Direct2Drive Questions

MusicallyInspired

I can't seem to find the answers to the questions I'm asking on the website. What's Direct2Drive's DRM handling like? Do you download a physical copy that you can install independent of any D2D software or the internet? It does say something about online activation. I'm just wondering what the differences are. Obviously I'm getting the impression you don't have to have something like Steam running to play the game, but how much more independent is it than Steam?

SHODANFreeman

From what I've heard, once it's installed and activated, it's good to go until you uninstall it, and doesn't require another program to start it up like Steam releases do, afaik.

Arodin

I've bought over 20 games on Direct2Drive over the last 4-5 years, and I haven't had any major problems. They use a Download Manager software for downloading the game files, the software works fine and the download is usually pretty fast. Once downloaded, you run the game's setup file directly on your computer, and if you want you can leave the setup files on your computer in case you ever want to install it again another time without having to re-download it (of course the setup files take up a bunch of HD space). Once installed, you have to enter a key that is provided to you on the D2D site to "activate" the game over the internet. You can look up this key in your account page on the site whenever you want. I think there is some sort of offline activation option too, but I've always done it online. Once activated, you can then run the game directly off of your hard drive whether you are online or offline without running any other software.

One time I hit an activation limit with the game Titan Quest cause it's one of those games that I occasionally get interested in playing again so I had reinstalled it several times. I sent an email to their customer service and the next day they had added more activations onto my account.