired of the Goomba? Upload your own custom comment avatar.