Dodgy Doctor Who games may be malwarey

Security experts are warning that "unauthorised copies" of a Doctor Who game released last weekend that have begun circulating on P2P networks are likely to pack a nasty surprise. The BBC released the licence-payer-funded game City of the Daleks last Friday, free of charge to UK residents (official site here). Fans of the Time …

[Peter Kay]

It's out?

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Must try!

*ahem*.

[Bassey]

Shame

It's a shame they are warning people. I'd like to see the thieving little bastards get what they deserve. I kind of hope a Darlek materialises in their bedroom and exterminates them and their PC - though that might be a bit fanciful. At the very least I'd want it to format their hard drives so they lose their precious pr0n collections.

[heyrick]

Thieving little bastards?

I'm not interested in a Dr Who game, however I would be interested to hear your opinions regarding 'support' for ex-pats living in Europe. I can watch the live broadcasts (SD or HD), but can I get anything useful off the website? Sorry, I live in the wrong place, over and over. Oh, yes, we can *pay* for a product offered free to 62 million people. There are numerous children over here who still think of the UK as their home, and who watch UK television more or less non-stop and little French (or Spanish, etc) TV. You might want to consider this before automatically assuming everybody is just "a thieving bastard".

Oh, and don't bitch about me getting "something for nothing" and that I don't pay a TV licence. That's irrelevant as I have stated previously (on El Reg in fact) that I would be willing to *pay* a UK licence - primarily for access to the VOD features. But... silence. And I won't hold my breath.

[RumBugger]

Spoof yourself

Er... get yourself set up with a proxy server or VPN so you can pretend to be watching iPlayer from within the UK. Costs a little less than paying the licence fee too :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

"would-be gamers are advised to disable anti-virus protection before proceeding with a download."

lmao, have to give them credit for that one.

[Anonymous Coward]

i see a mac version is planned for june 15

Can I therefore assume that the one on offer is for linux?

[Jad]

Travel Sick

Works like a charm on my Ubuntu box :)

problem is my 9 year old son gets motion sickness from playing it :(

[M7S]

Just wait for the Cyberman instalment

then "Delete"

Sorted.

Nearest appropriate icon.

[mittfh]

Cybermen on the loose!

Spotted earlier in the thread: "This post has been deleted by its author"

Or has it? Was it deleted by a Cyberman?

Presumably if there are rogue trojan copies of the game, they must be Cybermen creations, since whereas the Daleks exterminate, the Cybermen delete...

AC@15:52 - if it's an exe, chances are Wine might be able to handle it. Which Jad, also @ 15:52 seems to confirm.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wine

doesn't work for me... the screen strobes and jumps around all over the place rendering it completely unplayable. I payed my licence, I want a Linux version!

I don't even like or care about Doctor Who, but if the BBC is going to pointlessly start making computer games now, they had damned well better make them for Linux too!

The BBC even had a real opportunity to release the first "decent" games on Linux (are they decent? I have no idea... are they even 3D?) but as usual they'd rather just stroke themselves than accomplish anything meaningful.

Oh well.

[Lord Lien]

Game illegally downloaded from...

.... a P2P network has a virus on it. Dam them hackers are getting sophisticated.

Has anyone tried switching the internet off? Would stop this kinda thing dead in its tracks......

Paris... I can't think of a dry witty reply tho. So have Paris....

[Tom 15]

Shocking...

It's shocking that illegal downloads often have malware in!

[JBH]

Can't download outside the UK?

Fantastic!

This is payback for all those times me and my fellow brits have been unable to watch stuff on hulu.com et al, just because we don't live on the other side of the Atlantic.

Suck it yanks! - Or find a proxy! :D

[Anonymous Coward]

What about us Malaysians then!

We've had the worst luck of our lives. The monopolizing satellite TV provider drops BBC Entertainment which is our only source of Dr. Who, as none of the other IPTV-based PayTV providers are interested in carrying it and it has never aired on Terrestrial TV (if it had, it had been off-air for ages as I have never seen the show listed in any of the schedules since I was born). We're blocked from Hulu.com et al AND iPlayer et al. And even if we get down and dirty with proxies and VPNs we are stuck with a 1Mbps link which is somewhat unusable as anything above that is somewhat expensive.

Jeez. Not even love for citizens in countries that are a member of the Commonwealth?

Terminator. Because.

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange

..because the best way to get it outside the UK is to download a legitimate version using a UK proxy.

It's actually a lot easier than trying to fiddle with dodgy downloads.

[Just Thinking]

WTF

There are plenty of people in this country who, given the choice, would quite happily give up the right to watch the BBC in exchange for not having to pay the licence fee. Some of them are people who hardly watch BBC because they are more interested in satelite sport/music/movies (which they are prepared to pay for). Others are people who struggle to afford the licence and would be prepared to only watch commercial channels to save that money.

Why are those people now having to pay for a sodding game to be developed?

This is a prime example of the BBC using their bloated budget to do things they never should be doing, at public expense, and in the process stiffling many smaller businesses.

In this case, surely the BBC should be licencing the characters to some software firm, who could make and sell the damn game to anyone who wants it? Reducing the licence fee, rather than making people who only want to watch a bit of telly pay for it all?

[David 105]

@Just Thinking

You did read the article right, not just see that it was vaguely related to the BBC and used it as an opportunity to moan about the licence fee. Did you even read the bit about how they're going to be releasing a paid for version for people who don't live in the UK? I don't know exactly how much they plan to charge or how much they expect to raise, but I would imagine it would be much more than enough to cover the cost of the development of the game, as Doctor Who Fans in UK < Doctor Who Fans not in UK. Therefore no cost to you, and more money to spend developing programmes that are certainly never repeated on commercial channels (anything on Dave/other UKTV channels) or sold around the world to recoup the money spent developing them (Top Gear, Life on Mars, the aforementioned Doctor Who)

[Just Thinking]

So...

The Doctor Who game won't make a profit. With a huge, bloated and unfocused organisation like the BBC you can't point at one bit and say that bit is profitable. There are too many hidden costs (for example, prime time advertising of the game). And the BBC are not exactly a model of cost efficiency - the development probably cost far more than you could imagine.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha

I happily pay for the license fee, as it means that I can have a couple of channels/radio stations that a) have quality programs on that aren't always repeats, b) don't have adverts every five sodding minutes and c) don't give biased, scare-mongering news in words of one syllable or less so that the professionally unemployed can understand it (ok, BBC3 might be one-syllable, but still unbiased).

Ashes to Ashes, DW, Life on Mars, TopGear et al are worth every single penny my opinion.

Why yes, mine IS the fireproof one.

[bruceld]

malware writers not very bright

Along with the "disable antivirus" recommendation, they shoulda told the down-loaders that it should also be right clicked and run as administrator.

tsk tsk.

[Peter Clarke 1]

@ Just Thinking

Seems that Rupert M does read the Register (even if it isn't a pay-per-view site)

[Anonymous Coward]

I am in the U.S. but ...

... going to http://www.daveproxy.co.uk/ , putting in the game url appears to work.

Is a bit slow however.

[Anonymous Coward]

(untitled)

If I've understood this correctly this is for a game offered for FREE by the BBC, who have decided to restrict it for use in the UK. In which case I don't think it should qualify as theft since it is a freebie anyway.

Personally I don't follow the argument that says the licence payer paid for the development, only they should enjoy the game. Once decided the project was useful and the money already sunk into the design/development, then what is the advantage of disappointing foreign fans ? I'd rather the BBC made the gesture to release it for all in the hope than foreign designers/developers followed suit with apps/games UK residents might enjoy.

[Rogerborg]

The writing on the bathroom wall is true

Play with Karen Gillian, get a nasty virus.