Problems Beyond The Final Fantasy VII PC Release Mistake
I am sure a lot of you have already heard about a page going up on the official Square-Enix page, that Final Fantasy VII was live and ready to be purchased. Bloggers went crazy, announcing that, It’s here! Word got out, and people were plastering articles on the web or announcing it on Facebook. A page like that just doesn’t go unnoticed. Only a short while later, the page was taken down and all links resulted in a 404 error page.
Though it was a mistake on Square-Enix’s part, probably mainly whoever was working on the site over the weekend, a lot of problems have arose for early purchasers.
Those who purchased it were unable to redeem their serial code, or get a refund. This was later addressed for most people. However some are having problems after uninstalling it. Those who are trying to uninstall the game are having SecuRom and DRM issues, that are causing further problems with their PCs.
A forum post on the official Square-Enix site by a user states:
I tracked down the source to services starting and stopping. These services are all related to error reporting and user experience services. I’ve seen problems out of Application Experience, which is related to aitagent.exe. This service randomly starts and stops at time when it is not scheduled, and would not cease until I disabled it. Problem Reports and Solutions Control Panel Support started doing the same thing immediately after.
My system is also hanging intermitently, which has not happened ever in three years since I built it. This is not due to a sudden performance demand.
The SecuRom software has something nasty in it that does not go away on uninstal. I’m not sure how it works yet because it is not detectable like a standard rootkit. This software also interferes with the operation of AdAware by preventing its GUI classes from executing. The task manager shows the process, but nothing else happens except when the application is launched by context menu.
Since this only happened during the weekend, and didn’t seem to affect a large amount of people, it has yet to be resolved on Square-Enix’s end. However, something like this could make one look poorly on the company if it is not addressed quickly. It’s unsure how widespread this problem really is, or if this is an isolated and rare case.
I anticipate (or at least hope) something will be announced by Square-Enix. Personally when I saw all the announcements that Final Fantasy VII was ready to be purchased, I was caught off guard. Considering their website looked not ready, with no date in place for it, I was not expecting it. The price is said to be $11.99 before tax, when it does actually go live.
Personally I don’t see a reason to be upset at Square-Enix, and lose faith in them completely over this, as honest mistakes do happen. If this is not addressed for early purchasers soon, though, I would be hesitant to buy anything from them on their website digitally anytime soon.
Julie W
