Epic Games's Gears of War title apparently includes a cut-off date, enforced via DRM. Ars Technica is reporting that the game ceased to function for everyone who bought it on January 28, 2009.

While it's not rare for games to ship with bugs every now and again, it's pretty shocking when one ships with an issue that causes the title to stop working for everyone who paid.

We await the explanation from Epic Fail Games, but this seems to be another case of a product being made defective by design through the use of DRM.

See our recent list of free software DRM-free games for alternatives that don't come with a death certificate.