All it’s taken is one little post and a landslide of others follow. At least that’s what’s happened when Bioware’s Derek French reveals that Mass Effect and Spore will be coming with a fairly hefty piece of DRM attached. It won’t just activate online when you first install the game – it’ll also have to check in to the server regularly to continue working. If ten days go by without a check-in working, the game stops working. In other words, major lengthy internet outage, no playage. Since RPS-comrade Rossignol is going to be having that kinda length of time offline shortly, this has to be frowned at.
Beneath the cut: Derek French’s full post, just so the actual words people will be arguing about are present in the vicinity if this spirals out of control into another 300+ post thread about the P-word. Oh – and a few more initial thoughts too.
Derek French says here…
Mass Effect uses SecuROM and requires an online activation for the first time that you play it. Each copy of Mass Effect comes with a CD Key which is used for this activation and for registration here at the BioWare Community. Mass Effect does not require the DVD to be in the drive in order to play, it is only for installation.
After the first activation, SecuROM requires that it re-check with the server within ten days (in case the CD Key has become public/warez’d and gets banned). Just so that the 10 day thing doesn’t become abrupt, SecuROM tries its first re-check with 5 days remaining in the 10 day window. If it can’t contact the server before the 10 days are up, nothing bad happens and the game still runs. After 10 days a re-check is required before the game can run.
Please feel free to ask any follow up questions in this thread and I will try and answer them when I can.
Hmm.
With Spore and Mass Effect trying this, you have to wonder which other future AAA Electronic Arts game titles will have it. If it manages any effect at all, you have to suspect it may be all of them. Equally, if there actually is a noticeable avoidance of either game due to it… well, the two factors will balance against one another. I’d suspect the former would outweigh the latter – the average consumer won’t even be thinking about the nature of DRM when they pick up the box, no matter how carefully labeled French claims it’ll be. “Internet required,” is a different thing from “Internet required perpetually”.
The other thing that strikes me is that PC piracy is clearly on their mind. On one side, you have them trying strong DRM methods to try and secure more traditional PC game fare. On the other, they have things like Battlefield Heroes where rather than trying to fight piracy, they create a game that completely bypasses piracy as a worry. I wonder what else they’re thinking of.
EDIT: I didn’t quote the later post where French confirms that it is every 10 days not just once. Foolish me.Here it is. And here it is:
For clarity, though, an internet connection is not required to install, just to activate the first time, and every 10 days after. You can be completely connectionless for 9 days and encounter no problems playing Mass Effect. And you don’t need the disk in the drive to play.
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Cliffski
When you say “stop fucking pirating everything”, do you mean that you believe that the majority of PC users acquire their games through pirated version, or that a pirated version of every game exists (which just demonstrates the uselessness of prohibitive DRM) or what? It’s not a very decodable sentence. You have admitted that there are perfectly legitimate uses for pirated version of games– like my use of them, for example. So what exactly do you mean by this statement?
Also, do you understand the crippleware versus functional DRM argument?
@obdicut:
[EVIL RPS CENSORSHIP! Go for opinions, not people - Ed]
If you treat your customers like shit, you deserve to get fucked.
And the easiest way to ensure they do is to pirate Mass Effect and Spore. I certainly wasn’t planning to before today. But as of a few hours ago, I cancelled both my pre-orders for the crippleware versions from Amazon, and am committed to getting the free full versions instead.
I’d urge us all to do the same.
There are ways to “protect their investment” that do not involve preventing legitimate users from using their legitimately purchased software at their convenience.
There are ways to “protect their investment” that do not involve treating every single customer like a thief and a liar. To use your clothes store example: Yes, I am required to remove the security tag (one time activation/ CD key) before I can “leave” with the product. They do not follow me out onto the street to make sure that I don’t give my shirt to someone else, or that I decide to wear it inside out, or that I ask their permission to wear it on every second Tuesday.
The only legitimate way to leave the store with the product is to pay for it, and removing the security tag is part and parcel of the purchasing process.
As other people have pointed out, what really makes this unbearable is that it doesn’t work. The games are cracked anyway, and the more restrictive/intrusive the DRM, the more people in the “morally gray” zone it pushes towards outright piracy. Even people who pay for the product are turning to pirating sites to make the product actually usable. And the problem is the pirates? The answer to piracy is not to make piracy even more attractive than it was before.
I don’t think you had people saying (and probably following through) that they would now “pirate the software on principle” before DRM. I don’t think you had people refusing to buy the software because of the malware it would install on their machine before DRM. These are direct results of the various styles of DRM that have been tried, not piracy.
Good riddance cliffski. You could design The Best Game Ever and I wouldn’t buy it just to spite your presumptuous attitude.
Reading all this just makes me 100% convinced to get into console dev.
1) Dude releases Democracy 3 on Xbox 360
2) ??????
3)
PROFIT!!!Dude blames console piracy for totally unexpected FAIL of Democracy 3Cliffsky is right, i think. Most PC gamers play pirated games. But, that’s completely irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if a game is pirated 1 time or 10.000.000 times. What’s important is however the person that pirated the game would have bought it if it wasn’t pirated. I think the vast majority of the pirates wouldn’t. Hence, no lost sale (from the non buying pirates). It might be morally and legally wrong but the company doesn”t loose any money. And i also believe that a lot of the lost sales is recuperated by people that pirate the game and then buy it.
And, the cost of implementing DRM is not to be disregarded. It’s not cheep for a company to use SecuROM or other equivalents.
Stardock has proven that you can have great sales using the carrot (you need to register your game to get the updates) instead of a whip.
Steam has proven that you can use DRM as long as you give the users other benefits (unlimited downloads, play your games from any computer with internet access).
These attempts by EA and 2K just generates bad press.
Finally, Bioshock has been brought up a couple of times during this discussion as a game that got greater sales thanks to it’s DRM. Funny, i seem to remember an interview with Ken Levine (i think) where he said that they lost sales due to the protection being cracked a week before the game got released. Good thing they released it on Steam, or i wouldn’t have bought it.
Piracy is an issue, but there’s more ways to counter it other then penalising the legit owner.
One more thing, there is a limit to how many times you can install the games (if they don’t lie on the Bioware forums). 5 times i think. The awful thing is that you need to run a special uninstaller, that you download from their site, to deactivate the game on a given computer. I don’t know you, but i usually upgrade (read: by a new) computer every second year. And i like to dabble with my windows configuration, which always leads to me having to reinstall windows 2-3 times/year. It’s a hobby of mine, ok? :) How many times do you think i will remember to run that special “deactivator”? You guessed right. Not one time. So, to reactivate my game i will have to phone them. Just to be able to play my frigging game!
I don’t get it. As others have posted, even Adobe that sells programs that costs 3000 Euro uses DRM this invasive (invasive to some).
When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?
Everyone, can we keep it civil. Just deleted a couple, and may do more.
The only person who gets openly insulted at RPS is Walker, and only Alec, Jim and myself can do it.
KG
Theleif:
Thank you for posting that. I’m hoping that perhaps the “DRM yes, Crippleware no!” idea might actually sink into a few executives at companies other than Stardock and Valve.
Keiron:
Everyone, can we keep it civil. Just deleted a couple, and may do more.
Does that mean making fun of your name is right out?
Hmm, I’m beginning to wonder if groups like the IGDA need to setup equivalents to a special interest group on DRM, specifically, how to protect your product WITHOUT angering the legitimate players in the process (By breaking the game for example, I once had to crack a legitimate copy of Black & White 2 and one of the Battlefield games and in both cases the experience put me off of playing the game for an extended period of time). Steam works because it provides other benefits that make up for the DRM stuff.
Personally, I think day 0 piracy is the only kind that genuinely needs preventing for two reasons:
1) Thats most likely to destroy sales as people just get the pirated copy and ‘forget’ to buy a legit version.
2) I think its highly unfair that I, as someone who bought the game legitimately on day of release is playing it 5 days after people who got a cracked version. No fair!
Cliffsky is right, i think. Most PC gamers play pirated games.
Uh…sorry, I just don’t buy that. I’ve been an avid online gamer since Myth, and I’ve never run with a crowd that included more than one or two pirates; almost everybody I know buys their PC games new. (Interestingly, tho, some of them were rabid pirates of console games…go figure.) My experience is obviously not generalizable, but c’mon – “most PC games play pirated games”? That’s not supportable.
It doesn’t do anyone (except the DRM makers) any favors to casually bandy around pseudo-facts like that. Let’s put it in perspective: even a 20% piracy rate for a big-name title would be huge, but that still wouldn’t be anywhere close to “most”.
Anyway, I’ve always found it interesting that I don’t experience too much compunction about pirating CDs (unless I’m a big fan of the artist), but I can’t stand the thought of game piracy. Part of it is that I believe in the medium and in its potential for generating transformative experience…but another factor is just that it’s goddamn irritatingly inconvenient. Pirating a CD amounts to maybe 60-90MB of mp3; pirating a game can require d/ling 5 GB of data. I have a damn fast connection by U.S. standards, but that’s still a significant barrier to entry and adds yet another reason for my skepticism about oft-repeated claims that “most” PC gamers are pirates.
“Cliffsky is right, i think. Most PC gamers play pirated games.”
As always, entirely anecdotal – but I don’t know a single person who pirates games and ALL my friends are pc gamers. I won’t lie – I know someone who pirates a lot of tv, and I know people who used to pirate games, but as of now no-one I know is torrenting games. But hey, ANECDOTE alert. But anecdotal evidence is what constitutes 99% of evidence in arguments across the internet anyway.
To clear thing up, i didn’t mean that most PC gamers play mostly pirated games. What i meant was that i think most PC gamers have pirated games among their game collection. I know i do. And i can’t think of one friend that has never played a game he didn’t buy.
How do i live with myself as a pirate? I buy at least 2-3 games/month. Once in a while i pirate a game that seems interesting but maybe not worth buying. If i like it, i buy it. If i don’t like it i stop playing it and i don’t buy it. Is that illegal? Yep. Do i feel bad for it? Absolutely not.
John P:
But anecdotal evidence is what constitutes 99% of evidence in arguments across the internet anyway.
I’d like to see some data on that, please.
69% of statistics are made up on the spot
“Reading all this just makes me 100% convinced to get into console dev.”
Good luck.
He says it makes him 100% convinced, but frankly, I doubt he has the evidence to back it up.
What if I could somehow torrent/crack the game, but still give some money to Maxis?
That way I get to play without supporting securom or EA, and Maxis gets the money they deserve! Everyone wins!
Jeezus. Another long thread. Maybe just call it: “Rock, Paper, Pirates.” The journalists and academics (are there any?) can be the paper, and cliffski can be the malleus liberorum.
Either the DRM will be innocuous and easily overcome, or it will be a huge nightmare. Will Wright games aren’t designed for the hardcore; heck I’d wager a significant percentage of their demographic doesn’t know how to pirate a game disc, let alone download an iso. If they don’t even those basics, how do you expect them to be able to manage “phone-home” game DRM?
Guys, for it to work without damaging your reputation, you need to your DRM to have a lifetime failure rate of less than one in a thousand. And it’s that high because we’re talking the PC platform here, where, without DRM, you’re getting a much higher “natural” failure rate. The same factors that cause PC development to be a configuration nightmare make DRM a bitch: it cannot not work. If y’all are so keen on DRM, perhaps you should estimate the cost of every DRM false positive.
So the “hardcore” solution is going to do lots of damage to the brand, and the “innocuous” version isn’t going to help much (but if these guys are smart, that’s what they should be doing: diligence). My money’s on the latter.
Either way, it’ll be cracked, probably before release. If it’s really good, there’ll be cracked servers too. And they will run better.
edit: Basically, I agree with everyone here about everything.
Software as a service just strikes me as another way to hike the margin. Cut the middleman, cut the middleman’s margin. I’d be a bit more in favour if this translated into tangible benefits for me.
Edit: direct tangible benefits.
While we’re anecdoting, IK Multimedia dropped iLok from their entire product line supposedly largely because of the backlash against it in the KVRaudio forums. For people that don’t know, iLok is a hardware USB dongle that is ineffective, reportedly causes system instability and if you lose the key you lose all the software on it and have to buy new licences. I reckon it’s only a matter of time before a major PC publisher, probably EA first, requires a similar hardware authentication for all their games. Fun times ahead.
Across the pond in the States, we have this thing called “right of first sale”. One of the fundamental reasons I cringe at DRM like this is that it’s literally eroding our Constitutional rights. We’re supposed to have the legal right to resale purchased items, and this has been affirmed by courts with regard to books, CDs, DVDs, etc. Games are another can of worm-wax, as they say; they haven’t been adjudicated and we remain in a no-man’s-land.
In the UK any licence term seeking to prevent a consumer from reselling a licence is void and unenforceable. Trouble is the BPI et al spent a lot of money lobbying the EU, one of the most powerful and least democratic legislatures in the world, to outlaw the circumvention of copy protection. Now all anyone has to do to prevent resale is require remote server authentication and you have a situation where you can both resell a licence and yet have to break the law to have anything worth selling. The EU basically handed IP owners the power to write their own IP laws through technology (this also applies for example to your right to backup software).
If all PC gamers are pirates, then how come the #1 game worldwide, World of Warcraft, is not pirated and has managed to sell umpteen millions of copies? There is more than enough evidence, given proper business models, that the majority of PC gamers will pay for a game they wish to play.
The fact of DRM is that companies don’t want to change. They want to put a box on a shelf and get paid for doing so, regardless of whether that is what the customer wants. It is the only way they get paid and it is the only way their distribution channels get paid. It is a “good ole boys club”, and nothing more.
Why bother with internal servers and expensive software DRM solutions that dick with people’s computers and spawn angry threads on gaming blogs? Just use feelies instead.
“If all PC gamers are pirates, then how come the #1 game worldwide, World of Warcraft, is not pirated and has managed to sell umpteen millions of copies? There is more than enough evidence, given proper business models, that the majority of PC gamers will pay for a game they wish to play.”
Primarily because subscription based games have a much greater barrier against piracy, in the sense that as an online game it checks you have a legitimate copy everytime you log into the server and can match log-ins up against CD keys…
“I’ve cancelled my order for this CRIPPLEWARE!!!!11111″
Jesus. Hope you NEVER buy an MMO or an online multiplayer game dude, because they send data over the web ALL THE TIME. On noes etc…
game developers are businesses. They have employee salaries to pay. if piracy means they can’t sustain their businesses on the PC, they will go elsewhere. The very few who still give a damn about the PC are going to use strong DRM to minimize piracy.
If you moan, whine and refuse to buy it (and esp if you then stea it ‘out of principle’), this just ensures next time round there wont even BE a pc version.
Everyone enjoying GTA IV on PC right now right?
Wake up.
@cliffski
What about Stardock? They’ve made a reputation in not enforcing DRM, and their games have went from strength to strength.
Surely there are more important things to worry about in the world than whether your computer games have DRM in them or not.
“Everyone enjoying GTA IV on PC right now right?”
Yeah but rockstar went console-lead like 8 years ago or something, I’m not sure it was about piracy. Maybe i’m wrong!
We’ll be playing GTA4 within the year, mark my words!
The DRM on MMO:s is another good example of “good” DRM. Yes you need to authenticate on a server. But, they give you benefits for doing that. What is an MMO without their online servers? Nothing.
I can see some sense of having this kind of protection on Spore, as it gives you incentives to stay online. It’s part of the game to get other peoples creature through their servers. But to have a DRM on a game like Mass Effect, a single player RPG? No thank you.
BTW: Stardock has been named a couple of times as a company that refuses to use DRM. There’s Paradox as well, with no protection on their in house titles.
“dot” (comments made way up there) you’re either incredibly naive or an EA plant. Nobody in their right minds would prefer to use EA Link over Steam. Nobody.
Yes, it would have made it impossible for you to play the game two years ago or outside of internet access boundaries, or whatever, but at present, people who would have problems with it are in the absolute minority.
Included in the minority are:
- People in the majority visiting people in the minority for extended periods (i.e. grandparents)
- People in areas of the globe not served with a dedicated internet connection (step out of your Western, geo-centric shell for a moment, think about the emerging Indian, Eastern European and Chinese games markets, and remote parts of the Western world)
- University/College students (you’re talking about a lot of people with a LOT of disposable income and a LOT of time on their hands, 3-4 years, in fact)
- Anyone living in a household who does not have admin access to the Firewall settings
- People who travel a lot as part of their job and play games in their downtime using hotel internet connections
Honestly, I don’t want to call you cruel, cruel names so I’ll just leave it at ‘naive’.
Next, cliffski
Reading all this just makes me 100% convinced to get into console dev. PC gamers are just way too keen to pirate everything at the drop of a hat, and then whine at the devs for daring to protect their investment.
If you want devs to stop treating all gamers as potential criminals then
a) stop fucking pirating everything and
b) apply the same outrage at shops with clothes tags and security guards.
I think you’re just being ridiculous, unreasonable and offensive to anyone who legitimately purchases games (indeed who may wish to buy one of your titles). You’re doing your studio an ambassadorial dis-service here.
I feel that, as someone who doesn’t pirate games, I shouldn’t be lumped in with the pirates and treated the same. Instead of punishing everyone, why not reward legitimate buyers for their support and apply the punishment to everyone else?
You can’t stop people pirating PC games, end of. What you can do is prevent day zero piracy via digital distribution platforms. What you can also do is incentivise legitimate ownership. How? By way of digital distribution pre-order perks.
Membership sales platforms like Steam make this easier to accomplish – you can literally give everyone who pre-orders the game a “I helped fight PC Piracy” T-shirt equivalent to display on their user page. It could be anything, a custom achievement, player model, piece of concept art – anything, as long as it’s displayed on their member page.
The fact of the matter is that Publishers aren’t coming up with clever and sophisticated solutions to the problem of piracy. They’re attempting to play the hackers at their own game, fighting fire with fire in a losing battle. This is a problem that cannot be eliminated, but it can be combatted with the right strategy.
“Everyone enjoying GTA IV on PC right now right?
Wake up.”
Yeah, just like I enjoyed GTA3, Vice City and San Andreas the same month they were released on PS2.
Stop making stuff up.. even if they don’t release a PC version it’s more likely due to all the crap they went through thanks to Hot Coffee (which was their fault anyway to be honest) rather than piracy.
And I hate Piracy. I understand why they use DRM, I just wish it either worked so there was a good reason for all the money they spend on it (I’d like to see figures collected on how much they spend on DRM and how much they lose from piracy actually, it would be interesting as it’s basically a dual loss anyway), or it wasn’t occasionally a pita for the guys actually buying the games.
I want so desperately to play SPORE, I’m not sure what I’m going to do.
You’ve all beaten to a pulp what the pirates will do and what the developers should not do. I’m trying to think of a reasonable compromise.
I recently heard that for Trent Reznor’s upcoming concert, to purchase a ticket you will need to supply your personal info and provide an ID when you get to the show, to prevent scalpers from making a profit.
However, he can’t do the exact same thing with CDs, as they are media.
So here’s some things I’ve been thinking over.
- PC needs new media. This is fairly unlikely of a solution. disc technology seems to be the way for the time. I’ve thought about encrypting thumb drives to be used as media, but without much technical expertise on that field, my intuition tells me it’s more difficult than its worth.
- The whole perpetual validation thing is nearly acceptable. It reminds me of MS’ solution to Exchange. However, I consider this to be a significantly different solution. Exchange basically demands perpetual internet connectivity. Game’s don’t necessarily, though Spore (and mmos) do.
- There should be a non-crack alternative. I like the fact that I can still play Homeworld 10 years later. I’m not confident I’ll be able to play these DRM-infested in even 5 years down the road. Also, what if I can’t connect to the internet at all for some reason? There absolutely needs to be a bypass.
- Corporations seek to control a one-to-one ratio in terms of the purchase-to-user ratio. How can this be accomplished?
I word it this way because, like a CD, I should be able to share it with my friend to let them play it (after I’m done?). They can enjoy it for a while and give it back. I can repeat this process. This should be a legitimate maneuver by the purchaser. There is a significant gap in ensuring this policy.
Also, the player should be able to uninstall and install on numerous machines at will.
I’m not sure why they can’t provide an encrypted key that’s unique to each CD. I have a feeling it increases production costs (so does DRM, possibly more so… also I’m not sure if DRM works on a key or what)
I did find this tidbit:
In January 2007, EMI stopped publishing audio CDs with DRM, stating that “the costs of DRM do not measure up to the results.”
OK, so I’m basically leaning on the unique key per CD and I can accept the “call-home” principle to help manage the protection. Use 128-bit encryption. Give the pirates a challenge. If you try to install the game on another machine, it will prevent if the key is already registered on the server. Also, “call-home” on uninstall to free the key.
Now, what if my internet connection is down and I really want to play this game? Well, herein lies the problem of the on-cd-encryption-key. How do I verify an installation? Will there be an alternate plain-text key in the packing I can get by with? I doubt it. Hmmm. This might actually work. If the game fails to detect a internet connection, asks the user for the cd-key. They can install and play until an internet connection is reestablished, whereby the encrypted key will kick in again.
Back with a net connection, what if I don’t uninstall but my system crashes, thereby preventing the encrypted key from being removed from the server. Will it eventually time-out after a few days? Will I need to make a call in to resolve this?
I’d be willing to get my driver license # attached to the game as well to verify I was playing it.
Hmmm. After all that rambling, it seems I’ve failed to come up with a solution. That’s it! NO SOLUTION. Fuggit. Keep it open. They will crack.
I don’t buy single-player games that require online activation or “phoning home”. To me, it’s like renting a game not buying it if they can turn the servers off and deny me usage of something I paid for. This kind of crap makes me root for the pirates… *&^% them…$%^ them in their stupid @$$e$.
Looks like something got through their thick skulls:
http://masseffect.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=629059&forum=125
[quote]Q: Did BioWare and EA change their mind on requiring that the game be re-authorized every 10 days?
A: BioWare has always listened very closely to its fans and we made this decision to ensure we are delivering the best possible experience to them. To all the fans including our many friends in the armed services and internationally who expressed concerns that they would not be able re-authenticate as often as required, EA and BioWare want you to know that your feedback is important to us.[/quote]
I’m still waiting for the crack before buying though.
why is everyone talking about the activation only?
you do know you can only ever re-install this game on the same or another PC 3 times then it’s worthless right?
you have 3 install tokens no re-voke tools it cannot be re-activated after 3 re-installs and there is no revoke tool
you should all be concentrating on that issue alone not
just the “Activation” on start up.
and for the people saying they support this, why?
imagine 300 games in your collection you could never ever install or re-play in the future ever again because at some point you installed them 3 times or upto 3 times.
what happens when they turn their activation servers off/
like the MSDN Music club, Virgin music, Google Video, SuperBowl, And a whole lot of other content providers.
what then? how do you play activate your paid for game?
Wake the hell up and take the blinkers off Ken,
oh as an add on, the comment above i didn’t see till i posted,
“you will wait for a crack first”
you shouldn’t need to rely on piracy to play a legit game
you shouldn’t need to hope and prey a pirate group can make your game work 100% before you then go buy it.
your basically relying on something being cracked before you actually give your money to people who’s restricted you from using it in the first place.
how about supporting and sending a thank you to the pirate groups who’s give you fairuse and freedom back of a game your now going to go and buy?
without piracy thats 60% of you who’d not buy this game.
you will only buy it once it’s been cracked lol
does that not set alarm bells off in your heads?
ea games bioware should be praising RELOADED and DETiNATiON for them making the patches which in turn has lead to customers going to buy the game.
isn’t the whole point of the DRM to stop piracy so you buy the game, not wait for it to be removed then buy it…
Wake the hell up
Cracked day after release go fuck yourselves ea :)
this is just another whiney post. however, i was going to purchase mass effect. i buy some games, i pirate some games. mass effect is now officially pirated. i do not support alienating people that purchase your game. never will. the power is with your average person, not the companies producing these games. do not alienate your clientel, you *will* lose money. you want my money? dont piss me off. simply, i dont have to give it to you. i can get your game for free everytime, what you need to do is build customer loyalty. i bought almost every title blizzard ever produced, because i liked the company.
i dunno why you people act like pirating doesnt happen on consoles. after you mod your console, you pirate EVERYTHING. dont believe it? look at gta IV on the torrent sites, one hot download. doesnt work on pc. you do the math. console pirates never pay for anything. console pirates are 10x worse than PC pirates. pc pirates tend to buy the odd title. also, considering most consoles are/were sold at a loss, i think the damage being done by console pirates is far worse.
“Larington says:
“If all PC gamers are pirates, then how come the #1 game worldwide, World of Warcraft, is not pirated and has managed to sell umpteen millions of copies? There is more than enough evidence, given proper business models, that the majority of PC gamers will pay for a game they wish to play.”
Primarily because subscription based games have a much greater barrier against piracy, in the sense that as an online game it checks you have a legitimate copy everytime you log into the server and can match log-ins up against CD keys…”
.
.
.
WRONG. you can install WoW on any machine, anywhere. Its all about the login account. AND they do it WITHOUT DRM. Just think, if they were willing to use an online login system, you could pass on your account info when u are done with it. The copy you payed for could be played by your friends, when you are not playing, as it SHOULD BE. Think supernintendo, you buy a game, and lend it to your friend. Should that game require a thumbscan from you in order to work? hell no. your friend SHOULD be able to play your copy of the game.
ps, the resolutions in this game are utter crap. 720p? wtf is this, an xbox? i play my games at 1080p. learn to program.
I’m going to decline comment, at this point.
I mean, after that cogent, carefully considered treatise, what more is there to say?
mmk, theres 1080p. my bad. *whew*
… this game is so good, i’m going to buy it anyway. you do have to reward a company when they produce something of pure excellence. ill have to run it cracked though, i hope that doesnt turn out to be too much of a pain in the ass when i go to get downloadable content. *sigh*
Securom never ever stopped a game from beeing pirated. This approach is not working and they must know that by now. There must be another reason for still using securom. Maybe they are spying on you. Anyway Mass Effect was cracked and pirates have no trouble with the game. Spore Creature Creator was also cracked and I bet the whole Spore will not be any different story. DRM is just a big fail for the customers. If you have the choice to put your money on some crappy disc that will not install or tell you that you are not using the correct disc even when you are or have the choice to get a working game that you can enjoy for as long as you like, whenever you like, then what will you get? Games are meant to be fun, thats why we get them.
I hate to say it but i’m definatly waiting for a crack 2. This whole SecuRom stuff is serious enough. YOU CAN ONLY INSTALL THIS GAME 3 TIMES. after that you can take your phone and beg ea for another install. How can ANYONE in the right mind agree on those terms? And seeing as SecuRom is apparently twitchy enough to take one such activation for even a DRIVER UPDATE. Sorry people, whoever buys this is just supporing this Pay-Per-Install that EA is propably going for. And calling EA, sending them your biography allong with whatever personal data they want from you in order for you to hopefully get one activation back. It’s already happened to people with the Creature Creator for crying out loud and they’re STILL waiting for a usefull reply from EA.
Even worse is that they don’t tell people propperly before buying the game. I bought mass effect not knowing that i effectively RENTED 3 copies. for the same price that i could have bought a game that installed whenever i wanted to without a nanny pushing me around. Sorry but i’d rather go for piracy who get a better end product. Piracy may be downright wrong and evil but the way EA is treating their customers defies description compaired to piracy..
If you bought a GPS system that wouldnt connect to it’s satalites and wouldn’t run anymore after 3 uses, finding out afterwards that the company put this in DELIBERATELY.. Seriously, if they showed you those terms before purchase u’d tell the sales man to stick it where the sun don’t shine. Why no one shows me a software agreement before i buy a game like this is beyond me at this point. Because it’s nothing short of a scam. I’m hoping someone will sue EA for this after buying spore and running into this. Because i’m sure they’re crossing legal boundries in quiete a few countries when it comes to consumer rights.
“Larington says:
“If all PC gamers are pirates, then how come the #1 game worldwide, World of Warcraft, is not pirated and has managed to sell umpteen millions of copies? There is more than enough evidence, given proper business models, that the majority of PC gamers will pay for a game they wish to play.”
Primarily because subscription based games have a much greater barrier against piracy, in the sense that as an online game it checks you have a legitimate copy everytime you log into the server and can match log-ins up against CD keys…”
is it just me or do none of you know that there are hundreds of private world of warcraft servers out there(if not thousands)the game is being pirated as much as any other game out there i originally downloaded an played world of warcraft on a server called xaos wow, then relized that if i payed per month, the game actually worked properly with little to no lag! some people pirate games just to try them out, and then buy them because the game is good and deserves the cash, some games just dont deserve any money because they are rushed(need for speed pro street) glad i rented that game lmfao!
im just getting tired of EA all together! and is it just me or did anyone else notice in the retail creature creator for spore in the manual it states that before installing spore you must uninstall the creature creator or the game wont install ( meaning EA successfully scammed 10 extra bucks off of everybody who went out and bought the creature creator because they were not aware that this was not needed to play the game) the box is even misleading, im looking at it right now it clearly states SPORE STARTER KIT, hmmm starter kit-building block needed to play the entire game….WRONG!!! and worse yet i even emailed EA asking if this was needed for spore because i wasnt going to buy it if it was included in the full game when its released(which it is!) and guess what i got, an email back going on about something else and never answering my question maybe later ill dig up the response i got, to show how useless their support staff is! im just ticked because i preordered the galactic edition because its going to be one of the biggest games of the year(it deserves it) but now instead of paying 80 bucks i just payed 90 bucks and got a ten dollar dvd and case that are utterly useless! im not worried bout the drm that will be fixed by some kid in korea or china who first cracks the drm and uploads it to the world(props to whoever that is) im just sick of EA trying to swindle us all out of every cent they can get their sticky little fingers on, microtransactions, charging for cheatcodes or other content that can easily be unlocked by playing through the game, and now only allowing a game to be installed only 3 times(if say it was 10 or 20 id say ok but 3 FUCK YOU EA!)
- University/College students (you’re talking about a lot of people with a LOT of disposable income
… crikey. That’s news to me.
The EA fora have been heavily suppressed and censored. Dissent is deleted. Complaints are deleted. Threads and posts about editing or modding have been deleted. All without any word as to why or chance for appeal.
EA are a god awful company and treat their customers like garbage and rely on flashy spin and slick marketing to win over the dim-witted fanboys into another purchase and parroting their press releases.