I find myself in a rather strange situation regarding piracy. I hate piracy for 2 reasons:
1) They're screwing up the gaming industry
2) It is because of them that we sit with DRM.
However, DRM is often so badly implemented, that I have come to habitually use the very hackers that make pirating possible in the first place.
In the good old days before DRM became prevalent, your game often needed only to be installed on your hard drive (if it wasn't streaming FMV off the disc) and you could play, with no disc in tray.
I don't like handling and switching discs every few minutes that I want to play a different game (I usually play 2 or 3 different games a day- unless I go into obsessive mode and stick to one).
I prefer keeping the discs nicely in their covers where they cannot gather dust or get scratched or lost.
So I've found a hacker site and often use the , er.. 'tools' they provide just to disable the DRM on all my currently loaded games, to enable me to just click and play.
Guess when I started using these "tools"? When I needed them to disable the DRM on the very original legitimate copy of Sacred way back then, when it gave me the exact similar message and problems that the OP has been struggling with with Risen.
So, basically DRM has brought me to the point where I use hackers' tools for my legit games. How screwed is that?
Of course, it has happened to me as well, that the DRM on a brand new off the shelf legitimately bought game has precluded me from playing the game, but then I'd been unable to find a "crack" for it…. grrrrrrrr - and in my area it's very difficult to justify getting the local stores to take a game back - you have to "prove" that the DRM blocks you on any system and not just your own personal system.
I wonder to what extent this kind of DRM really prevents piracy? I cannot imagine that it can be good for the gaming industry if a person new to gaming who decided to try out gaming as a hobby can't get half of his games to run because of the DRM.
On the other hand, I cannot understand the mentality of people who openly pirate (steal) stuff, and don't even seem to see what is wrong with what they are doing.
Apologies, but DRM and pirating is a bit of a "rant trigger" for me…