The good news is this: EA are taking a big step back on Spore’s DRM. From three installs ever and one account per copy of the game, they’re switching to as many re-installs as you want on a maximum of five computers, with a patch for multiple accounts for one machine on the way. That’s a big change of heart. We hinted that there might have been a change from three to five installs last week. This weekend the LA Times reported that EA have “apologised” to customers for the digital restrictions, when issuing their reprise. They report EA Games’ President Frank Gibeau saying,
“We’ve received complaints from a lot of customers who we recognize and respect. We need to adapt our policy to accommodate our legitimate consumers.”
An impressively humble and reasonable statement. It’s a direct reference to the key issue: DRM only inhibits legitimate customers. It is with a confusing naivety that publishers continue to impose DRM on legally purchased copies, while knowing full well that the restrictions will be cracked on day one – as they were with Spore – making illegally downloaded copies DRM-free. The legitimate customer is treated as a potential criminal, while the actual criminal has a much improved product. It’s perhaps not entirely ideal.
Oddly EA goes on to say the fuss came as a surprise to them. I’m not sure how. In May we were covering the anger that was being generated by the proposed DRM for Spore (and Mass Effect). In response to this they quickly backed down. At that point it was revealed that the games would be limited to three machines. But not that it would be limited to three activations. You’d imagine, since they were planning even more restrictive rights management, they’d have expected people to raise hell.
Anyhow, this is good news from EA. They are a company that has done impressive things to turn their public reputation around in the last couple of years. From being seethed at by all quarters, people are beginning to… like them. The sudden public perception suicide attempt that’s come with recent DRM issues seemed horribly like slipping back into their former ways. It’s great to see a reasonably quick response, albeit only after a ferocious response from their customers.
Via El Reg. Thanks to Stephen.
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Where in that press release do they commit to allowing unlimited reinstalls on a single machine? I see the bit about the 5-machine limit and the forthcoming deactivation tool, but little else.
I’ve always liked them, and my shares in them have got nothing to do with those feelings
>_>
It’s only now that the news is quietly leaking out that Stalker Clear Sky has activation, via the TAGES copy protection. This is NOT mentioned on the UK box, only “technical preventitive measures”.
I’m livid. Sod the EUCD, I’ll use a crack for Clear Sky and never reinstall it. But in future I am not ever going to buy any games with this activation DRM bullshit. It is only harming legitimate customers.
And EA are hardly backing down, I’ve no interest in Spore anyway, but unless they completely remove the activation DRM on Crysis: Warhead, I shan’t buy it.
Chris, I agree, I was livid when I found out about Clear Sky.
I think what gets me most is not the actual DRM, it’s the dishonesty of publishers sneakily adding this stuff and hoping no-one will notice.
It really should be a requirement that the DRM details are disclosed on the back of the box AND in the descriptions posted on online retailers.
If Warhead’s and Clear Sky’s DRM had been in the product description on the websites I ordered them from I’d never have pre-ordered them in the first place. EA disclosed Warhead’s DRM on the day of release! Too late for me to cancel my order.
I was almost tempted to return Warhead unopened when it arrived. The only reason I didn’t was that it was pretty cheap and I didn’t want the hassle of returning it.
And to think that for the last two weeks I have held out a glimmer of hope that the massive Amazon backlash would cause someone at EA to finally, lastingly, get it.
Don’t expect me to thank you, after you’ve taken my stuff, when you then give a portion of it back to me. These softer limits are still draconian by the standards of even 12 months ago. How short do they think our memories are?
Like several of the commenters above, I’m finished with this ludicrous, offensive company. I don’t need their games enough that I’ll sacrifice what they want me to to enjoy them. (Which I usually don’t anyway.)
When the 1* ratings started to go up on Amazon, it was obvious that EA had to respond in one way or another. They could back down, and buy a lot of goodwill, or they could renew their commitment to DRM even under intense pressure to do the opposite. Either way, the statement would be clear and unambiguous: ‘this is our choice; this is the way things will be’.
EA have made the choice to become an amazon.com running joke.
clear sky has activation?
i can deal with that, i guess as long as they dont brick my game for being an angry internet man.
I pray that EA realizes the error of their ways before Dragon Age comes out. Everything else that’s carried SecuROM has been of passing interest to me…
But Bioware would be the thing that makes me cave.
This is undoubtedly a good sign for the future. I’ve been watching with some interest over the last 6 months or so as EA has become a much more interesting and dynamic company and Activision has begun to take on EA’s old Evil Empire mantle. DRM dumbness aside, I’ve loved just about everything EA’s been doing lately, and I hope this signals the end of that dumbness.
I can’t feel entirely happy about it, though, and I’ll tell you why: Because this grants a victory to internet morons who think that vandalising Amazon pages and other forms of generalised Nerd Rage are enlightened forms of protest. That whole mess really irked me, because I find it so indicative of the whole Gamer online subculture these days. More eloquent people than myself have written many words about the things that are wrong with them (us?), but suffice it to say that there’s a lot of people out there who need to grow the hell up. Complain and register your protest with the company, guys. Vandalising Amazon and BSing about how justified your rampant piracy now suddenly is doesn’t make you clever. Nor does it work; Spore had one star and was still the highest selling game on the site.
Christ, I’m glad I got that off my chest. :p
Sorry Mr. Walker, but you are being far too generous to EA.
Nothing has really changed. The DRM is still there, there’s still an install limit, and now a Spore forum moderator is even threatening that your Spore game account could be banned for discussing the DRM. Possibly forcing you to buy another copy of the game. Despicable.
And I read Mr. Gibeau’s entire statement. I’ve selected some choice quotes.
- “We’re disappointed by the misunderstanding surrounding the use of DRM software”
You’re disappointed?!
- “We felt that limiting the number of machine authorizations to three wouldn’t be a problem”
- “We assumed that consumers understand piracy is a huge problem – and that if games that take 1-4 years to develop are effectively stolen the day they launch, developers and publishers will simply stop investing in PC games”
So, EA Games’ president is threatening to stop making PC games if they can’t use this kind of intrusive DRM. Bravo, sir!
- “And while it’s easy to discount the noise from those who only want to post or transfer thousands of copies of the game on the Internet, I believe we need to adapt our policy to accommodate our legitimate consumers”
So it’s all just been noise to you, eh? Everyone who complained was a dirty pirate too, apparently. And how gracious of you to go out of your way to accomodate us, your customers. When that’s your bloody job.
MrNeutron, you may not think that Spore merited one star (neither do I) but it is a justifiable rating for someone who felt that the game was poor and the DRM was egregiously bad.
Was the Amazon flooding orchestrated? Sure, but that doesn’t mean some of it wasn’t heartfelt and legitimate. Many of the reviews I read seemed sincere and eloquent and provided solid justifications. Amazon are removing a lot of the obviously bogus ones (though I think they could do more). Dismissiveness of people’s opinions is an easy get-out, but misses the point that there are people out there in numbers whose 1* ratings were genuinely representative of their opinion of the product they’d bought. These people weren’t vandals, they were using the system as intended. I think you are doing them a disservice. This ill feeling is not the cynical contrivance of a flash mob. It really exists, as this thread should attest.
Wow, Clear Sky too. I’m glad the PCG review put me off now – thanks Jim!
It certainly makes no sense to allow the pirates to have the better version of the game, and then punish the legitimate users.
Cutting back DRM may actually allow publishers to release cheaper games, and gain more customers.
Giving legitimate more functions is better than giving them less. One way is Online accounts that need to be activated via legitimate CD keys with online benefits. Spore is a good example of that.
“More eloquent people than myself have written many words about the things that are wrong with them (us?), but suffice it to say that there’s a lot of people out there who need to grow the hell up. Complain and register your protest with the company, guys. Vandalising Amazon and BSing about how justified your rampant piracy now suddenly is doesn’t make you clever. Nor does it work; Spore had one star and was still the highest selling game on the site.”
I disagree. It’s pretty clear that writing emails to EA saying “dear EA, I would rather prefer it if you didn’t use DRM in your games” has precisely zero effect. So far, the Amazon thing is about the only thing that has actually had an effect. And I don’t see how it’s vandalizing anything. The reviews on the Amazon page are *not* talking about how piracy is justified. They’re talking about how the it is not worth paying for the game when it is being sold under these conditions. And honestly, I think it’s a great way to point out these problems with the product. Because EA doesn’t exactly label them clearly on the box. They don’t want people to know about the DRM they put on the game. So I’d say a pretty rational response is to write about it on a public site that a lot of people will see before buying.
Here’s the flaw in your logic. If I complain to EA, what does that tell them? That I bought their game. It tells them that no matter how furious I sound in that complaint, I still fell for it, I gave them my money. In other words, thye can go ahead and keep using the same DRM.
It also means that they can silence the complaints easily. If everyone just complained directly to EA, no one would even *know* about the DRM that might bite them later when they attempt to reinstall the game. You think it’s immature to bring this issue out in the open where people other than EA can see it?
I disagree.
And I don’t see how you can claim that it “doesn’t work”. Don’t you think it might be part of the reason why they’re now relaxing the DRM a little bit? The fact that they’re getting a lot of bad publicity? The fact that everyone, even casual gamers, are now being made aware of the conditions under which the game is being sold?
I’m glad the Amazon protest started, and I think it’s frankly brilliant. I can’t think of a better website to post this criticism. For once, it’s not on the company’s own forum (where they can delete the posts and ban the posters), and not on dedicated gaming blogs (which are only read by a tiny minority). For once, the issue has actually hit the media.
I also think it’s about the most mature and responsible course of action. Much better than your “suck it up” attitude, which only guarantees more DRM next year. It’s funny to see that finally, a company is on the retreat regarding DRM, and then people like you are claiming that we’re “doing it wrong”, that we should go back to the tactic that has worked so well over the last years, of keeping our complaints to ourselves, talk to the company directly, and not let anyone outside the hardcore gamer community know about them. That’s what let them get away with this kind of DRM in the first place.
And of course, by keeping the complaints quiet, even if (according to your fairytale logic) they’ll make EA realize the error of their ways, they won’t affect every other publisher, who still believes no one really objects to DRM. For once, the publisher are all seeing a clear example of just how despised their DRM is, and how many sales it’s costing them
Yeah I called bullshit on Mass Effect too. It’s a good old tyrannical tip toe in full effect.
I really wish people would quit announcing slight relaxing of DRM as some sort of exciting resolution to the problem. Is this better? Sure. Is it a meaningful resolution to the core issues with this DRM system? Nope. The core problem is the fact of the activation, not how many times you can do it or how many tokens you can get rescinded. None of the games that have used this sort of activation-based DRM have yet gotten rid of the activation, and thus they are still crippled, time-limited shells.
If their goal was to make me long for the good old days of unnecessary CD-checks, they’ve succeeded.
Tyranical top-toe. I like that phrase, cHeal.
@Ravenger: Agreed. I’m particularly pissed at Valve for failing to disclose that the Steam version of Crysis Warhead is also limited to five installs. I wonder how many buyers genuinely think it’ll be like other Steam titles: unlimited installs on unlimited PCs.
This guy knows the industry way better than the suits at EA do. “My job is to increase sales, not stop worldwide piracy” Seriously all this DRM backlash is not beneficial to anyone, now I’m reconsidering getting Mirror’s Edge for PC.. Steam does a much better job overall on DRM, ironically Crysis Warhead on Steam also has Securom. DAMMIT EA!
so when can I get this for Warhead seeing I bricked my pc 3 times in the last week with craptacular nforce chipset drivers requiring format and o/s reinstalls?
Do they still enforce it using SecuROM? Yes? Then I’m still not buying.
Trioptimum: You make a fair point. If my tone was dismissive it’s because I’m starting to get weary of all this stuff. When all the gaming sites I follow flood my RSS reader with hyperbole every time someone from EA stands next to a piece of paper with “SecureROM” written on it, it starts getting tedious after a while. Maybe it’s my fault. I got the same way over Mass Effect. I just couldn’t whip up the bile or the outrage I was expected to posess over the whole thing. Maybe I’m browbeaten at this point, I’m not sure. I find myself without the energy to howl from the rooftops, and I guess I’ll just have to live with how bad a person I am because of it. :p
It’s not that I think EA’s decisions over all this have been good ones or that I agree with them, far from it. I think I’m looking at this more as growing pains we’re experiencing as PC gaming is forced to change and re-invent itself. We’ve seen the music industry go through the same crap and come out the other side realising DRM is not the way to go. The movie industry is still mired in the middle of that process, and gaming is charging headlong into it. I guess I take it on good faith that we’re going to come out of this wiser, having learned some valuable lessons, hopefully with a unified, fair and flexible system like Steam carrying the torch for both customers and developers (and fine, publishers too).
As for the Amazon thing, that was more of a rant about how the general level of discourse in the gaming community needs to get better. More like this site than like NeoGaf or Something Awful (*shudder*). Doubtless a lot of people made good and heartfelt statements in their Amazon reviews, but there was a herd mentality going on for a lot of them, a quick and easy way of Sticking It To The Man from the comfort of one’s mother’s basement. And it’s a valid form of personal expression, sure, but it’d be nice to see something better.
Ugh. At 25 I’ve become a grumpy old man. *Headdesk*
So they still hang on to their DRM, eh? Corporate silliness, but there you go. The real victory though in my opinion is the ability to have “screen names”, so that at least up to five in a family can use it at once. That is a breakthrough in today’s somewhat irritating hoard-the-shinies-and-to-hell-with-the-people World.
Couple the multiple account thing with the 1.01 patch crack that Reloaded have already released (love that group) and that’s pretty much an ideal environment. And that’s what I’ll keep doing until they remove the DRM entirely, but even if they don’t then I can count on Reloaded to remove the DRM for me.
Before anyone gets any ideas, I have a legally purchased copy of Spore sitting some distance behind me, mostly because I actually like the game, or moreover I have the imagination to enjoy putting all the nifty bits together within the game. It’s an advanced Lego set and I never grew up. But I digress. I dig Spore, it can be a beautiful thing and I can enjoy it in my own way.
And as is ever the case, likeminded people will always make my experience all the more enjoyable. In fact, every problem I had with Spore has been dealt with. Here are some examples:
Crack from Reloaded: No more DRM.
Freelancer Mod: Missions finally have worthwhile payouts.
Staff of Life Mod: Staff of Life doesn’t run out, and therefore is useful as a sandbox tool (like the ship’s other sandbox tools).
Space is Fun Hack: This greatly reduces the amount of pirate attacks and biological hazards that can occur.
My mindset with the latter one is that most of my allies and own colonies are going to be smart enough to handle their ecology on their own, it’s only when they have a problem that’s really dire and desperate (something that has become a pandemic and is spreading more quickly than they can cure) should they call me in to fix it. And there should be police forces in space that keep pirates at bay, it’s only when pirates pull one over on the space police should they get to allied planets.
When Spore modding becomes more complex, I’m hoping I’ll see space-police and a system wherein planets do handle their own ecology modded in. But until then, the Space is Fun Hack works well and I can just pretend, based on reasonable factors.
For anyone interested in those, the Reloaded crack can be found on any torrent site (but I’m not going to help with keys, I try to stress as often as I can that I only want to help customers which are actually legit and feel screwed over), and the mods can be found on the xspore.com forums.
I’m quite happy with everyone complaining, that’s good because iit keeps EA on their toes. But everyone could complain and use stuff that good people have created to fix the problems already anyway. That’s what I’m doing. That way, I get to have my cake and eat it.
I’m not eager to use a crack on a game that calls home. As if the copy i paid for gets bricked i’d be worse off than a pirate. Looks like more and more of my cash is going to impulse and gog. Steam better start reporting the drm or they can go to hell. Clear sky and warhead both have hidden activations?
Yes Heliocentric, Clear Sky, Crysis and Crysis Warhead have limited activations on Steam, though after a week of sales, they finally added a notice on the product page (exactly what happened with Bioshock, no mention of the additional DRM on Steam for the first week or so).
Wholeheartedly agree on the Impulse / GoG part, I’m not particularly happy with Steam nowadays and not just for the DRM additions, but that’s a rant I’ll leave for another day.
As for Spore, it’s still in the “when it will hit the 10-15€ price mark, maybe” shopping list, with the current terms of use.
Wait…STALKER: Clear Sky has DRM too?
*takes Clear Sky off shopping list*
I wholeheartedly agree with the many comments here asking for this information to be included up-front on packaging and in online retailers. Dishonesty – and yes, keeping quiet about it while hoping people won’t notice IS dishonest – should not be rewarded with sales.
@Heliocentric
I definitely support your ideals, as I support GOG and Impulse myself, and have bought from both.
My stance however isn’t so much about supporting EA but more about supporting cracking groups and bringing them more into the mainstream, so that their efforts can be used by paying customers (and more of them want this than you may realise, not all of them are simply all about the piracy).
And frankly, they’re smart blokes. They were smart enough to lobotomise SecuROM, and they’re smart enough to analyse the game and the packets it sends home. I tend to frequent a lot of forums, and there are very intelligent people looking into this and nosing at whether exactly anything naughty is going on between the client and EA.
A fun example (just to make a quick segue, here) is Warden. I think Warden was discovered a day after it was introduced, and long before Blizzard officially announced it. And that was because people are nosey and they like to poke things.
So really, I have choices: I can ignore a game I want to play and stick to the values of DRM-free, and these are great values. Or I could support those who’re making my life easier and simply believe in them and enjoy the game I want to play. If by some incredible chance EA pulls one over on these people and my Spore does get bricked, then so be it.
It’s like Linux, really. I love Linux and I support it as a socialising and applications platform, I have Linux laptops. But I don’t support Linux so exclusively as to miss out on the latest games. As much as I dislike Microsoft, I have to endure their offerings in order to play those games (and I might have to endure even more when Windows LIVE goes… well, live).
And that’s all there is to it, there’re points when a person must decide exactly where they stand, and what they want to do. I’ll take all that I can get. I’ll use a Microsoft OS, but I’ll lobotomise it and rip out its innards so that it does only what I w ant it to. And likewise I’ll buy a game with DRM and graciously use the offerings of cracking groups to surgically remove the bad bits.
It’s just about what a person chooses to do, really. And personally, I’ll continue to endorse cracking groups. There is a truly minimal risk that a copy of Spore could get bricked for using a crack on a legit copy, but I think the risk is worth it.
As an aside: Let’s say that EA did get naughty, they managed to pull one over on cracking groups (or someone didn’t stay updated with the latest releases), and someone’s legal copy of Spore did get bricked. Could you imagine the outrage from that? It’d be all over the blogs within a day, and something like that might even make the printed publications, too.
I would love to see that. If nothing else, it would be entertaining to watch. Even if it was my copy of Spore.
Footnote: Hm, are people becoming disillusioned with Steam? That’s about bloody time. I really hope that StarDock takes advantage of that, and as fully as possible.
Urael:
STALKER: Clear Sky has limited activations on Steam, don’t know at retail. I’ve written a mail to Deep Silver UK asking about it but no reply yet (I’m not having much luck asking about DRM directly at the source in general, I’m either ignored or I get not particularly definitive answers).
The UK retail box sports a pretty funny “IMPORTANT This product is copy-protected by technical protective measures”. Highly informative. No mention of activations/installation limits on the manual.
I’m holding from just going ahead and installing it to find it out by myself as I’m waiting for new hardware and with the patches released so far not having been compatible with previous versions savegames I guess it’s a bit pointless to risk the waste of an activation token.
you crazy theives don’t get it. You keep saying it is stupid to put up with this DRM scheme, when it’s so easy just to steal the game.
get this: a lot of people aren’t ready to openly steal entertainment.
DRM is for those people who are NOT proud to call themselves a thief/pirate. People who generally consider themselves “law abiding.” The current DRM schemes are an attempt to scare this LARGE GROUP of customers into obeying the law. My girlfriend and I both wanted Spore, and our computers are 10 feet apart – but we still purchased separate copies of the game, because we don’t think of ourselves as thieves.
You may be proud to call yourself a criminal. it is oh-so-trendy to think piracy is sexy.
But i don’t know anyone who invites self proclaimed criminals into their homes. Or wants to leave them alone with the kiddies. Sooo, grow up a little? Maybe reevaluate how open you want to be about your criminal activities? (at least until the legal system catches up?)
At least: Recognize that these DRM schemes really aren’t meant to thwart the saavy pirate, but to keep a handle on everyone else’s pocket books.
How’s the view Warren?
Sarcasm and now satire, too? Though that was a pretty funny effort, warren. I’m just wondering how many people will actually take that seriously? It reminds me of the satirical post on one forum where one person was outraged over identical trees in Warhammer, I couldn’t get over how many people actually fell for that.
Warren, please tell me that was an extremely sarcastic post… Otherwise you are a very niave person.
@Warren: Taking your post seriously for a moment, I have a question: so what exactly is the purpose of DRM? If the thieves steal the game anyway and the law-abiding citizens will buy the game anyway… what need is there for DRM?
Warren has to be a troll. I mean, I agree with this:
Yes, DRM schemes have gone from being “anti-piracy” to ways to steal from the customer. If so-called “content owners” think they can unilaterally redefine their business, they shouldn’t be shocked when “game purchasers” come up with their own notions of the community of intellectual property.
(Are we at 100 posts yet?)
Its getting better. I’m worried about 5 computers though. Does it count for a new computer if you change hardware.
Anyway, it clearly shows that the complaints have worked, it just have to continue.
I think the momentum is gone for Spore DRm complaints. Further complaints will liekyl be seen as whining, since ‘EA has already given in’, which might become the public opinion on this. We dont want the ‘anti’DRM movement’ to be seen as whiners, because EA would have an easier time justifying not to listen to it then. What worked for Spore was exactly that newspapers etc. picked up the story, and framed it in a negative way toward EA and positive toward the anti-DRM case.
However, next time EA release a game, and likely use this very same DRM (changed to the new 5 computers thingy) people should redo the 1 star reviews, forum complaints etc. all over again. Until the day DRM doesnt hinder our usability of our legally bought software.
Okay, i googled it, how do you contact stalker clear sky to get new activations?
steam lists these guys as the english language support for stalker clear sky.
http://support.kochmedia.com/web_index.php?action=web_form&cat=0=868&lang=en
i sent them the following, will update when i get a reply.
Just a question which will reflect on me buying stalker clear sky.
The steam version mentions a limit of 5 activations, once they are depleted how can i get more (free or paid as appropiate) does the UK retail version have the same restriction?
Does for example uninstalling the game reimburse me with an install? and if due to system failures i lost all 5 activations what should i do.
Thanks, a potential customer.
This is good. EA needs to know that there’s a difference in expectations between PC gamers and their usual console audience. I’m glad they’re still looking receptive.
Personally I hate DRM. If you have to tie your key to an online account for multiplayer, that’s fine, but anything beyond that – like restrictions on how many times you can download it – is pretty stupid in my opinion.
Helloooo class action lawsuit.
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3170131
Heliocentric, I received an answer from DeepSilver / Kochmedia: the UK retail version of Clear Sky only has disk check, no online activation needed.
Steam having worst use conditions than retail, what’s next? People walking upside down? Humans biting dogs?