By Alec Meer on October 1st, 2008 at 12:26 pm.
Time to stick my hand into the angry beehive again… The EA/Spore/DRM issue isn’t likely to go away any time soon. In a funny sort of way, the ridiculous DRM on Spore might well turn out to be a good thing for gamers – like it or not, EA’s weight in the industry means they’re trend-setters to some degree. That a company so big attempted the sort of draconian copy-protection that only smaller publishers had hithero dabbled in, and crucially they now seem to realise it was a mistake, may well set a positive precedent for everyone. So, while I initially decried the mass trolling of Amazon reviews, I have to agree now that a game as high-profile as Spore was perhaps an ideal object for protest. I’d still much prefer it was gone about in a smarter way than fevered screaming, though.
Though EA aren’t behaving in terribly gentlemanly fashion towards DRM-complaint posts on their forums, they are gradually backing down from some of the restrictions they unfairly placed upon Spore installs, and it looks like that trend’s set to continue.
They’ve already increased the number of activations allowed, while the next patch will allow more usernames per copy of Spore, which should ease the problems of multiple family members playing the same copy of the game at least a little bit. There’s also talk of iTunes-esque PC activation/deactivation at the user’s end – not much use in the event of a hard drive fail, but will help delay the pleading phonecall to EA’s reauthorisation helpline.
Now they’re even admitting to something that we all know, but some of its developers (helloooooo Crytek) don’t seem to: that a Bitorrented copy of a game doesn’t always equate to lost cash. Via Softpedia, EA corporate communicatiosn bod Mariam Sughayer:
“Stepping aside from the whole issue of DRM, people need to recognize that every BitTorrent download doesn’t represent a successful copy of a game, let alone a lost sale.”
Clearly, there’s so much resentment towards what EA did with Spore that some folk will simply never trust ‘em again, and of course this isn’t anything like the total DRM-removal we’d like to see, so it’s not enough to ease all the hurt. But c’mon, it’s a positive step: even if it’s not an outright admission of failure, it’s one of the biggest game companies in the world realising harsh copy protection is a bad idea, and that can only set a precedent for the wider industry. Softpedia also reckons we can expect more community features from EA to counter-piracy – i.e. the kind of stuff that’s worked out well for Steam and Stardock. O brave new world?
(Waits for EA to do something else really bloody stupid and blow the goodwill all over again).
01/10/2008 at 12:32 Ian says:
I think it’s a step toward finding a middle ground, but Angry, Uncompromising Internet Man will still label EA as something akin to the SS until they remove DRM altogether.
01/10/2008 at 12:36 Dante says:
If EA lost customers every time they did something tremendously evil they’d be out of business by now.
I still haven’t forgiven them for killing Bullfrog.
01/10/2008 at 12:40 Ed says:
Having to have the CD in the drive is great for preventing casual piracy. I think that’s enough to be honest, it’s been pretty much categorically proven that preventing ‘hardcore’ piracy is impossible (at least using this kind of DRM)…
So, use a CD check to stop people lending their CD to their friends and be done with it.
01/10/2008 at 12:42 Martin Kingsley says:
I’m with Dante on this one. Bastards.
01/10/2008 at 12:44 AbyssUK says:
I don’t get EA on one hand they have this rubbish Spore DRM and the other they have Battlefield Heroes coming out soon for free.. I don’t understand what they are trying to tell us all. Please don’t download our games, please download our games… its all a bit schizo
01/10/2008 at 12:44 skillian says:
If EA change their poilicies with future upcoming games, then I might believe that “it’s one of the biggest game companies in the world realising harsh copy protection is a bad idea”.
Until then, they’re just loosening the handcuffs a little and are hardly deserving of praise.
01/10/2008 at 12:48 Ian says:
@ Ed: I’m glad I’m not the only one who doesn’t get into a frothy rage just because I need my disc in the drive to play a game.
01/10/2008 at 12:50 Cataclysm says:
I’ve got a genius anti piracy idea for PC games.
Distribute games for FREE.
You download the game for free from torrent-style sites, setup by the games publishing company.
You then create an account on the game, with username, email address etc.
For every hour you spend in the game you pay a set fee (£1 for example).
You pay this fee until you have paid the full price for the game (£30 for example), after which you can play for free from then on. – Though if this worked, game prices would probably be down to around £20 due to lower publishing and packaging costs.
01/10/2008 at 12:53 Urael says:
“So, while I initially decried the mass trolling of Amazon reviews, I have to agree now that a game as high-profile as Spore was perhaps an ideal object for protest.”
Don’t worry, Alec. We’ll always be here to gently point out the errors in your thinking, and guide you back to the light. ;)
01/10/2008 at 12:56 StupidAsIAm says:
I want this type of DRM in every PC game from now on! Yes i do because i can`t cope with “piracy is destroying PC gaming” anymore. I want games on my PC 3 – 5 – 7 years from now. I can still buy the game even if i need to authorise every week. If i want to play the game again in 10 years when the hotline will be down i`ll just download the pirate copy. LET COMPANIES GET SALES. THE MORE THE BETTER. Please stop complaining about DRM because thinking of it who would like to invest millions in a game just to have legal battles over it and the fact that they try to make you buy the legit copy ?
01/10/2008 at 12:57 Downloads_Plz says:
@Ed
6. Don’t require the CD/DVD in the drive to play.
Again, we’re talking about a PC, a device with hundreds of gigabytes of storage. A game needing to look at a plastic disc entirely external to the game install folder whenever it runs is openly ludicrous. I know it’s for copy protection’s sake (and even so is of debatable effectiveness in this day and age), but the annoyance to legit customers surely outweighs a few extra lost sales before the inevitable no CD crack turns up anyway. Requiring PC gamers to scrabble through a vast pile of discs just to play the game they’ve already installed is contrary to the nature of the platform, and lures people towards less than legal solutions that may ultimately push them further towards piracy. And you wouldn’t want that, would you publishers?
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/09/29/rps-demands-10-things-all-pc-games-should-do/
01/10/2008 at 12:58 Dante says:
Cataclysm: It’ll never catch on, it’d mean developers would have to actually make a decent game instead of relying on marketing.
01/10/2008 at 13:00 Dante says:
StupidAsIAm: The problem is that DRM or Piracy is not the choice on offer. Once draconian DRM kicks in there’ll still be just as much piracy, and the rest of us will be profoundly irritated.
01/10/2008 at 13:02 Jerricho says:
Did we invoke Godwin’s law by the first post?
Given that the initial response from EA on this was flat denial and blaming misprints they’ve taken a HUGE step for them to fix it at all. It’s been mentioned on other threads that publishers are terrified about releasing product without copy-protection and that this is entirely divorced from the reality of the situation. It is surely a testament to the great bodies of bad-will that EA have stirred up to make any changes. The restriction on user accounts was by far and away the bigger issue and that’s to be patched.
I dislike DRM, though I have no major issue with having the disc in the drive to play. Egosoft used Starforce on their X series of games which they patched out after a year on each title and wasn’t included in the GotY edition. Sensible.
Feckyourom, on the other hand, was the bane of my gaming life. With every release of Neverwinter nights and expansions I’d have to wait until the no-cd crack was released before installing as it would, every time, point it’s accusing digital finger at me and demand I use a genuine disc.
01/10/2008 at 13:03 Larington says:
@ Cataclysm – An interesting idea, but it’d be decried if anyone tried to use it for games where the majority of the content is offline/singleplayer.
That said, I wonder why subscription games that can be played part-time (casually) such as Planetside, don’t have an alternative subscription method where you pay a months subscription to get say 40/50 hours of game time so if you only have 5 hours a week to play the game you get better value for money.
01/10/2008 at 13:05 phuzz says:
Adobe use an activation/deactivation process for Photoshop/Illustrator CS3. Provided you don’t mind re/deactivating it before each use, you can be installed on a bunch of PC’s at the same time (but only use it on one at once). Seems to work for them, except for the inevitable piracy obviously.
01/10/2008 at 13:07 teo says:
I don’t get what the point of the activation thing is
1. It doesn’t work (it’s cracked)
2. Their account system limits the functionality of an illegal version just fine on its own
3. It’s offensive to the paying customer (it really is, you’re assumed to be a criminal. You have to call them and say you’re not)
01/10/2008 at 13:21 Meat Circus says:
It’s worth pointing out that by any reasonable measure, Spore is THE MOST PIRATED GAME EVER.
Another resounding success for DRM.
01/10/2008 at 13:26 Dante says:
Medieval: Total War still accuses me of having Daemon Tools installed to this day, despite me having a legitimately bought copy in the drive.
It still won’t even let me play online.
01/10/2008 at 13:41 Diogo Ribeiro says:
High profile games are always a good target for this kind of thing, as people can take advantage of the awareness around the title to promote their goal of criticizing DRM. As such, Spore or any other AAA game using draconian digital rights management is an excellent target.
However, it was incredibly juvenile and unfair to attack Spore via Amazon based on the DRM alone. And no one will convince me that a proper campaign launched across a number of media – email, gaming forums, sites and stores – would not have had the same effect, if not more of an impact. For all their cries, “concerned” gamers act like a bunch of wankers instead of smart individuals worth listening to.
01/10/2008 at 13:42 n3utr0n says:
I’m tempted to pirate any games with draconian drm and post the 40 quid or whatever it costs directly to the developer.
01/10/2008 at 13:43 Bobsy says:
Wake me up when it stops demanding online activation. Did I mention that 10 days after I activated it, it started demanding I do it again? Oh, I did? Well it’s worth repeating.
01/10/2008 at 13:52 cHeal says:
Still waiting….
01/10/2008 at 14:01 grumpy says:
Yes, because Spore only turned out to be one of the most heavily pirated games ever. Which is one of the main reasons why this extreme DRM is a lousy idea.
And to the angry internet man above who frothed at the mouth at the thought of cd checks, yes, they’re a pain, and thye shouldn’t be necessary, but if it’s that or Spore-style DRM giving you three activations and nothing more? Compared to that, I really don’t mind a cd check.
And Alec, which “smarter way” would you have liked to see? I really don’t think the Amazon thing is “fevered screaming”. Many of the reviews are pretty well put, and they give the game a bad score because the DRM is a dealbreaker. If you buy a car which can’t drive, it doesn’t matter how soft the seats are, does it? It only takes one broken aspect of the product to ruin it.
I think the Amazon protests are perfect for much the same reason that Spore is a perfect target. Amazon is 1) out of EA’s control, so they can’t silence the protests, and 2) it’s visible. Very visible. And not just to gamers. And it doesn’t rely on someone please forwarding your message to EA. Sure you could go back to the store you bought the game from and say you’d like your money back and could they please tell EA that the DRM is a problem. But that doesn’t get quite the same visibility, does it? And somehow, I doubt mr. store manage is in regular contact with the people at the top who decide about DRM.
So what is this “better way” of which you speak? Better than publically posting review pointing out precisely what the problem is with the game? Better than letting people know about the problem?
01/10/2008 at 14:18 Diogo Ribeiro says:
@grumpy:
And it doesn’t rely on someone please forwarding your message to EA.
How about instead of forwarding messages to EA, why don’t more people create email-based campaigns? Because it doesn’t work? Christ, there are retarded urban myths being forwarded for almost decades and people still buy into those.
Sure you could go back to the store you bought the game from and say you’d like your money back and could they please tell EA that the DRM is a problem. But that doesn’t get quite the same visibility, does it? And somehow, I doubt mr. store manage is in regular contact with the people at the top who decide about DRM.
Protesters should address consumers, not store managers.
01/10/2008 at 14:25 Flak says:
I can’t believe people are falling for this again.
EA : “To play this you’ll need to let us cut off your fingers & toes”
Game sites : “That is harsh! We protest”
EA : “OK, we don’t want your toes any more”
Game sites : “Hurrah! We win! We only need to lose our toes now! We sing EA’s praises”
EA : “Excellent”
01/10/2008 at 14:27 Alec Meer says:
Grumpy: “So what is this “better way” of which you speak?”
No-one’s tried one – not on this scale – which is why I found the Amazon thingy a bit objectionable. It defaulted immediately to shouting and trolling, which obfuscated everything else about the game and also caused some of the very valid objections to appear to be nothing more than stereotypical Angry Internet Men, which reduces sympathy. Yeah, a letter-writing campaign or something might well fail (and one of those damn online petitions certainly would) – but it might not. The Amazon protests might well have failed too – the game’s still sold a million copies, after all. I’m possibly reaching here, but to me EA’s response seems more aimed at placating people who already own the game than making it appeal to those who haven’t bought it yet.
Flak: yeah, no.
01/10/2008 at 14:32 Ian says:
Yes, it’s exactly like the amputation of digits.
01/10/2008 at 14:49 Dan Milburn says:
How about instead of forwarding messages to EA, why don’t more people create email-based campaigns? Because it doesn’t work? Christ, there are retarded urban myths being forwarded for almost decades and people still buy into those.
Because spam is a worse problem than DRM?
Protesters should address consumers, not store managers.
Which, oh look, is exactly what the protests on Amazon did. The reviews are there to be read by other consumers after all.
01/10/2008 at 14:59 Diogo Ribeiro says:
@Dan Milburn:
Because spam is a worse problem than DRM?
Context is your friend if you give it a chance.
Which, oh look, is exactly what the protests on Amazon did. The reviews are there to be read by other consumers after all.
The reviews were a string of litanies which, in their majority, told nothing about Spore – just their dislike of DRM. That’s not being witty, informative, or striving for anything other than self-aggrandization over a matter that could have been dealt with in a mature, sensible way by going up to actual consumers, actual gamers, actual people – the kind these armchair Guevaras should actually meet – and make themselves heard, not misinterpreted over the internet. If a handful of people protesting in front of Ubisoft because of America’s Army’s violence and questionable content, imagine what dozens, if not hundreds, of gamers protesting, would accomplish. But you don’t get that. And people wonder why videogames aren’t given much consideration from mainstream media. Guess what – it’s because of actually standing up for a medium you believe in, like people have done in the past, all you can do is act like 15 year old Halo players who go “gay!” at everything, only with slightly better punctuation.
01/10/2008 at 15:03 GLOWi says:
Crytek never said that EVERY bittorented copy is a lost sale.
They said that if every 20th bittorented copy would have been bought, Crysis sales would be doubled. In my opinion that was reasonable enough.
01/10/2008 at 15:10 Heliocentric says:
Okay, about the amazon protest failing. It didnt, I was going to buy it until I read about the amazon noise and read deeper about them threatening customers with bricked games unless they shut up.
The protests worked, to a degree. Nothing else works, you hit EA in the pocket or you do nothing. Suing them in the countries that offer any protection is one way (canada has some legal scuffle occuring), another is not buying the product.
In short, unless you can suggest a better idea of how to raise the profile of this issue, i suggest you step off the soap box and leave the protection of your rights to the angry internet men. They might have a terribly ineffective idea but it saved *me* from spending cash on spore and crysis warhead. And not just that all future EA titles will cause me to read up on DRM before paying, not something i would have done. Sims 3 before this was a must buy, now? I’ll watch it closely and I and EA lose out due to EA acting in bad faith.
I note, the person threatening customers again, they were not publicly fired were they? So EA still feels that way. All I need to know.
I wont pirate spore, but if in some time in the future they send out a drm freeing patch i guess i’ll decide if i care about the game anymore.
EA need to make actions not words.
edit: i need to add, i dont “hate” EA, they are a corporation, they ‘feel’ with their share price. And they will get lots of ‘ad click love’ from me with battlefield heroes. I’m simply saying that i’d sooner the amazonian riots happen, than not happened. Saved me grief.
01/10/2008 at 15:22 grumpy says:
And once again, this is wrong how? They say that DRM ruined Spore to extent where, in their opinion, the rest of the game doesn’t matter. Once again, if you buy a car that doesn’t actually work, are you going to care about the color, or how comfy the seats are?
Would you object if RPS posted a review of a game tomorrow saying “Ok, the installer didn’t work, so I couldn’t actually try the game.” Would you then complain that they say nothing about the game itself, that they only complain about one small aspect of it? No one cares about the installer, after all, it’s the game we’re interested in hearing about. But it just so happens that this small bug in the installer makes everything about the game irrelevant, because you can’t actually play it.
Sure, not everyone agree with this assessment, and I admit the DRM doesn’t render Spore quite as useless as these examples, but Amazon user reviews are *supposed* to be subjective. they’re *meant* to be “here’s why *I* like or dislike the product. And a few thousand people dislike the product as a whole because of the DRM. And that is what they wrote in their reviews.
Nothing. And I’ll tell you why.
1: These protests wouldn’t necessarily be seen by other consumers. So from EA’s point of view, their impact is negligible, and can be ignored.
2: You assume that everyone who dislike DRM happen to live just near EA’s HQ. Guess what, they don’t. I’m not buying a flight to the US just to complain about Spore.
3: It’d be a one-time event. Now the protesters are here, a few hours later, they’re gone. The Amazon reviews have been around for weeks, and they’ll most likely be around forever.
Ok, I [can't express myself without resorting to abuse].
You’re so far off base that I’m not even sure we’re addressing the same game (we are talking about Spore and DRM, right?)
The Amazon thing got heaps of consideration from mainstream media. More than pretty much any other game-related protest I can think of. More than Jack Thompson has achieved for years. Non-gamers have heard of Spore’s DRM. They haven’t heard of people protesting about America’s Army.
And of course, you also don’t seem to have read any of the Amazon reviews. Many of them do cover the game as well as the DRM. But please, don’t let mere facts get in way of your righteous fury because gamers for once achieved a small success.
But I really don’t think you’re one to accuse other of going “gay” with slightly better punctuation.
Visibility? An email is only seen by the sender and the receiver. Sure, such a campaign could in theory get out to millions of users. And then what? EA wouldn’t get to see a single one of them. And non-gamers, or people who hadn’t bought Spore yet would just see it as intrusive spam. So no, it wouldn’t work. It would annoy the people who hadn’t yet bought Spore, and EA wouldn’t even realize it was going on.
01/10/2008 at 15:25 Cataclysm says:
@ Diogo Riberio
If you actually read the reviews you will realise a good % of them explain why they do not agree with the DRM and some even outline flaws in the game.
Its not a spam of reviews like “OMG SPORE SUX – DRM IS FAIL” as you seem to make out.
Using Amazon reviews to get the message across is a good way to go about it. It shows the people who matter (potential buyers) that when buying the game you are getting a product that is extremely limited and not stating so – something a average buyer would not of known.
Its not spam that litters everyones day, only people who CARE will read the reviews. This to me makes it a good way to protest about something that had been snuck into the game.
01/10/2008 at 15:26 Alec Meer says:
Be civil, Grumpy, or be deleted.
01/10/2008 at 15:27 Larington says:
Does the game box for spore even give mention of the use of a DRM system? Thats the real clincher there.
01/10/2008 at 15:33 Bhazor says:
Oh good, DRM. This is hardly ever talked about anywhere.
01/10/2008 at 15:35 Cataclysm says:
@Larington
No it doesn’t.
01/10/2008 at 15:37 grumpy says:
Aw, that wasn’t offensive. (or not intended to be anyway). Just meant that if you look at said mainstream media out in the real world, the Amazon thing has gotten more publicity than pretty much anything else.
Sowwy though :(
Define “mention”. It says that online connectivity is required for activation of the game. Nothing about the limit on activations, and nothing about the DRM software. Does that count? (And yeah, that’s one of the big problems I have with the DRM. EA *knows* it’s giving the consumers less value than they’re used to, it *knows* that if this bit of news really got out, they’d be in trouble. So they try to hide it. And of course, with Spore they pretty much failed at that. :)
01/10/2008 at 15:38 Ian says:
@ Larington: No, but then if there was some form of restriction everybody actually agreed to nobody would say “Well they’ve got a fine anti-piracy system but I have a complaint that it wasn’t detailed on the box,” so I don’t know whether that’s relevent.
In fact, it IS relevent but perhaps game boxes should all have, as standard (like with specs, ratings, whatever), a very brief blurb or some numbers regarding copy protection. “1 account per copy, 1 machine per copy,” that sort of thing.
01/10/2008 at 16:07 Diogo Ribeiro says:
@grumpy:
And once again, this is wrong how?
Once again, it’s not a review of a product. It’s a – justifiable – rant against one aspect of the product, which is given considerably more importante than anything else.
They say that DRM ruined Spore to extent where, in their opinion, the rest of the game doesn’t matter. Once again, if you buy a car that doesn’t actually work, are you going to care about the color, or how comfy the seats are?
Would you object if RPS posted a review of a game tomorrow saying “Ok, the installer didn’t work, so I couldn’t actually try the game.” Would you then complain that they say nothing about the game itself, that they only complain about one small aspect of it? No one cares about the installer, after all, it’s the game we’re interested in hearing about. But it just so happens that this small bug in the installer makes everything about the game irrelevant, because you can’t actually play it.
No, it doesn’t. That’s an absolute lie. Spore’s DRM prevented no one from playing the game; the problem is that it prevented people from replaying the game, at a later date, after they had spent all of their activations. It’s not comparable to a faulty install when Spore installed just fine if you were installing it the first time – which is how Spore is experienced by the majority of its first-time users. If potentially bad experience with the game in the future displeases a consumer, that’s fine. Warn everyone. I know I would. Just don’t lie about the fact that it will affect everyone else the same way, or that the DRM prevented you from playing. It didn’t.
Sure, not everyone agree with this assessment, and I admit the DRM doesn’t render Spore quite as useless as these examples, but Amazon user reviews are *supposed* to be subjective. they’re *meant* to be “here’s why *I* like or dislike the product. And a few thousand people dislike the product as a whole because of the DRM. And that is what they wrote in their reviews.
The ability to be subjective is no excuse for a biased or self-serving exposition of their opinion, especially when it has to place people’s jobs at Maxis in stake – and let’s be honest, how many of them actually played the game, as opposed to making blanket statements just to be part of the attack against the “evil” that is EA? As I’ve said in the first newsbit right after the protest, this does nothing more than lead Amazon costumers the wrong way by not telling them the whole angle because, as is usual with ratings based sites, most people either ignore reviews and go for the absolute rating or skim over a review’s text. And what are the reasons they find in the majority of the reviews? DRM. DRM. D. R. M.
Nothing. And I’ll tell you why.
1: These protests wouldn’t necessarily be seen by other consumers. So from EA’s point of view, their impact is negligible, and can be ignored.
Then make themselves be seen. Pull a reverse Jack Thompson and go on national TV with examples of EA’s dubious promotion of the game, as well as their costumer support and treatment by treating them, as some have said, as “criminals”.
2: You assume that everyone who dislike DRM happen to live just near EA’s HQ. Guess what, they don’t. I’m not buying a flight to the US just to complain about Spore.
Which pretty much describes “concerned gamers” – concerned enough that their let out howls of outrage against the raping of their consumer rights and of videogame rights, but – gosh darn it – just not enough to stage a campaign, and to give all of them to raise awareness of videogamers as someone worth listening to, or even fighting against DRM in a more public way.
3: It’d be a one-time event. Now the protesters are here, a few hours later, they’re gone. The Amazon reviews have been around for weeks, and they’ll most likely be around forever.
Than stage multiple events across the country over the following months. Gather people, raise awareness, pay random passers-by so they’ll hold posters above their head instead of buying the latest hi-tech low-fun flavour of the month FPS for 50 bucks, and go to major outlets where Spore is sold. I mean, most coup d’etats in South America only take like three guys, duct tape and a machette. In North America, where there are thousands of gamers, in an age where communication is literally at one’s fingertips, people can’t meet one another or gather somewhere?
“Ooh, but they have lives, and jobs, and families…” yes, which doesn’t prevent them from coming here and defend their “rights” behind a keyboard every single day, multiple hours per day.
You’re so far off base that I’m not even sure we’re addressing the same game (we are talking about Spore and DRM, right?)
The Amazon thing got heaps of consideration from mainstream media. More than pretty much any other game-related protest I can think of. More than Jack Thompson has achieved for years. Non-gamers have heard of Spore’s DRM. They haven’t heard of people protesting about America’s Army.
Yet, they have heard more about Jack Thompson and violence in videogames than Spore. They’ve heard more about Lieberman, Hilary and – of all things – “Dr.” Phil going off on videogames. By comparison, they heard about Spore how many times? How frequently? Debated how strongly? Even old Jackie was better at galvanizing crowds than whatever you think the Amazon whinefest did.
And of course, you also don’t seem to have read any of the Amazon reviews. Many of them do cover the game as well as the DRM. But please, don’t let mere facts get in way of your righteous fury because gamers for once achieved a small success.
What facts? Can you tell me with a straight face that many reviews there only talk about DRM? Your “accusation” would be spot on, if I had not read about 500 of them at the time – close to half of the ones estimated there. There’s something for everybody, sure: bits about the game, bits about the hype, 15 year old rants, educated rants. But most of what I’ve read falls squarely in attacking the game for something that it’s the publisher’s fault.
Visibility? An email is only seen by the sender and the receiver. Sure, such a campaign could in theory get out to millions of users. And then what? EA wouldn’t get to see a single one of them. And non-gamers, or people who hadn’t bought Spore yet would just see it as intrusive spam. So no, it wouldn’t work.
Because you say so? Because you can divine how people would react to such an email? Hit people where it hits. “Today it’s about videogames. Tomorrow may be about your favorite software, your hardware, your rights as a person” is much more convincing than “hmm spore drm bad, mmmkay?”
01/10/2008 at 16:17 Turin Turambar says:
The whole problem for me was the lack of a deactivation tool for Spore. If it is true they are going to realease it, it will be much better than now. Of course it could have been still better if that function were present in the retail game, instead of “in the future, in a patch” as it is now.
01/10/2008 at 16:22 Diogo Ribeiro says:
@Cataclysm:
If you actually read the reviews you will realise a good % of them explain why they do not agree with the DRM and some even outline flaws in the game.
Newsflash. I read many of the reviews. Thanks for assuming I didn’t. But as I’ve told grumpy, most of them are not “reviews” about the game, they’re “reviews” of Spore’s DRM. And Spore’s DRM, once again – does not hinder or cripple your ability to play the game out of the box nor does it screw you over with its installation unless you were installing it for the third time (now gone). And once again, because saying it only a couple of times never seems to get the job done, I agree people should tell others about the potential problems of DRM, as well as why and how DRM influenced Spore. But they were going off on the basic premise of what the DRM could do. It was immoral, draconian, crippling, whatever. What about the game? Choice quotations:
“It was fun but DRM sucked the life out of it”
“Good game, shame about DRM tough”
“Didn’t touch the game, returned it as soon as I found out about DRM”
This isn’t criticism of the game. This isn’t “people have their right to express their dislikes with the game and if DRM had a part in that, all the reason they should mention it”. It’s exposing DRM and treating Spore like a bastard child.
Its not a spam of reviews like “OMG SPORE SUX – DRM IS FAIL” as you seem to make out.
It’s not the Shakespearean drama most of you are trying to make it sound, either.
Using Amazon reviews to get the message across is a good way to go about it. It shows the people who matter (potential buyers) that when buying the game you are getting a product that is extremely limited and not stating so – something a average buyer would not of known.
Which must sound absolutely dreamy for consumers who want to know very little about the product they want to buy, and actually prefer sweaty nerd rage to be the decisive factor in a purchase.
Once *again*, I’m pro-criticism but against trying to bury a studio’s 4-year investment over something the designers had no say about. Most reviews at Amazon bury Spore because of EA. They pick up a game that took around 4 years to develop, completely crap all over its developer by showing no sign of respect to his work, then rampage against the DRM. Bravo.
Are these people trying to defend their right to gaming, or their right to complain? Possibly the most important piece of videogaming in the 21st century comes out, and what gets scrutinized is DRM. Which, *again*, did not influence how the game played out. Christ, even gaming sites which people criticize were often more eloquent about it, reviewing the game and pointing out the flaws of DRM without it being 3 pages filled with angst.
Once again, “average consumers” on Amazon either go for the ratings or pay little attention to reviews. When they do read them, they generally go for the ones chosen to be featured on the product’s main page and even then, do not necessarily read everything.
Its not spam that litters everyones day, only people who CARE will read the reviews. This to me makes it a good way to protest about something that had been snuck into the game.
I care, and even I didn’t had the will to go beyond five hundred reviews. Who’s to say the average gamer will have more patience and care than me? Who’s to say Average Joe, who only wants to know how good the game is, will read over one thousand reviews which all revolve around the same premise – that DRM is bad? People defending the staged assault on Amazon are also forgetting something – at about 20 to 50 reviews later, even the most dull witted consumer already realized it was a staged attack and has little patience to keep reading the same people prattling on about the same thing for 9950 other reviews. They’ll care little about whether DRM screwed you over or not – they’ll check somewhere else for opinions.
01/10/2008 at 16:40 grumpy says:
Sure it’s comparable. That is exactly what it is. It’s not the same, no, and I did say that it’s not as bad as if the product hadn’t worked at all. I was making the point that a review doesn’t necessarily have to describe the entire product. Not if there’s one single aspect of it that is so bad that it makes all the rest of the product irrelevant. And some people feel this is the case for DRM.
Self-serving? Warning others of a potential problem with the game is self-serving? But tell me, why would other forms of protests be better then? They’d be just as self-serving and biased.
It doesn’t. Maxis are not the one being affected by this. They get paid no matter what. That’s kinda why you have a publisher. They give you money, and hope that they can make it back when the game is released.
And once again, would other forms of protests be better then? Wouldn’t any form of (effective) criticism put their jobs at stake?
Most, I’d guess. But it doesn’t occur to you that you are the one making blanket statements, both about the contents of the Amazon reviews, and about whether they have played the game.
Exactly. So they see that a lot of people dislike the game for the DRM. And that’s all. If they don’t care about the DRM, then they’ll know they can safely ignore the bad reivews. Once again, I fail to see the problem. It’d be worse if people posted reviews saying Spore is a bad game for spurious reasons. They dont. The reviews are honest. They say the DRM in particular makes it unacceptable.
Sure, I’ll just call CNN and ask them to book me for 17:30?
No, once again, it amazes me that you can’t see that this is precisely what the Amazon reviews *are*. They have made themselves seen. They have shown even the mainstream media that here is a phenomenon worth reporting about.
What? I thought the Amazon thing *was* a campaign, it *did* raise awareness, and it *does* fight DRM in a “more public way”. I’m sorry, but you’re making absolutely no sense. You’re saying that instead of posting these reviews on Amazon.com, people should….. do the exact same thing. Instead of staging a campaign to raise awareness in a public way, people should…. stage a campaign to raise awareness in a public way. Well done.
And I’m sorry, are you seriously suggesting that I should fork out $500 for a plane ticket just to go visit EA so I could participate in some protest? Am I dismissed as a “concerned gamer” if I’m not willing to do that?
And again, you suggest people do exactly what they’ve already done. People *are* gathering. At Amazon. And they’re being more visible there than they would at any real-world physical protest. People *are* going to *the* “major outlet where Spore is sold”. Exactly as you suggest.
That’s right. A return trip to the US takes just around 24 hours. Writing a review on Amazon takes… less than that.
01/10/2008 at 16:58 DosFreak says:
Diogo Ribeiro says:
Once again, it’s not a review of a product. It’s a – justifiable – rant against one aspect of the product, which is given considerably more importante than anything else.
As opposed to not getting mentioned EVER in any reviews. I know which one I prefer.
Just don’t lie about the fact that it will affect everyone else the same way, or that the DRM prevented you from playing. It didn’t.
So the game doesn’t have any issues with Daemon Tools or the like? No problems with process explorer? It doesn’t cause your explorer to crash or right-click to take forever to load up or the inability to delete 16bit files due to the SECUROM shell extension? This is all part of the game and as such should be reviewed right along with it. (I don’t know if the above affects SPORE like it did with all of the other SECUROM infected games)
And what are the reasons they find in the majority of the reviews? DRM. DRM. D. R. M.
Which should tell them something. The potential customers (oopps, [b]Consumers[/b]) or ex-consumers are complaining about DRM because it affects them. The copyright infringers don’t give a crap about the DRM. The “casual” users don’t give a crap about the DRM (yet). The enthusiasts are the ones who give a crap about DRM which is why they commented on it.
Then make themselves be seen. Pull a reverse Jack Thompson and go on national TV with examples of EA’s dubious promotion of the game, as well as their costumer support and treatment by treating them, as some have said, as “criminals”.
Good luck with that. FOX news may accept Joe Blow off the street to bash EA. MABYE.
Which pretty much describes “concerned gamers” – concerned enough that their let out howls of outrage against the raping of their consumer rights and of videogame rights, but – gosh darn it – just not enough to stage a campaign, and to give all of them to raise awareness of videogamers as someone worth listening to, or even fighting against DRM in a more public way.
Yes, that’s just the way to do it. Spend a huge assload of money to fight DRM whereas before you’d spend a potentially smaller amount of money on DRM infected games (that you would then crack) but you kept your mouth shut. It’s not suprising that people would go for the latter option.
“Ooh, but they have lives, and jobs, and families…” yes, which doesn’t prevent them from coming here and defend their “rights” behind a keyboard every single day, multiple hours per day.
Are you serious? This is the internet age. Internet sales are taking over from retail. Protesting at your local Best Buy isn’t going to do jack except get you arrested.
Yet, they have heard more about Jack Thompson and violence in videogames than Spore. They’ve heard more about Lieberman, Hilary and – of all things – “Dr.” Phil going off on videogames. By comparison, they heard about Spore how many times? How frequently? Debated how strongly? Even old Jackie was better at galvanizing crowds than whatever you think the Amazon whinefest did.
Spore just came out. Your above examples have been around for YEARS. ALOT of people have heard about Amazon and Spore in a very small amount of time.
What facts? Can you tell me with a straight face that many reviews there only talk about DRM? Your “accusation” would be spot on, if I had not read about 500 of them at the time – close to half of the ones estimated there. There’s something for everybody, sure: bits about the game, bits about the hype, 15 year old rants, educated rants. But most of what I’ve read falls squarely in attacking the game for something that it’s the publisher’s fault.
Not sure where your going with this one. It’s a good thing that there is “something for everybody” in reviews. The publisher AND the developer should be negatively reviewed for crippling their product.
Because you say so? Because you can divine how people would react to such an email? Hit people where it hits. “Today it’s about videogames. Tomorrow may be about your favorite software, your hardware, your rights as a person” is much more convincing than “hmm spore drm bad, mmmkay?”
None of that will get people to do jack. The only way to get people interested is to hit them where it hurts. Family/Money/Time. That’s about it.
Since the average users is lazy as hell then they aren’t going to take the TIME to research a product. TIME=MONEY. Now if they did research the product and realized the MONEYTIME involved in calling EA then perhaps they wouldn’t purchase the product. As for FAMILY there isn’t much you can do for this as far as games are concerned unless when your purchasing a game you realize the pain and frustration that DRM would cause them.
01/10/2008 at 16:59 Smurfy says:
I think the reason EA isn’t happy with “insert CD” anymore is that a quick Google will find a no CD patch for just about any game ever.
01/10/2008 at 16:59 Damien says:
I tried to buy it on the EA Direct2Drive or whatever it’s called. As I was checking out it was made clear that I’d only be able to re-download the game for 6 months and after that my copy disappeared. If I got a new computer or my HD crashes and I don’t have a back-up, too bad.
They told me, however, that I could upgrade to a 2 year download option for only $4.99 more (or whatever it was, it was extra). This is like that game insurance crap at EB: making me pay for something that really should be included in the price.
Therefore I refused to buy it, mainly on principle. Steam can keep my games in perpetuity, why can’t EA?
01/10/2008 at 17:35 Diogo Ribeiro says:
@grumpy:
I was making the point that a review doesn’t necessarily have to describe the entire product. Not if there’s one single aspect of it that is so bad that it makes all the rest of the product irrelevant. And some people feel this is the case for DRM.
And my point is that what they “feel” in this case is irrelevant, because it did not ruin the game. If it did, it was for them alone. Not for other costumers. Except the kiddies were trying to make it so everyone else would feel just as emo as they did. And that’s not about subjectivity, it’s not about fighting for one’s rights – it’s plain lying.
Self-serving? Warning others of a potential problem with the game is self-serving? But tell me, why would other forms of protests be better then? They’d be just as self-serving and biased.
Self-serving in the context in which I believe the Amazon reviews were more about the act of protesting than the object of protest. No, I can’t guess their motivations. But I can tell you I’ve seen enough of these staged attacks to know most of the time, these people just look for a fight without having any reason to join it. And seriously, who are they serving by completely neglecting the game and only mentioning DRM? Gamers? Wouldn’t gamers want to know about the game? I learned scant information about the game by reading those reviews, and what little I learned could have been found in previews.
It doesn’t. Maxis are not the one being affected by this. They get paid no matter what. That’s kinda why you have a publisher. They give you money, and hope that they can make it back when the game is released.
Maxis aren’t independent, and EA aren’t exactly known for being lenient towards acquired studios which did not conform to their standards of quality.
And once again, would other forms of protests be better then? Wouldn’t any form of (effective) criticism put their jobs at stake?
Any form of criticism that actually distinguishes between Maxis’ game and EA’s DRM is alright in my book. And, you guessed it, most reviews in Amazon that I read were particularly inept at telling folks just what they were criticizing – Spore or EA.
Most, I’d guess. But it doesn’t occur to you that you are the one making blanket statements, both about the contents of the Amazon reviews, and about whether they have played the game.
So, would you require me to flood the RPS comment section with actual quotes from the reviews? Or can you take a couple of hours – like I did – and read those reviews carefully? It’s also pretty amusing that, to you, I’m making blanket statements when I’ve repeatedly agreed that people should criticize DRM and that there are reviews over there that actually address this (just not all); while meanwhile, some of the reviews that still remain there are absolutely vague and simply mimic the mantra of DRM being bad.
Irony.
Besides, you’re also forgetting that review hierarchy is usually changed over there – the first review I read back then might be the 325th by now.
They say the DRM in particular makes it unacceptable.
Yes. Some. Others clearly say it makes the game unplayable. Others claim the game is bad without the slightlest bits of opinion – even subjective. While you’re defending the “enlightment” this move brought, all it takes is for consumers to read a string of poor excuses for a review to get the wrong idea and potentially gloss over future Maxis products, but still lining up to buy the latest EA Sports title. Is it really hard to accept that someone would take issue against a poorly created protest, even if that someone agrees with the premise behind it?
Sure, I’ll just call CNN and ask them to book me for 17:30?
You’ll never know if all you do is spew sarcasm at someone who’s basically on your side, but simply suggesting there’s more profit to be had outside than behind the keyboard.
No, once again, it amazes me that you can’t see that this is precisely what the Amazon reviews *are*. They have made themselves seen. They have shown even the mainstream media that here is a phenomenon worth reporting about.
Great then. So did the lot of you managed to convince everyone that DRM is bad, to the point where none of us will have to deal with it in the future?
I’m sorry, but you’re making absolutely no sense. You’re saying that instead of posting these reviews on Amazon.com, people should….. do the exact same thing. Instead of staging a campaign to raise awareness in a public way, people should…. stage a campaign to raise awareness in a public way. Well done.
I’ll assume your sarcasm is not a hint you cannot read, because I’ve been making myself perfectly clear on the differences between bashing a game online – even if on a reputed site like Amazon – and performing various campaign actions across game stores and company offices over several months.
And I’m sorry, are you seriously suggesting that I should fork out $500 for a plane ticket just to go visit EA so I could participate in some protest? Am I dismissed as a “concerned gamer” if I’m not willing to do that?
I think the better question is – am *I* dismissed as a concerned gamer because I propose less online whining and more real world intervention? Because that seems to be what you’re getting at.
And again, you suggest people do exactly what they’ve already done. People *are* gathering. At Amazon. And they’re being more visible there than they would at any real-world physical protest.
Again, you know this *how*? There was never any “real-world physical protest” about Spore so that you could compare and determine that online whining was fore more successful.
Seriously, am I the one that’s not making sense? Because that’s not what it seems from where I’m standing. I’ve repeatedly stated that I’m in favor of protests, while you suggest I’m not. I’ve repeatedly stated real-world manifestations and attention gathering are far more effective and gave examples such as all those who parade against videogames, whose fanaticism ends being more influential for discussion; discussion that lasts for months – and all you’re doing is claiming that the Amazon stunt is what people should do, because being covered by most news agencies only once in a couple of days is far better than everlasting exposure to media attention.
That’s right. A return trip to the US takes just around 24 hours. Writing a review on Amazon takes… less than that.
Well, don’t let me prevent concerned gamers from fetching another Doritos pack. Roll on the verbal abuse, keyboard jockeys united. But don’t go outside for fear of actual contact with reality – it bites!
Yes, and? Are you saying that this is somehow off-limits?
So you’d have no qualms with seeing what could possibly be your life’s work ignored by critics because your publisher screwed up? Criticized by something that was beyond your control?
I doubt it. I know several non-gamers who have heard about the Spore DRM debacle, and who have no clue who Thompson is.
Is this a “I win because I know people” style of debate? Actually, let’s focus on something else. Which is more debated on the media – Jack Thompson and anti-violent videogame crusades or Spore’s DRM? It sure ain’t the latter. And DRM has been in videogames for longer than Jackie boys’ been rampaging against GTA titles – yet, where’s the concerned gamer talking about his rights on national media?
Once again, the Amazon “whinefest” did get reported in most major media. And it seems that *something* even got through to EA. Sure, it could be your email to their support. But it could also be the Amazon protest, which actually threatens their bottom line.
I love it that EA backing down could be “either the protest… Or the emails”. Riveting stuff.
Yes. I can. People don’t generally like getting mail about something they have no interest in. That’s called spam.
Again, try to have a look at these characters I leave behind. They need attention and love, good sir, lest they die. I’ve very clearly suggested a headline or subject matter that could appeal to people. DRM, by large, can affect customers and it is in their interest that it does not harm them even more. It’s not exactly Viagra advertisement.
The Amazon thing is visible to those who *are* interested. It doesn’t target people who don’t care, it targets precisely the demographic where it’s relevant. Those who consider buying the game.
Those who consider buying the game are likely to come from very diverse backgrounds. For the most part, there are few types of demographics at work here, and these are generally “casual” gamer, interested gamer, and “hardcore” gamer. The first is the most likely to have heard little of Spore’s DRM and the one that, potentially, may learn something about the whole deal trough Amazon (but then, there’s the anciliary discussion about piss poor reviews, emo feelings over DRM, and how these reviews and ratings are actually perceived by consumers – the ones you insist are ludicrous). The “hardcore” gamer has probably gleaned more about the game from discussion in forums and word of mouth than Amazon reviews; and the interested gamer – curious but not savvy – has a 50% chance of not caring one iota of your crusade against DRM.
Telling someone the campaign is effective is about the same as saying carpet-bombing a country is effective in taking out terrorists. It doesn’t account for civilians and those that get away.
Oh well, if you want to be guilty of everything you accuse these Amazon posters of, while denying the fact that it has actually had a very positive effect so far, and the obvious flaws in most of your “superior alternatives”, that’s your choice.
Problem #1: No one can say whether it was because of the Amazon protest that they’ve changed their attitude.
Problem #2: You’ve yet to point out any flaw whatsoever in my suggestion.
Problem #3: The following just about explains why my points have been flying over your head.
But I still don’t understand how anyone can object to a campaign which:
1: achieves visibility for the “cause”
So do my suggestions.
2: doesn’t intrude on other people’s time or privacy
Neither does mine. You could argue that chatting up people in stores takes away precious time, but so does an Amazon protest that muddles the truth.
3: is primarily visible to those for whom it’s relevant (someone who don’t even own a computer won’t see this or care, and we don’t *need* that person to care. But people at EA see this, which is good, and people who consider buying Spore see it.
Surprisingly, the same people affected if one protests in stores and company offices.
4: Make it clear precisely what the problem is (It’s not “Spore is a bad game”, or “Your rights as a person” or any other rubbish like that. It’s plain and simple “We give Spore a bad spore because of the DRM limitations”.
The latter was a suggestion, not how I’d go about it. It was meant to point out how your assumption of what an email campaign of mine (or any other, for that matter) would amount to spam.
01/10/2008 at 18:13 Pod says:
I think RPS will crash if two more of these exponentially-growing,-already-massive-o-posts carries on.
01/10/2008 at 18:19 dhex says:
Problem #1: No one can say whether it was because of the Amazon protest that they’ve changed their attitude.
it seems like it certainly contributed, no?
01/10/2008 at 18:21 Diogo Ribeiro says:
@DosFreak:
As opposed to not getting mentioned EVER in any reviews. I know which one I prefer.
So you live in a binary world. Good for you. That’s irrelevant in a world where there are more than 0s and 1s.
So the game doesn’t have any issues with Daemon Tools or the like? No problems with process explorer? It doesn’t cause your explorer to crash or right-click to take forever to load up or the inability to delete 16bit files due to the SECUROM shell extension? This is all part of the game and as such should be reviewed right along with it. (I don’t know if the above affects SPORE like it did with all of the other SECUROM infected games)
Here’s a fun fact about computer software – technical issues are a case by case scenario. Your problems with Spore are not global. They *may* appear in other people’s systems, but they may not. Not everyone uses Daemon Tools, for instance, and I’ve repeatedly asked people who have bought Spore about similar issues – some have them, some don’t. Propaganda that makes it seem everyone will have problems the exact same problems with Spore is just that, propaganda.
Which should tell them something. The potential customers (oopps, [b]Consumers[/b]) or ex-consumers are complaining about DRM because it affects them. The copyright infringers don’t give a crap about the DRM. The “casual” users don’t give a crap about the DRM (yet). The enthusiasts are the ones who give a crap about DRM which is why they commented on it.
And if you’d make an effort to read my posts, instead of jumping in blindfolded, you’d have read the part where I’ve stated that I agree people should warn of technical issues with the DRM – my main quibble is that there are for more sensible approaches instead of NERD RAGE.
Good luck with that. FOX news may accept Joe Blow off the street to bash EA. MABYE.
And we certainly know who to thank for not having anyone capable of defending the videogame medium and alert people to situations like these, don’t we? We have had major voices of protest in the past in relation to politics, music, the film industry and so on – our “voice” is nowhere to be heard, but people gladly support outright bashing of a game on Amazon by anonymous people (without any proof of correlation and causation between them) instead of generating concerned groups to defend the cause.
Yes, that’s just the way to do it. Spend a huge assload of money to fight DRM whereas before you’d spend a potentially smaller amount of money on DRM infected games (that you would then crack) but you kept your mouth shut. It’s not suprising that people would go for the latter option.
Because as we know, it’s not with sacrifice that people fight for their rights and make themselves heard. Good heavens. If at least someone had told minorities and women that instead of protesting on the streets, suffering humiliation and whatnot – they could have just waited until someone did their job for them.
Are you serious? This is the internet age. Internet sales are taking over from retail. Protesting at your local Best Buy isn’t going to do jack except get you arrested.
And what kind of success did the Amazon protest had, when, at the time of this writing, Amazon.com claims Spore is #18 in sales ranks, making it one of the Bestsellers in Video Games.
Spore just came out. Your above examples have been around for YEARS. ALOT of people have heard about Amazon and Spore in a very small amount of time.
Coincidentally, DRM has also been around for YEARS. Why is it only a concern now? Because it’s more draconian? Because people aren’t willing to fight against it in a way that demands more personal investment? Because gamers have developed this freak sense of entitlement? Whatever the answer, concerns about the rights of videogamers and the need to validate the medium in a number of issues has been around for years. No one gave a rat’s ass. If you didn’t complain back then, what does it say about your right to complain now?
Not sure where your going with this one. It’s a good thing that there is “something for everybody” in reviews. The publisher AND the developer should be negatively reviewed for crippling their product.
Of course, we should always blame those who are not the culprits. How callous of me to think otherwise.
None of that will get people to do jack. The only way to get people interested is to hit them where it hurts. Family/Money/Time. That’s about it.
Since the average users is lazy as hell then they aren’t going to take the TIME to research a product. TIME=MONEY. Now if they did research the product and realized the MONEYTIME involved in calling EA then perhaps they wouldn’t purchase the product. As for FAMILY there isn’t much you can do for this as far as games are concerned unless when your purchasing a game you realize the pain and frustration that DRM would cause them.
And I’m not arguing against any of that. I’m arguing against exactly how to go about it.
01/10/2008 at 18:23 Diogo Ribeiro says:
@dhex:
it seems like it certainly contributed, no?
Quite likely. Question is, was this the only way? Couldn’t a method where people pointed out the issue vehemently – but not aggressively and disrespectfuly towards the developer – work? Couldn’t this have been made in a way to give EA – rather than Spore – bad word of mouth?
Everyone that tells me “no” still hasn’t pointed out “why”.
01/10/2008 at 18:34 dhex says:
well, it’s the easiest, most decentralized way of doing things, beyond whatever kind of customer complaints may have piled in. i don’t like activations at all – to the point where it may sway my purchase of a game – but i’m not going to be piling on clear sky and gsc (or deep silver, or valve) on amazon any time soon, despite it so far having been an unrunnable, buggy and overall a total pee on my head experience.
the amazon thing was not very nice, but many consumers obviously feel that activations are invasive or otherwise objectionable. this particular method, uncouth though it was, is clearly effective.
when you run a software company – i’m speaking solely from a pr standpoint right now – that has direct communication channels to monitor, both sponsored and external, that it is often an excellent window into what the vocal segment of your customer base thinks of you and your practices. it will never be the kind of thing you can take home to mom but customer relations are never gussied up for thanksgiving dinner. it’s not supposed to be pretty.
01/10/2008 at 18:46 n3utr0n says:
If you didn’t complain back then, what does it say about your right to complain now?
Uh, not much as far as I’m aware, people are always free to bitch as they want. I’m not really sure what your issue with the whole Amazon thing is. Was it that there were better ways that the protest could’ve been carried out? That a good developer had their name tarnished? That a decent game (judging by the reviews, haven’t played it myself) lost out on sales that it deserved because of this whole debacle?
Quite likely. Question is, was this the only way? Couldn’t a method where people pointed out the issue vehemently – but not aggressively and disrespectfuly towards the developer – work? Couldn’t this have been made in a way to give EA – rather than Spore – bad word of mouth?
Everyone that tells me “no” still hasn’t pointed out “why”.
Yep sure there are probably better ways (what I don’t know), but this is the one they came up with and it seems to have worked ok.
Alec Meer says:
Be civil, Grumpy, or be deleted.
Grumpy didn’t start the name calling tho did he? O_o
01/10/2008 at 18:48 Diogo Ribeiro says:
@dhex:
Sure, I can empathize with that. Ever since the Spore debacle, I’ve said that I agree with protesting. Hell, ideally, Amazon is a pretty good target and an effective one. But there’s this feeling that being vocal is quite different than being abusive.
I’m the kind of costumer that tries to read as much as he can on a videogame I’m interested in – including Amazon reviews. But while I can sort the soy from the kaf (oh, me and my outdated and not-so-funny Shadowrun jokes…), and could sense that those reviews were more than they seemed, casual and average gamers can’t. They’ll read between a handful and a couple of dozens and be taken aback. While there was a conscious effort on behalf of some of the reviewers, for the most part we’re dealing with a “me too” approach – that of wanting to manifest against abusive costumer relations, comptent for the consumer, the will to protest. Which would be fine in itself were it not its utter lack of balance, and that many do little to distinguish themselves between informed rant and irate troublemaking.
One of my fondest memories of gaming was when me and a couple of friends managed to close down an arcade next to school. We’d spend some time there, but we noticed irregularities. We took the time to get as much information as we could, then actually took the time to visit the responsbile authorities and expose our case. Two months later, it closed down on accounts of age irregularities and tampering with machines. No whining, no aggravation, just an honest desire not to see gamers exploited. Maybe I’m being terribly influenced from personal experience and that there needs to be a balance in all things rather than outright hostility. Or maybe – hell, we can do something for ourselves without either letting others do it in a way that makes us look annoying children, or in a way that protects our interests without letting our NERD RAGE possibly affect gamer perception of reality and developers who rarely (if ever) have no say over publishers’ decisions.
01/10/2008 at 18:50 Diogo Ribeiro says:
@n3utr0n:
To the first, yes to all three.
To the second, true, but that does not excuse the aggressiveness and poor judgement. And besides, is that the standard we want to set for ourselves?
01/10/2008 at 18:59 dhex says:
Amazon is a pretty good target and an effective one. But there’s this feeling that being vocal is quite different than being abusive.
it’s different in face to face communication; less so in this arena.
i don’t think people would be half as mad – perhaps – if the back cover said “XXX DRM – Internet Activation Required” or “This Game Features Limited Activation Security Checks – see http://www.ea.com/limitedactivations for more information.”
this, of course, will happen after pigs start flying.
01/10/2008 at 19:04 Diogo Ribeiro says:
@dhex:
Quite true. And that’s the thing – in no way am I sympathetic to EA’s misgivings towards the consumers, although I think our side blew it out of proportion a notch.
Still, coming clean with gamers is an ever-growing necessity. It’s lamentable that the protest could not have been more civil – and I *hope* Spore doesn’t suffer with this in the long run, or future games and their developers – but certainly, I won’t cry if the DRM trend is bucked. Breaking eggs, making omeletes, and all that stuff.
01/10/2008 at 19:11 Cataclysm says:
@Diogo Ribeiro
Thats the point. People were being vocal about something that was included in a product they were buying. A feature in the product that was not disclosed by EA.
If people stated “Theres a DRM on the game that does *this* and *that* – I wouldn’t buy it due to this”
Thats a fair review of part of the product that may deter customers from buying the product – if they knew about it.
Its giving the reader a choice. They can choose whether or not to buy it, in light of the DRM.
If a review goes on to mention “the game is fun, etc etc but has a DRM” – good, it gives the reader more perspective on the choice.
A game review could simply be “Don’t buy it, it sucks”.
Though not very useful or descriptive, its a review. Thats the reviewers choice, and most people would overlook such a basic comment.
I know if I was looking into buying a game and saw some reviews stating “Don’t buy, sucks”, I’d look for another review.
The reviewers did not lie. If they lied to bash EA just for being EA, then fair enough, thats wrong, but they bashed EA for sneaking a limitation into their product that had already had many complaints about – which in turn ruined the reviewers experience of the game.
01/10/2008 at 19:27 Ian (H) says:
That little orange cells looks so much like my little cell that for a good 35 seconds I was so excited because I thought it was mine. In fact, I’m going to continue to pretend that it is. Hooray me!
01/10/2008 at 19:56 Ravenger says:
Well I’ve decided not to pre-order any more PC games from now on.
I’ve been caught out three times so far with limited activation DRM that was disclosed after I’d ordered the game, and in the case of Warhead was disclosed on the day of release – far too late to cancel my order.
From now on I’ll be waiting until at least a week after release to see if there’s any invasive DRM or other issues (like the appalling bugs in Clear Sky).
I was very interested in Dead Space but I doubt I’ll be purchasing it if it has any activation limits. My DRM tolerance threshold has been passed.
01/10/2008 at 20:08 Diogo Ribeiro says:
@Cataclysm:
As I’ve said before, I have no problem with reviews which mention DRM. It is, after all, potentially damaging (although not universally so), and if the reviewer suspects it may deter others from buying it due to its associated problems, that’s fine. Laudable and I encourage that. Only problem – to me, apparently, since most others seem to be fine with it – is that the only choice of information consumers had was primarily a massive number of reviews focusing on DRM alone, which barely spoke about the game, and were all rated 1. While they were doing the right thing by informing others of DRM, and even if one could find several diverse and level-headed reviews – a review that only talks about the DRM is not entirely informative, at least in the context of talking about the game. See, many over at the RPS comment box claim that DRM was an integral part of the game and it was consumers right to talk about it. Fair enough. Problem is, Spore was also an “integral part of the game” (y’know, being THE ACTUAL GAME and all that) that simply wasn’t given that much attention by comparison. And when it was, most were blasting it not because of how Spore actually is but, once again, because “DRM ruined the game for them”.
And I have a hard time taking that as anything else as biased and, as I said before, self-serving, as it satisfied the criticizers’ needs to lower Spore’s rating rather than giving Spore, the game, a chance in spite of dreadful DRM.
01/10/2008 at 21:22 Tei says:
Thanks EA. This make me looks less a idiot, because I have buy a legitime copy of spore :-(
01/10/2008 at 21:25 Patrick says:
“” Ed says:
Having to have the CD in the drive is great for preventing casual piracy. I think that’s enough to be honest, it’s been pretty much categorically proven that preventing ‘hardcore’ piracy is impossible (at least using this kind of DRM)…
So, use a CD check to stop people lending their CD to their friends and be done with it.”"
———————————-
Are you delusional?
No CD cracks are trivially easy to come by.
The truth is NOTHING can stop piracy if it is truly sought after except a sincere desire to support the developers of a game, and thats the way it should be.
I also commend the efforts of developers like Valve who use updates and support as a carrot to entice purchase.
Requiring a CD in the drive DOESN’T stop piracy, its just means next time I want to play a game I bought and I can’t find the disc I have to go get a NO CD crack.
People who are determined to pirate are going to find a way. Using draconian DRM and stupid CD requirements simply punish those who aren’t willing to pirate.
01/10/2008 at 22:05 Dan Milburn says:
Diogo:
You seem to be having a hard time with the concept of a protest (to give you one dictionary definition: ‘the act of making a strong public expression of disagreement and disapproval ‘). The reviews you read on Amazon (which I have not even looked at to give you an idea of just how much I am involved with this whole thing) were not intended to be fair and balanced reviews of the game. They were, intentionally, complaining about one particular aspect of it which they found objectionable, because that’s what protestor’s do. A few paragraphs on how great the game was (or not) followed by a brief complaint about the DRM wouldn’t get anybody’s attention.
The same would be true if people were protesting outside a bricks’n'mortar game retailer. They wouldn’t be carrying banners saying ‘Spore’s a great game, but could you not include DRM next time, pretty please, EA?’ because people would laugh at them.
You want to get your protest in the mainstream media? You need to make your point loudly, clearly and effectively, and even you must be able to appreciate that that’s exactly what these people achieved. You don’t like their methods but you have precisely zero idea how to do it differently beyond email campaigns that somehow don’t involve spam, writing reviews which praise the product with a brief mention of how you don’t really like the DRM, and just, like, going out and talking to people, man. Can you not see how ridiculous this all sounds?
01/10/2008 at 22:49 no says:
And what better way do you think we should have gone about it, then? As a consumer, I have very few recourses. Leaving a negative review about a product on a site that reviews products is one of the few recourses I have. And clearly a successful one. Do you think writing a polite letter and sending it through the USPS to some monkey at EA who would throw it in the trash would have gotten the same response? No, because the added weight of public visibility enhances the effect of a review online.
01/10/2008 at 22:56 no says:
“Any form of criticism that actually distinguishes between Maxis’ game and EA’s DRM is alright in my book. And, you guessed it, most reviews in Amazon that I read were particularly inept at telling folks just what they were criticizing – Spore or EA.”
Not that I care what you think a proper review is, but as a customer, I am under no obligation to review every single possible aspect of a game just to decry somethign that strikes me as a major negative aspect. Further, I’m not obligated to differentiate every source of every aspect of a product. If I don’t like a car because it has horrible fuel mileage, I’m not obligated to mention that “Ford didn’t make the fuel line — they just worked with this other company that manufactures them through a third company and then Ford puts that in their finished product”.
Here is what I’m obligated to do as a reviewer and a customer — give my opinion on whatever aspects I am disapointed or satisfied with. Period. That’s it. If you want to be an apologist, then fine. And if you were talking about a journlist writing an article for Forbes and not going out of their way to point out certain aspects, then that’s one thing. I’m an average joe at home playing a game with some gripes about it leaving my thoughts on a page at Amazon. I’m not under the same obligations or given the same expectations.
As for dismissing people’s comments because everyone against DRM in this excess is some “emo kid”. Well, fuck you. I’m a 31 year old software developer with a dislike for being severely restricted from being able to use a product I’ve bought as I like.
01/10/2008 at 22:59 no says:
================
Via Softpedia, EA corporate communicatiosn bod Mariam Sughayer:
“Stepping aside from the whole issue of DRM, people need to recognize that every BitTorrent download doesn’t represent a successful copy of a game, LET ALONE A LOST SALE.”
===============
THANK YOU EA! Now, please explain this to the BSA, RIAA, MPAA and every idiotic IP moron out there who believes that because I didn’t pay $2,000 for a copy of Photoshop to edit the banner for my personal website doesn’t mean that I just deprived them of $2,000.
Well said, EA!
01/10/2008 at 23:26 Josh says:
This sort of thing would be great to hear if I could actually PLAY THE GAME. Which I can’t. Because of DRM.
So, you know. I’ve got Spore on my desk, a game I’ve been salivating over for years, and I can’t play my purchased copy of the game because EA refuses to acknowledge the complete idiocy of using this draconian DRM nonsense. So what am I left to do but pirate the game? EA’s customer service/tech support reps have been absolutely useless as expected, the patch that was released for the game does nothing to address my issue (after running the shortcut, nothing happens. The Spore exe task just sits in the background and runs runs runs), meanwhile pirates get to play a completely DRM free copy of the game.
Great job with that, EA. Forcing paying customers to pirate games they’ve already purchased, and all.
02/10/2008 at 01:48 RandomEngy says:
It’s not so much that there’s DRM in the first place, it’s just that this type of DRM is moribund and threatens to break your games a few years down the line. I mean look at Wal-Mart, they’re huge but they recently shut down their DRM servers. Basically when you buy a game like this you need to implicitly trust EA’s activation servers to be around for as long as you want to play the game.
02/10/2008 at 02:00 Diogo Ribeiro says:
@Dan Milburn:
You seem to be having a hard time with the concept of a protest (to give you one dictionary definition: ‘the act of making a strong public expression of disagreement and disapproval ‘). The reviews you read on Amazon (which I have not even looked at to give you an idea of just how much I am involved with this whole thing) were not intended to be fair and balanced reviews of the game. They were, intentionally, complaining about one particular aspect of it which they found objectionable, because that’s what protestor’s do.
Hail the concerned and intelligent gamer, with his patronizing retort and condescending attitude.
But the joke is actually not on me. I’m fine with the concept of protest. In fact, if you were not part of the deluge of one trick ponies who jump into a discussion and randomly decide to rant against someone, you’d have noticed I stated – multiple times – I support the idea of a protest against EA. However, nowhere does your quoted definition state a protest must include besmerching something’s value or name in favor of getting a point across.
The same would be true if people were protesting outside a bricks’n’mortar game retailer. They wouldn’t be carrying banners saying ‘Spore’s a great game, but could you not include DRM next time, pretty please, EA?’ because people would laugh at them.
Do all of you come from planet black and white? Or is the concerned and intelligent gamer the kind of species that only speaks in absolutes?
Seriously, you guys crack me up. You cannot try to make a valid point by ruining it with absolutely black and white morals or suggestions. What next?
“Hey Diogo, maybe they should plant flowers in every Spore copy and return – that worked great for Vietnam am i right guys lol”
Can you understand the concept of making a protest without coming off like a wanker?
You want to get your protest in the mainstream media? You need to make your point loudly, clearly and effectively, and even you must be able to appreciate that that’s exactly what these people achieved.
Let’s make a deal. Do a Ctrl+F thingie and search for this sentence:
“It’s lamentable that the protest could not have been more civil – and I *hope* Spore doesn’t suffer with this in the long run, or future games and their developers – but certainly, I won’t cry if the DRM trend is bucked.”
Then see who wrote it. In return, I promise I won’t poke fun at you. Deal?
You don’t like their methods but you have precisely zero idea how to do it differently beyond email campaigns that somehow don’t involve spam, writing reviews which praise the product with a brief mention of how you don’t really like the DRM, and just, like, going out and talking to people, man. Can you not see how ridiculous this all sounds?
Very much, yes. But for reasons you wouldn’t understand. Hint: it involves you coming late into the party. Twice.
02/10/2008 at 02:12 Diogo Ribeiro says:
@no:
the added weight of public visibility enhances the effect of a review online.
The added weight of public visibility enhances the effect of any action performed against them. The Amazon protest worked not because online reviews have weight, but because the target of their protest was well chosen. Different things. Amazon being an effective target does not mean it was the only one nor that other targets wouldn’t be as effective.
Not that I care what you think a proper review is
Of course not, hence why you’ll try lecturing me on it right after I finish this sentence.
but as a customer, I am under no obligation to review every single possible aspect of a game just to decry somethign that strikes me as a major negative aspect. Further, I’m not obligated to differentiate every source of every aspect of a product. If I don’t like a car because it has horrible fuel mileage, I’m not obligated to mention that “Ford didn’t make the fuel line — they just worked with this other company that manufactures them through a third company and then Ford puts that in their finished product”.
Of course you’re not obliged. In the same way, I’m not obliged to take kindly to a clearly biased review of a product or service. I’m also not obliged to exempt freedom of speech from responsability of any argument contained (or lacking) therein.
Here is what I’m obligated to do as a reviewer and a customer — give my opinion on whatever aspects I am disapointed or satisfied with. Period. That’s it.
No kidding.
If you want to be an apologist, then fine.
Good to know I have your permission. And if you want to ignore my argument – especially the one of supporting the protest – hey, I’m fine with that too. It makes me chuckle, so it’s kind of a win/win situation for me.
And if you were talking about a journlist writing an article for Forbes and not going out of their way to point out certain aspects, then that’s one thing. I’m an average joe at home playing a game with some gripes about it leaving my thoughts on a page at Amazon. I’m not under the same obligations or given the same expectations.
Because apparently, the standards for presenting balanced and unbiased information are only appliable to those who write for a living. Good thinking.
As for dismissing people’s comments because everyone against DRM in this excess is some “emo kid”. Well, fuck you. I’m a 31 year old software developer with a dislike for being severely restricted from being able to use a product I’ve bought as I like.
You also seem to be a scholar and a gentleman, to boot.
02/10/2008 at 08:07 Mark says:
If SecuROM weren’t malware, I’d be able to judge whether the restrictions it enforces were a good deal. As it is, all the rumors regarding false positives, broken hardware, suspicious unremovable rootkits, subverting the security of your system, and the like have scared me off. I can’t find authoritative information about what this copy protection scheme does, but the integrity of my computer is important enough that I’m not going to take the risk.
No SecuROM on my computer. Period.
And the more people who know why I feel this way, the more likely it is that I won’t be punished for legitimate ownership in the future. So, I say, make some noise about it!
02/10/2008 at 09:14 Klaus says:
People protesting, in public, about DRM would get laughed at. I know, because I would laugh at them. And I imagine, they (the target) would call law enforcement to remove the scallywags. Or just ignore them.
I think by attaching morality to the issue, the results become less feasible. But then, I’m somewhat a fan of riots and the like.
I don’t think people, well the Angry Internet Men, care what happens to Maxis or other such ‘innocents’. They want the most bang for their buck, don’t think they’re getting it and are lashing out.
02/10/2008 at 09:36 megaman says:
Every time this discussion comes up I am astonished about the fury. I just don’t buy spore and be done with it. Maybe I’ll even skip RA3, although this will hurt considerably more. But not as much as the often-cited “arguing on the internet” would hurt.
Don’t get me wrong, I think there are some gems of postings hidden here which state exactly what I am thinking. But all this talking is not worth a dime of you don’t walk the walk.
02/10/2008 at 09:48 Dan Milburn says:
@Diogo:
For the record, I did not just randomly decide to jump in. I am a regular reader (subscriber) of RPS, and have read pretty much everything you’ve ever posted here. For the most part I lurk, because that’s my nature. On this occasion, I decided to jump in, because well, I think you’re wrong.
But there’s really no point in continuing this argument. You said right at the top that “no one will convince me that a proper campaign launched across a number of media – email, gaming forums, sites and stores – would not have had the same effect, if not more of an impact“. Well you’re right, no one is convincing you, and you’re not convincing anyone else. Which is kind of a shame, because actually, I don’t think writing reviews on Amazon is necessarily the only way to do this. I do think it’s a legitimate and somewhat effective means of protest in this case, but of course there are other ways. You’re just not the right person to figure out what they are.
02/10/2008 at 10:24 Diogo Ribeiro says:
@Dan:
For the record, I did not just randomly decide to jump in. (…) On this occasion, I decided to jump in, because well, I think you’re wrong.
On what subject, really? The whole “there are other ways to fight the same battle” (which you agree yourself) or the accusation of me “not being able to appreciate what these people did” (which I’ve already disproven for those who can’t be arsed to read what I say)?
02/10/2008 at 11:55 Dan Milburn says:
Mostly on the basic question of whether this was a valid and legitimate way of protesting. You accept that it may have got results but you don’t accept that this was the right way to get them.
More interesting to me is the particular reason for that. This is my understanding of your basic position: you want to draw a distinction between Spore the game and Maxis the studio that created it on the one hand, and EA the publisher which implemented the DRM system on the other, and only attack the latter. It doesn’t work. You can’t legally have one without the other. If people decide not to buy Spore because of the DRM then yes that sucks for the people who created the game, but that is not the fault of the people who didn’t buy it, and it’s certainly not the fault of the people posting on Amazon to complain about it.
And I don’t see how this particular issue would change regardless of the method used to perform the protest. The basic message, delivered by email or people outside stores or whatever, would still be ‘DRM is bad. Spore has DRM. Don’t buy Spore’ and you would still think that was wrong because it didn’t show respect to the developers who took 4 years creating this game.
02/10/2008 at 12:22 Diogo Ribeiro says:
@Dan Milburn:
Mostly on the basic question of whether this was a valid and legitimate way of protesting. You accept that it may have got results but you don’t accept that this was the right way to get them.
To quote my very first post in this topic. “High profile games are always a good target for this kind of thing, as people can take advantage of the awareness around the title to promote their goal of criticizing DRM. As such, Spore or any other AAA game using draconian digital rights management is an excellent target. However, it was incredibly juvenile and unfair to attack Spore via Amazon based on the DRM alone.”
Once again, I never claimed the protest was a bad idea or that protesting was wrong. What I said was that I fundamentally disagreed with how it was done.
This is my understanding of your basic position: you want to draw a distinction between Spore the game and Maxis the studio that created it on the one hand, and EA the publisher which implemented the DRM system on the other, and only attack the latter. It doesn’t work.
Does the DRM prevent you from playing Spore out of the box? After installing it, could you not play the game? As you play through Spore, does the DRM affect your actual in-game experience? Yes or no.
If people decide not to buy Spore because of the DRM then yes that sucks for the people who created the game
Which is pretty much where I’m getting at, yes.
but that is not the fault of the people who didn’t buy it, and it’s certainly not the fault of the people posting on Amazon to complain about it.
It most certainly is their fault if the majority of reviews are painting a bleak and biased portrait of the DRM’s influence on Spore. One user’s technical issues with Spore may not even surface for another user (such as Daemon Tools incompatibility, for instance), so why are nearly all the reviews claiming otherwise?
Not everyone has the time or IQ to sit down, play Spore, then review it on its merits and also expose DRM’s potential problems. I understand that. But we’re talking well over one thousand reviews which largely do not talk about the game; rather, many end up saying Spore is rubbish because of the DRM, when this is a lie.
And I don’t see how this particular issue would change regardless of the method used to perform the protest. The basic message, delivered by email or people outside stores or whatever, would still be ‘DRM is bad. Spore has DRM. Don’t buy Spore’ and you would still think that was wrong because it didn’t show respect to the developers who took 4 years creating this game.
Again, the issue isn’t with complaining against Spore’s DRM. It’s with how the message is being sent through the reviews. It’s being touted as “Spore’s DRM”, not “EA’s DRM”. Notice the difference? Am I the only who really has an issue with a “review” that bleats on about Spore being a “crap game” because of DRM, whereas the decision was not theirs and it fails to address the real issues – Spore’s quality as a game and EA’s flustercuck?
Is that what “concerned gamers” can really aspire to – making callous, blanket statements with no regards to the people involved in the game’s development, then proceed to justify themselves because it’s a necessity, incapable of admiting that their way of doing things – while apparently successful – is also possibly damning to a studio who has no fault in the matter? That there are no other alternatives, even if they tried none?
02/10/2008 at 12:45 Cataclysm says:
@ Diogo
“Once again, I never claimed the protest was a bad idea or that protesting was wrong. What I said was that I fundamentally disagreed with how it was done.”
Dan stated you said you didnt disagree with the protest but instead how it was carried out?
You seem to be arguing for the sake of arguing.
I find it funny how in the same post you’re mocking someone for being patronising,
“Hail the concerned and intelligent gamer, with his patronizing retort and condescending attitude.”
you then be very patronising.
“Then see who wrote it. In return, I promise I won’t poke fun at you. Deal?”
As Dan has already stated. You buy Spore legally, you get DRM. EA has shot Maxis in the back with their DRM and unfortnately Maxis have suffered because of this. This does not mean protesting against the DRM was wrong, as it was only bringing light to what the consumer was (unknowingly) buying. EA forcing the DRM on Maxis’ product was the thing that caused the issue for Maxis.
As i’ve previously stated, if a consumer reads the reviews you mentioned you had a problem with (stating “Don’t buy, DRM sucks”) and decides not buy on them words alone, thats their choice.
Most people who have been waiting for the game would look for a review that delves a little deeper than that, but if merely knowing the game has DRM puts the person off buying, isnt that a fair choice for the consumer?
Oh and by the way:
“Does the DRM prevent you from playing Spore out of the box? After installing it, could you not play the game? As you play through Spore, does the DRM affect your actual in-game experience? Yes or no.”
Yes. If you refuse to install Malware on your machine.
02/10/2008 at 12:59 Cataclysm says:
I’d also like to add to the answer for
“Does the DRM prevent you from playing Spore out of the box? After installing it, could you not play the game? As you play through Spore, does the DRM affect your actual in-game experience? Yes or no.”
When reviewing other games do Choppy graphics, broken textures, slow loading screens, badly programmed engine, etc stop you playing the game you purchased? Yes or no? So mentioning them in a review is wrong then? Basing a review on them is wrong then?
It only means people will not come back to read that persons reviews in the future as the review was shallow and didn’t detail many aspects of the game, but it does highlight some actual faults with the game.
You may get a review of the same game saying “The game has some good features but it was spoilt due to choppy graphics, slow loading screens, broken textures” etc.
02/10/2008 at 14:04 Diogo Ribeiro says:
@Cataclysm:
Dan stated you said you didnt disagree with the protest but instead how it was carried out? You seem to be arguing for the sake of arguing.
You seem to be confusing arguing for the sake of arguing with acknowledging what he said.
I find it funny how in the same post you’re mocking someone for being patronising
Let’s see – out of nowhere, and with nothing that would indicate otherwise in my posts, Dan pops up in the topic, claims I have no knowledge of the concept of protest, and even decides to quote a definition of it – all because I disagreed with how the protest was carried out. When I poke some fun at him for doing this, I’m patronising.
Ground control to Major Tom?
Most people who have been waiting for the game would look for a review that delves a little deeper than that, but if merely knowing the game has DRM puts the person off buying, isnt that a fair choice for the consumer?
Compare “if you dislike the DRM and what it entails, you may be put off from buying it” with “Spore sucks because of its DRM”. Guess which one I support? I’ve already stated somewhere else in this very topic and the one that started it all that it’s fair game to mention how off putting the DRM can be; what I don’t agree with (yet again…) is that these warnings are not a review of Spore, the game; they’re a review of DRM, which bloody isn’t the game.
Yes. If you refuse to install Malware on your machine.
So I have to assume the people I have known for years and who have bought Spore at the time of release and have had zero issues with DRM in terms of it negatively impacting their in-game experience, are, in fact lying.
Right. That’s it, no more Poker Fridays pr wife swapping with those guys.
When reviewing other games do Choppy graphics, broken textures, slow loading screens, badly programmed engine, etc stop you playing the game you purchased? Yes or no? So mentioning them in a review is wrong then? Basing a review on them is wrong then?
If an ENTIRE REVIEW is based on them or even one single element out of dozens more, yes. It’s hopelessly inadequate, is misinformed and while the core idea of alerting gamers is welcomed, leading them away with false assumptions and little information on everything else isn’t.
02/10/2008 at 14:51 Cataclysm says:
“Hail the concerned and intelligent gamer, with his patronizing retort and condescending attitude.”
“Ground control to Major Tom?”
“If an ENTIRE REVIEW is based on them or even one single element out of dozens more, yes. It’s hopelessly inadequate, is misinformed and while the core idea of alerting gamers is welcomed, leading them away with false assumptions and little information on everything else isn’t.”
Wrong. Its not as deep as a review YOU are personally looking for, but it highlights some issues found in the game. Its not misinformed as Spore does indeed have DRM and DRM is infact limiting the product you’re buying.
What i’m trying to say is although a pretty poor, shallow review, its not “abuse” as it is highlighting a problem with the game, which a review is meant to do. Agreed it doesn’t review many parts of the game, thus being what many would call a “poor review” it is not automatically labelled abusive and not a valid way to protest against a feature of the game.
I own Spore, legally, by the way. No assumptions here.
02/10/2008 at 15:19 Diogo Ribeiro says:
If I was arguing because I wanted better reviews for Spore, I would have shut up and gone elsewhere – there’s no shortage of actual reviews in places other than Amazon.
Highlighting one single problem with a game (and I’m tired of arguing back and forth about the DRM and the game being separate things, even if connected) in detriment of everything else is not what a review is meant to be. That people actually do this and label them as reviews is why many are arguing this is a legitimate style of addressing a review, when they forget that, were the same rules applied to other reviews, they would be up in arms – whether they care to admit to it or not. Imagine multitudes of The Witcher reviews that only – and only – talked about, say, one issue. Be it the poor translation or the blatant machismo of scoring with female NPCs. AssCreed reviews that said absolutely nothing except several paragraphs of poor optimization.
That’s not a review. It’s a glance. At one singled out element out of the whole package.
And once again, while I agree it needed to be addressed, and people need to stamp on EA’s faces forever with this, it was extreme and vindicative. And it doesn’t come down to me being right and you being wrong or some such moral relativismo; simply, you and others seem to have no qualms about those reviews being more like footnotes on a single issue, whereas I do. Opinions, and all that. If we establish that, then it’s easier to understand where everyone is coming from and things click. If not, we may well be arguing this forevermore.
02/10/2008 at 20:45 Erlam says:
“@ Ed: I’m glad I’m not the only one who doesn’t get into a frothy rage just because I need my disc in the drive to play a game.”
Me too — I still don’t understand the rage over it. I mean, I’d prefer not to have it there, but I don’t mind doing it.