Quantum Break Makes Light Of Piracy

I'm hearing mostly bad things about Rememdy's Quantum Break [official site], not least of which is that the reliably unreliable Windows Store (in many ways the child of Games For Windows Live) is preventing our reviewer from getting into the damn thing. Remedy's approach to pirated copies of the game makes me want to like it, though.

Re-using a technique seen in Alan Wake on PC, if Quantum Break decides you're running a pirated copy, it sticks a skull'n'crossbones-adorned eyepatch onto lead character Jack Joyce. Rather than a punishment, this seems rather a comic touch, seems appealingly at odds with what is otherwise rather a dour affair.

However, DRM being DRM, the jape is showing up when it isn't supposed to, as acknowledged in this official FAQ. For instance, by being logged out of the Windows store when you start the game. This means you get to see the effect without doing anything naughty, but obviously it's a bit annoying if you wanted to play things entirely straight. If that happens, quitting the game, making sure you're logged into the Windows Store then loading it again should sort you out.

Of course, if you don't have Windows 10 you can't even buy the thing in the first place. Not that you're guaranteed to be able to even if you do have Windows 10 - our reviewer is currently locked out by miscellaneous Windows Store error messages.

It's a messy business for sure. Remedy aren't exactly defending the decision to make Quantum Break Win 10-exclusive, which I'm going to guess was a condition of having all those MSbucks injected into the game's budget. "The publisher decides where and on what platform to distribute the game" is their response to why they've done this.

They also say "Yet another publisher decision I'm afraid" in response to concerns about disproportionately high pricing in some territories.

Games For Windows Live is dead. OR IS IT?