I'm not really sure how they do things in the US, but down here, standard mobile phone contracts last for two years. Once that time's up, 99.8% of people go and get a new phone. Simple plan, everybody wins. OH. Except for anyone with a Nokia phone who actually buys games over their new N-Gage platform. See, the games are locked to the handset you purchase them on. If you break your handset, you'll get them reissued, but if you upgrade to a new phone, you lose your games. Nokia's explanation?
Our policy is that the N-Gage activation codes only work on the device where they were first activated. As with any digital media there is a potential risk of piracy and this policy is one of the ways we are dealing with piracy and ensuring our partners receive their rightful revenues from our platform.
Way to go, Nokia. Didn't think anybody could have a worse DRM track record than Microsoft, but then, records are meant to be broken.
Gamers 'angry' over new N-Gage's DRM [Develop]