Dragon Age II SecuROM debate continues

BioWare and EA's public relations nightmare continues, as vocal anti-DRM groups accuse the company of failing to declare Dragon Age II's SecuROM-related Sony Release Control.

Embittered opponents of DRM have continued to raise the issue of Dragon Age II's alleged use of SecuROM technology on the game's forums, protesting that BioWare and EA failed to inform consumers of the presence of any rights management software present in Dragon Age II, and to debate the distinction between SecuROM and Sony Release Control.

Both BioWare and EA have reached out to anti-DRM consumer watchdog Reclaim Your Game in an effort to nip the crisis in the bud, but the organisation has declined to assist in calming the outrage in the face of what it considers dishonesty on both companies' parts.

Reclaim Your Game kicked things off almost two weeks ago by spotting a number of suspicious files in Dragon Age II's PC installation, which it linked with known SecuROM technology.

Prior to the game's release, both BioWare and EA had been staunch in their insistence that Dragon Age II would not feature SecuROM digital rights management.

The news spread quickly to the BioWare forums, where vocal complaints and accusations brought a number of responses from BioWare staff. Derek French, Fernando Melo and Chris Priestly each argued that the files found related to an entirely separate product - Sony Release Control - which was developed by the SecuROM team but does not form part of the notoriously unpopular protection suite. French did confirm that the Release Control implementation within Dragon Age II is "sloppy", and requires a fix in order to ensure it is deleted after initial use.

Thanks, Blue.