Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: WMCoolmon on September 14, 2008, 04:04:38 pm
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Exposition - and poll showing 3% of people are happy with DRM (http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2558)
Spore's Amazon.com review page (http://www.amazon.com/review/product/B000FKBCX4/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1_cm_cr_acr_img?_encoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1)
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EA deserves that. Will it make a difference? Not likely.
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Exposition - and poll showing 3% of people are happy with DRM (http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2558)
Spore's Amazon.com review page (http://www.amazon.com/review/product/B000FKBCX4/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1_cm_cr_acr_img?_encoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1)
The consumer deserves it too. Considering how many people pirate games and other software. Everyone's *****ing about DRT or whatever the hell it is but no one's *****ing about the people who've been thieving games for years and are prompting companies to enact these overbearing copyright-protection strategies. I mean yeah, it sucks for the people who actually buy games (ie me) but that's what happens when a few rotten apples (or in this case, a ****load of rotten apples) spoil the bunch.
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Exposition - and poll showing 3% of people are happy with DRM (http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2558)
Spore's Amazon.com review page (http://www.amazon.com/review/product/B000FKBCX4/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1_cm_cr_acr_img?_encoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1)
The consumer deserves it too. Considering how many people pirate games and other software. Everyone's *****ing about DRT or whatever the hell it is but no one's *****ing about the people who've been thieving games for years and are prompting companies to enact these overbearing copyright-protection strategies. I mean yeah, it sucks for the people who actually buy games (ie me) but that's what happens when a few rotten apples (or in this case, a ****load of rotten apples) spoil the bunch.
I keep hearing that argument but it makes no sense.
The pirated version of nearly all of these games has no DRM at all. They are nearly all hacked and quite often before the game officially arrives in stores even. So with the pirates not having to contend with any DRM...why on earth should the paying consumer be made to put up with it? Its not deterring piracy AND its hurting the consumer at the same time.
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Exposition - and poll showing 3% of people are happy with DRM (http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2558)
Spore's Amazon.com review page (http://www.amazon.com/review/product/B000FKBCX4/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1_cm_cr_acr_img?_encoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1)
The consumer deserves it too. Considering how many people pirate games and other software. Everyone's *****ing about DRT or whatever the hell it is but no one's *****ing about the people who've been thieving games for years and are prompting companies to enact these overbearing copyright-protection strategies. I mean yeah, it sucks for the people who actually buy games (ie me) but that's what happens when a few rotten apples (or in this case, a ****load of rotten apples) spoil the bunch.
It is not the consumers fault that a bunch of people pirate software and thus it should never be offloaded to their shoulders. If it is easier to download a pirated version of a game then to buy one legally, something is wrong.
I find it amusing that you defend EA's overbearing copyright protections simply because you don't like people who pirate software, when in fact EA is just plain stupid. There are better ways to deal with this. Why not allow for infinite installations, but only allow 3 instances of a CD-key to be online at any time? That would have been just as effective, and it wouldn't have been a pain in the ****ing ass.
EA made a mistake here, and you cannot simply put it off as "BECAUSE EVERYONE PIRATES STUFFZ!" So? The company still has an obligation to its costumers to provide them with the best possible experience. EA did not do that here, and in the end, lost more money because of their insane DRM then if they had used a less draconian strategy.
There are better ways to do this, and EA is simply being greedy at this point. You simply cannot tell everyone to behave themselves, because they never will. Does that mean DRM is a necessary evil? Yes. Does that mean it needs to be this incredibly stupid and badly designed? No.
As Icefire posted above, the DRM is not only overbearing and draconian, it didn't even work. The game was leaked 3 days before its release in australia, and the day before it was SUPPOSED to be released, it was already out on torrents, cracked. I found one but I resisted the temptation to download it because I pre-orded my copy like a good little customer.
My copy still hasn't arrived. I regret being a good little customer.
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I keep hearing that argument but it makes no sense.
The pirated version of nearly all of these games has no DRM at all. They are nearly all hacked and quite often before the game officially arrives in stores even. So with the pirates not having to contend with any DRM...why on earth should the paying consumer be made to put up with it? Its not deterring piracy AND its hurting the consumer at the same time.
Well, I don't think the pirates were intended to bypass the whole DRM thing in the first place. That's the real problem.
It is not the consumers fault that a bunch of people pirate software and thus it should never be offloaded to their shoulders. If it is easier to download a pirated version of a game then to buy one legally, something is wrong.
I find it amusing that you defend EA's overbearing copyright protections simply because you don't like people who pirate software, when in fact EA is just plain stupid. There are better ways to deal with this. Why not allow for infinite installations, but only allow 3 instances of a CD-key to be online at any time? That would have been just as effective, and it wouldn't have been a pain in the ****ing ass.
I don't like overbearing copyright protection more than the next guy, I hate Steam for example and don't intend to buy any more Valve games because the damn game I bought in a store wasn't even playable without an internet connection and downloading the last 5 percent off steam. I also don't like launching a game like Half-Life 1 and instead having Steam launch and then launch my game for me like some greedy little middle man.
I mean people are obviously trying different things to avoid pirating of their games. Maybe DRM or whatever is a piece of crap and a bad idea but it's one idea of many that's being tried and of course some ideas will suck and some will be better than others and/or more and less effective than others. And yeah, it's not the consumer's fault . . . by consumer in the first instance I meant players rather than people who buy the game and legally "consume" it. They (people who buy games) don't deserve any of this bull**** but because some players (pirates) do deserve it, everyone has to deal with it. And that's just how the world works.
Like as an example the subway in my city is basically on honour's system, but because some people get on without a ticket they plan on installing ticket turntable things (or whatever they're called) at the new expansions. And yeah I know the stealers can't be changed. Many years back I saw a study or something that claimed out of 10 people, 2-3 will always steal, 3 will never steal and the rest might steal if they get the opportunity. Don't recall the exact figures. But its just in some people's nature to be a dumbass.
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DRM only inconveniences legitimate customers
So why should we be inconvenienced when haxxors are gonna bypass it anyway....
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DRM only inconveniences legitimate customers
So why should we be inconvenienced when haxxors are gonna bypass it anyway....
:yes:
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I mean people are obviously trying different things to avoid pirating of their games. Maybe DRM or whatever is a piece of crap and a bad idea but it's one idea of many that's being tried and of course some ideas will suck and some will be better than others and/or more and less effective than others.
Spore's DRM sucks. We're b*tching about it. Is there a problem with that?
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EA deserves that. Will it make a difference? Not likely.
Actually, apparently it has. I got both links from a /. news story on the subject, but forgot to post it. Here's (http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/14/1510217) the /. story, and here's (http://pc.ign.com/articles/908/908755p1.html) the original article on IGN.
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I mean people are obviously trying different things to avoid pirating of their games. Maybe DRM or whatever is a piece of crap and a bad idea but it's one idea of many that's being tried and of course some ideas will suck and some will be better than others and/or more and less effective than others.
Spore's DRM sucks. We're b*tching about it. Is there a problem with that?
Nope, if I knew how much it sucked I'd probably ***** about it too.
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Funny thing is that Stardock went in the exact opposite direction and decided to make it as *easy* as possible to buy their games legally. No DRM, no CD checks, and you can buy them online and download them if you prefer that. Guess what? Their games are selling beyond all expectations.
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Funny thing is that Stardock went in the exact opposite direction and decided to make it as *easy* as possible to buy their games legally. No DRM, no CD checks, and you can buy them online and download them if you prefer that. Guess what? Their games are selling beyond all expectations.
You don't expect corporate types to actually have a brain in their head do you?
"Movie ticket sales are down, it must be the pirates! What should we do? Raise the prices! Raise the concession stand prices!"
I mean hell, part of the reason why Doom1 was so successful was probably the shareware format. It's interesting to see that some company is actually trying the reverse strategy. I doubt others will really jump on the bandwagon though.
I'm waiting for Wednesday, I'd be curious to see if Yahtzee reviews Spore this week.
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Like as an example the subway in my city is basically on honour's system, but because some people get on without a ticket they plan on installing ticket turntable things (or whatever they're called) at the new expansions.
But in that case, the people who get on without tickets simply jump the turnstile, while everyone has to deal with the minor inconvenience. To make it more in line with the case of Spore; the pirates just jump the turnstile without a second thought or ever slowing down, while legitimate customers have to deal with a turnstile that is costly to use, will sometimes not let them through, and will always, always whack them in the ass just as they pass through.
As has been said: DRM like this punishes the legitimate, innocent customer, ignoring the pirates. It's ineffective, it's unacceptable, and it's downright moronic to think it could even work. Considering you don't even seem to know what DRM stands for, maybe you should educate yourself on the ins-and-outs of the topic a little before jumping to conclusions.
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As has been said: DRM like this punishes the legitimate, innocent customer, ignoring the pirates. It's ineffective, it's unacceptable, and it's downright moronic to think it could even work. Considering you don't even seem to know what DRM stands for, maybe you should educate yourself on the ins-and-outs of the topic a little before jumping to conclusions.
"Digital Rights Management" "Copyright protection" same **** different pile.
What's the huge backlash against the product for anyway? Because you only get 3 installs? Other than that it doesn't sound any worse than any other game I've played. Like I said the last Valve game I bought in a store required me to be connected to the internet everytime I play it, and requires me to launch Steam everytime I play it despite the fact I bought a box, in a store. But who's *****ing about Steam? People are throwing money at those games like they're going out of style.
If people are complaining about the 3 installs; well in the time it takes you to install it three times the new windows will be incompatible with whatever game you're trying to play anyway. And with 200 GB hard drives how many times is a person going to have to delete and reinstall the same game.
Funny thing is that Stardock went in the exact opposite direction and decided to make it as *easy* as possible to buy their games legally. No DRM, no CD checks, and you can buy them online and download them if you prefer that. Guess what? Their games are selling beyond all expectations.
Upon further looking. It's funny that you say that because I went to their website to check out what they made and one game that caught my eye was . . . Space Rangers 2. Now I don't know if that's their game or they're just distributing it, but one of the reviews I read on the game (http://www.netjak.com/review.php/1021 (http://www.netjak.com/review.php/1021))talks about some anti-pirate ware called Starforce which sounds pretty annoying in and of itself. Pretty annoying as in locking up your computer. Even so that SP2 sounds pretty sweet and if I feel like wasting money and playing games i'll be sure to pick it up.
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If people are complaining about the 3 installs; well in the time it takes you to install it three times the new windows will be incompatible with whatever game you're trying to play anyway. And with 200 GB hard drives how many times is a person going to have to delete and reinstall the same game.
You may only install the game using that CD-key 3 times, regardless of computer. If you upgrade your hardware, reinstall the OS, or do anything that disturbs the precious balance of registry entries and god knows what else, it gets invalidated and you have to use up another validation. Used up all the validations? Good luck trying to convince EA, who now assume you are a nasty haxx0r, to reinstigate your validations. If they do, you get another 3 to play around with. If you don't, you now have just wasted $50.
That sucks balls, dude.
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Another reason to hate these things. How many people have more than one PC? I have one in my room and the rest next door. If I want to play at night I have to install in on the one in my room. If I want to play during the day I have to install it next door. If I want to play it both places I'm screwed.
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Just out of curiosity, how does this game activation stuff actually work? I'm assuming it's not something simple enough to circumvent as backing up an installed copy of the game with its registry files, right?
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And the other thing--what happens in a few short years? Activation server not worth it for SPORE? Maybe SPORE 2 is coming out. Hmm--let's just shut it down and all those legit customers a few years ago are screwed out of $50--and now can't even play the game!!
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this guy agrees with you bunch :)
http://www.aegmaha.com/videos/10101
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And the other thing--what happens in a few short years? Activation server not worth it for SPORE? Maybe SPORE 2 is coming out. Hmm--let's just shut it down and all those legit customers a few years ago are screwed out of $50--and now can't even play the game!!
They love doing this with their sports games.
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DRM is there to prevent the honest consumer from selling the game after they're done with it. They don't expect to actually put a dent in piracy.
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Ironically, the game was leaked several days before the official released date and a quick search seems to indicate that pirated copies, along with mechanisms for bypassing the copy protection mechanisms, are freely available on the Internet. So it seems that the copy protection schemes only inconveniences legitimate customers.
It won't stop it anyway..
I for one keep every game i buy. Nostalgia always wins. I've got a reasonably sized box in the Attic with TA, Battlezone, Frontier Elite. SPeedball and some embarrising others,
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Like I said the last Valve game I bought in a store required me to be connected to the internet everytime I play it, and requires me to launch Steam everytime I play it despite the fact I bought a box, in a store. But who's *****ing about Steam?
Have you been living under a rock the last few years? :p
There are tons of people *****ing about Steam. There are lots of people who completely refuse to buy any Valve products which use it. The only difference is that the Steam argument is old, the battle lines are already drawn, the argument doesn't need to be rehashed for every single Steam release.
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Steam really isn't that bad in comparison to this. Which makes me wonder how bad this is going to get until games refuse to be published under certain publishers due to the DRM they force.
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Spore: Most Pirated Game Ever Thanks to DRM
According to Torrent Freak, Spore has been downloaded more than 500,000 times on BitTorrent, and this number is increasing rapidly. Most critics agree that Spore is a great game. However, the users aren't too happy with the absurd DRM restrictions that come with the game. EA decided that people who buy a legitimate copy of the game, are only allowed to install it three times. The idea behind DRM is that it will stop people from pirating the game, but in reality, it often has the opposite effect. As Forbes points out, many commenters on various BitTorrent sites now legitimize downloading this game because the official copies include some heavy and intrusive DRM.
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Have you been living under a rock the last few years? :p
There are tons of people *****ing about Steam. There are lots of people who completely refuse to buy any Valve products which use it. The only difference is that the Steam argument is old, the battle lines are already drawn, the argument doesn't need to be rehashed for every single Steam release.
Well I have been under a bit of a rock, but haven't head too much about Steam. Heard a few complaints, but nothing really all that recent. Anyway, I know what battle line I'm on. Half Life 2 might be the shizzit but damned if I'm ever going to play it.
DRM is there to prevent the honest consumer from selling the game after they're done with it. They don't expect to actually put a dent in piracy.
I don't see why. Console gamers trade in their games all the time, restricting resales on one platform seems fairly pointless to me. The moment EA NHL 2K9 or whatever comes out, hundreds of 2K8 games probably flood into EB Games. And I don't know how the market between consoles and PCs compare but going in general I've found that more stores carry consoles games, and more of it, than the PC titles.
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Funny thing is that Stardock went in the exact opposite direction and decided to make it as *easy* as possible to buy their games legally. No DRM, no CD checks, and you can buy them online and download them if you prefer that. Guess what? Their games are selling beyond all expectations.
the concept of Buying and downloading the game online rules IMO. I can buy a lot of games, without aving to drive to the nearest city (which takes half an hour, a car, petrol, and the ability to convince my parents as I do not have a driving license (I am 15)), go to the computer-game store there, and hoping the game I want is there. If it is not, I screwed my parent's temper for nothing, amongst other things.
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Have you been living under a rock the last few years? :p
There are tons of people *****ing about Steam. There are lots of people who completely refuse to buy any Valve products which use it. The only difference is that the Steam argument is old, the battle lines are already drawn, the argument doesn't need to be rehashed for every single Steam release.
Well I have been under a bit of a rock, but haven't head too much about Steam. Heard a few complaints, but nothing really all that recent. Anyway, I know what battle line I'm on. Half Life 2 might be the shizzit but damned if I'm ever going to play it.
When HL2 came out the complaints about Steam were much larger than anything I've seen about Spore.
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Very true, that's the reason i opted for the orange box on my 360. I noticed this week when trying to find a patch for half-life 1. I could only find steam installers. (Found one in the end) but how bloody stupid. Half-lifes going on a decade old.
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I'll never understand the *****ing about Steam. The resource usage is minimal if its properly configured, you can play without an Internet connection just fine if you have the content fully downloaded, and it doesn't load the system full of various other intrusive DRM systems. Frankly, I've found it to be a fantastic system which balances copyright protection with ease of customer use. The only legitimate worry I've ever heard about the Steam system is that if Valve ever went belly-up, what happens to the servers and the content you've paid for?
That aside, I used to play games on Steam with a 1.2 GHz processor from 2001, 512 MB of RAM, and a 9500Pro video card. if that system can use Steam without resource issues, no one with a semi-modern computer has any right to *****.
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I'll never understand the *****ing about Steam. The resource usage is minimal if its properly configured, you can play without an Internet connection just fine if you have the content fully downloaded, and it doesn't load the system full of various other intrusive DRM systems. Frankly, I've found it to be a fantastic system which balances copyright protection with ease of customer use. The only legitimate worry I've ever heard about the Steam system is that if Valve ever went belly-up, what happens to the servers and the content you've paid for?
You miss the point that Steam is the thin edge of a large wedge. What happens if everyone copies Valve and adds their own content delivery systems? Would you feel the same if you have to have 10 or 20 stream copies on your machine?
There are other problems (security concerns, what happens if someone steals your Steam ID, etc) but they don't concern me as much cause I've never been stupid enough to install Steam.
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I got Spore off the online store and don't really recommend going that route. They give you six months to download the game or redownload it. Or they charge you $6 and they'll let you download it for two years.
I've gotten games off online stores before which were great, and you could download them again anytime. That damned EA Download Manager is annoying...it starts up everytime I start Spore which just makes it take that much longer to actually load the game (which for some reason takes freaking forever to load, and this computer really isn't that slow).
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I'll never understand the *****ing about Steam. The resource usage is minimal if its properly configured, you can play without an Internet connection just fine if you have the content fully downloaded, and it doesn't load the system full of various other intrusive DRM systems. Frankly, I've found it to be a fantastic system which balances copyright protection with ease of customer use. The only legitimate worry I've ever heard about the Steam system is that if Valve ever went belly-up, what happens to the servers and the content you've paid for?
You miss the point that Steam is the thin edge of a large wedge. What happens if everyone copies Valve and adds their own content delivery systems? Would you feel the same if you have to have 10 or 20 stream copies on your machine?
There are other problems (security concerns, what happens if someone steals your Steam ID, etc) but they don't concern me as much cause I've never been stupid enough to install Steam.
Computing is moving to content-delivery systems. You look at the number of web applications which are gaining popularity and I imagine that within 5 years the old "buy it on <insert medium here>" method is going to be all but eliminated. And that's a good thing so long as the digital security features keep up. Content-delivery is a damn sight better than computers loaded with various DRM software, including rootkits. So long as industry users keep the standards for such systems high (low resource usage, unobtrusive, etc) then I don't see the problem.
As for security issues, given that all your credit information, banking information, personal address and identification, and telephone records are wired into the Internet I think the security of a game account would be my last concern when it comes to security features.
The elimination of hard copies as a means of delivering a service is pretty much a certainty. I think valve has done brilliantly in launching Steam when they did - they've successfully demonstrated that a product can be easily, successfully, and securely delivered over the Internet with a minimum of customer grief. That and the system is still evolving. Sure, valve has stuck their store and community functions into Steam, but that is not to say future systems will function in that manner. Frankly, I think we're going to see web applications come even further into their own and you'll eventually access your various content-delivery applications through a browser and without dedicated executables of their own.
We may eventually get to the point where applications are no longer installed on an individual machine, but rather accessed, cached and updated entirely through an internet connection. Google is pioneering that sort of work even now.
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And yet you paid to be the owner of the software. You should have free, easy, permanent access to it, because that would be what you paid for, and that is not what Steam is designed or able to deliever.
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I'll never understand the *****ing about Steam. The resource usage is minimal if its properly configured, you can play without an Internet connection just fine if you have the content fully downloaded, and it doesn't load the system full of various other intrusive DRM systems. Frankly, I've found it to be a fantastic system which balances copyright protection with ease of customer use. The only legitimate worry I've ever heard about the Steam system is that if Valve ever went belly-up, what happens to the servers and the content you've paid for?
My concern is that if I buy a game, in a store, it should be the game, not 95% of it. You wouldn't buy a car that was 95% there, one without the steering the wheel, why pay money for a game that wasn't complete? Fantastic? What benefit is Steam to the consumer, except helping them spend their money easier? And are games cheaper on Steam than in the store? Because they're sure not paying for any sort of distribution for it.
And I'm not sure about the whole "no internet required" thing either, but you may be right on that front.
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I'll never understand the *****ing about Steam. The resource usage is minimal if its properly configured, you can play without an Internet connection just fine if you have the content fully downloaded, and it doesn't load the system full of various other intrusive DRM systems. Frankly, I've found it to be a fantastic system which balances copyright protection with ease of customer use. The only legitimate worry I've ever heard about the Steam system is that if Valve ever went belly-up, what happens to the servers and the content you've paid for?
My concern is that if I buy a game, in a store, it should be the game, not 95% of it. You wouldn't buy a car that was 95% there, one without the steering the wheel, why pay money for a game that wasn't complete? Fantastic? What benefit is Steam to the consumer, except helping them spend their money easier? And are games cheaper on Steam than in the store? Because they're sure not paying for any sort of distribution for it.
And I'm not sure about the whole "no internet required" thing either, but you may be right on that front.
I'm pretty sure that you have to validate a game once a week in order for it to function. Even then, every single damned game must be updated before you can run them.
If I wanted to wait four hours (after installation) before playing a game that I bought, I'd invite some people over for a round of Monopoly.
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Frankly, I think we're going to see web applications come even further into their own and you'll eventually access your various content-delivery applications through a browser and without dedicated executables of their own.
Which is what they should have done in the first place.
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Some extra comments about Securom are in order here. Apart from the restrictions it places on actual usage (internet activation and so on), Securom itself exhibits many properties in common with malware.
1: Games that contain it install it silently and never give any indication that they include it.
2: It stays on your computer even after you have uninstalled all games using it, and there is no official removal procedure for it. It is a little difficult to remove manually and some of its components cannot be deleted with standard Windows programs. (null registry keys, for example)
3: It operates in kernel mode like a driver, which is a possible security hole and creates additional potential for problems. There was an incident with the Mass Effect content update recently, where installing the content set off something in Securom that made systems BSOD immediately upon right clicking anywhere in Windows Explorer. (they did fix it quickly though)
4: It contains a "blacklist" of programs that Sony thinks you're using to tamper with it. If you open them at any time, Securom will detect that in the background and games will refuse to load until you restart your computer. Process Explorer (an enhanced Task Manager) is the most well known example, but there are others as well.
5: It reduces performance in games, particularly loading times but sometimes also the average framerates. There have also been cases where Securom was actually the source of instability in a game and a crack was needed to solve various crashing problems. The rather funny incident a few months ago with Ubisoft issuing a crack as an official patch was a recent example.
6: Some Securom versions are not compatible with certain DVD drives (for the Securom games that require a DVD). Crysis was an example at least when it came out, as it didn't work on a large number of SATA drives. Apparently those are detected as SCSI devices by Windows, and Sony thinks that any SCSI drive must be an emulated drive. :rolleyes:
Fortunately, Securom and all of these other systems have been reverse engineered a few years ago and cracks for the games are trivial to find. I always apply a crack before running the exe (for Securom and Starforce, it's the exe that installs the DRM, not the game installer) and never buy a game until I know that fully working cracks are available. Some games will still work fine online with the patched exe and others will not.
Steam is probably less intrusive than this, but still annoying and easy to bypass. I don't know a lot about it since I don't care about most of Valve's games anyway.
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I don't remember steam being an issue with HL2. I installed the game, let it do it's thing to finish installing it, then removed steam. Never had a problem running HL2 without it.
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I don't remember steam being an issue with HL2. I installed the game, let it do it's thing to finish installing it, then removed steam. Never had a problem running HL2 without it.
Hmmn, maybe it's just the desktop Icons that launch steam first. If I point them at the executable it might work without it. Worth checking out.
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Steam's great for when I have to reinstall everything (new computer or such). Just load it up and have it run in the background while it downloads every game you own.
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The issue with steam is that its not a generalized online store, and it likes to run in the background. What needs to happen is to have a download manager that works for any sort of application based on some open-ended specification, allowing the customer to make an account (something linked to paypal, probably), buy an application, and then have rights to download it wherever they log in to that manager (which should probably be open-source). Once you download the game/application, you do a quick validation check on it the first time it runs. This validation is tied to the computer it was downloaded on, but allows you to then play the game/application free of restrictions or an internet connection, without the need of any program running in the background. The validation would not expire, and would simply sit there until you uninstalled it and had to download it again. Because its tied to the computer (via processor serial number or whatever), it could be a simple encrypted file in the game's directory.
The best security is one that is effective even if the thief knows exactly how it works. EA could have simply limited keys to 3 people online at a time. Instead, they acted like f*cking retards.
My copy of spore still isn't here.
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I made it to the space age in a few days, and I hate to say it but I'm burning out on it. My colony gets attacked by a dozen ships, and I have to defend it in a single fighter.
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Mildly amusing (http://www.gameculture.com/node/759).
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Mildly, but a moot gesture considering the creators of those creatures have already bought the game. Once you pay your money, EA stops caring about you. They have your money.
Unless they're just using the creature creator.
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EA has started digging its grave.
Ok, this time their game is high on the sales list, but how many disappointed SPORE customers will buy another EA game? Not many. They would soon realize that they need another method to fight piracy, if they don't want to lose profit in the long run.
Stating that DRM is the most secure system in the world will motivate piracy even more. It might also encourage otherwise legit customers to abandon their principles and buy a pirated - even buggy - copy just to be able to play the game.
Not having much else to do at the moment, I will try to find some professional reviews. These frustrated-customer reviews are one thing.
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DRM is there to prevent the honest consumer from selling the game after they're done with it. They don't expect to actually put a dent in piracy.
I don't see why. Console gamers trade in their games all the time, restricting resales on one platform seems fairly pointless to me. The moment EA NHL 2K9 or whatever comes out, hundreds of 2K8 games probably flood into EB Games. And I don't know how the market between consoles and PCs compare but going in general I've found that more stores carry consoles games, and more of it, than the PC titles.
I should have been more specific, I meant what I said for PC titles only. :p
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It might also encourage otherwise legit customers to abandon their principles and buy a pirated - even buggy - copy just to be able to play the game.
Okay, I can understand buying a retail game. I can understand not paying for a pirated game. But paying for a pirated game? That's just nonsensical. People pirate games so they don't have to pay.
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Actually buying pirated games is pretty common. Not everyone has the foresight to get a porn + games tube into their house. Some people have to get it from a dodgy guy in the pub.
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There is also the bootleg market which is just organized piracy. People and companies putting out thousands of copies that look like the original but sell them for pennies on the dollar.
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I yeah I know this guy that sells ipods (he calls the mp4 players, doesn't say the brand) for $20.
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... So? The company still has an obligation to its costumers to provide them with the best possible experience.
thats the biggest load of **** i have ever heard!! EA being all about the customers? you serious!
winning the euro millions lottery has more chance of working for me than ea does towards it's customers rights over their money!
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circumventing steam, from experience involves editing 2 or cfg files and making damn sure that no executables from the game's folder are allowed to go on the net (any decent software firewall grants the ability)
(no i'm not a hacker or anything of the like, i just wanted to play my copy of half-life 2 off line. this was done back when there wasnt any offline capability...)