There's good news and bad news for players of
The Talos Principle who find themselves stuck in non-functioning elevators. The good news is, it's not a bug. The bad news is also that it's not a bug: It's another example of Croteam's creative DRM.
The presence of the copy protection came to light on Twitter when publisher Devolver Digital
retweeted an image of a Steam forum post, since deleted, complaining about stuck elevators. The response noted that the problem was actually Croteam's way of punishing people who pirated the game, and predicted, accurately, that the message "will be all over the internet in about 30 minutes."
The original complaint illustrates the problem with this kind of DRM: It's almost impossible to tell at first glance that it's DRM at all, and once it comes to light, it's usually relatively easy to patch around. Potentially worse, games risk earning a reputation as being buggy, rather than imaginatively protected, which can adversely affect sales.
Even so, this isn't the first time Croteam has indulged in this kind of oddball copy protection. A few years ago, Serious Sam 3 pirates famously suffered the wrath of a
lightning-fast, immortal scorpion that rendered the game effectively impossible to play.