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PC Games (Games)

Sims 2 Blocked by CD Copying Software 180

Posted by Zonk from the sims-or-cds dept.
bairy writes "EA says The Sims 2 will refuse to run if you have Nero, CloneCD or Roxio's EasyCD installed on the same PC. Although they link to a patch to bypass this, a lot of people are upset by this."
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Sims 2 Blocked by CD Copying Software More

Sims 2 Blocked by CD Copying Software

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  • misleading (Score:3, Informative)

    by Scottarius ( 248487 ) * on Monday September 20, 2004 @03:50PM (#10300707)
    The original post is a little misleading. the software isn't blocked by cd burning software... it conflicts with cd emulation software, which is a compltely different thing. CD Emulation just happens to be included with a lot of cd burning software but can usually be disabled without uninstalling the program.

    • Re:misleading (Score:5, Informative)

      by (H)elix1 ( 231155 ) <slashdot.helix@nOSPaM.gmail.com> on Monday September 20, 2004 @03:57PM (#10300776) Homepage Journal
      Except in this case, just having it disabled is not enough. Got to be removed before Sims 'no longer has a conflict'.

    • That's BS and you know it (Score:4, Insightful)

      by billybob ( 18401 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @05:12PM (#10301601)
      the software isn't blocked by cd burning software... it conflicts with cd emulation software

      HA.... you're joking right? You think this isnt intentional on Maxis' behalf?? Give me a break. I can see why they would say it's just a conflict, so they try not to piss as many people off, but it's funny that anyone would actually buy that excuse. It's intentional and you know it. :P
      • I can't wait to see how Transgaming takes care of this, or if they will be unable to make the thing run in Linux. Will it refuse to run if the loopback driver is present? Or will there be another game title that runs better in Linux than it does in its native Windows environment. :)

    • Re:misleading (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ivan256 ( 17499 ) * on Monday September 20, 2004 @05:22PM (#10301715)
      it conflicts with cd emulation software

      No it doesn't.

      It says it conflicts with cd emulation software. It really detects cd emulation software and refuses to run. They try to make it sound like there's an overlap in resource utilization, or an incompatibility of some sort, but it's a lie. They just don't trust you.

      Furthermore, disabling the emlation functionality doesn't solve the problem, since they're not actually checking that, they're just checking for the existance of registry keys associated with certain programs. Doom 3 and Thief 3 did the same thing. You have to uninstall it, or the software won't run. In fact, with Doom 3, uninstalling didn't even work if you had a ligitamately registered copy of CloneCD, because it left a registry key behind with your license number, so you had to delete that registry key manually. Or, download the no-CD hack so you don't have to spend ten minutes uninstalling, registry hacking, and rebooting every time you wanted to switch from playing a game to doing something productive.

      • Re:misleading (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Alizarin Erythrosin ( 457981 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @07:02PM (#10302715)
        When will companies learn how fucking retarded it is to do something like that? What about the lay-person who likes to game but doesn't know much about the inner workings of the computer? Will they want to uninstall the cd burner software? Call EA support, and bitch at them!

        Pissing off your customers is not a sound business model. Its sad when you have to crack a game just to run your legitimate copy.
        • When will companies learn how fucking retarded it is to do something like that?

          When asshats stop flocking to the stores on release day to scoop up a copy of the latest inane software toy.
        • Pissing off your customers doesn't matter in cases like this. It is just like Star Wars... If people want your product badly enough it doesn't matter what you do.

          Everyone bitches about what Lucas is doing or has done (I totally agree with the complaints) and everyone will bitch about EA and The Sims.

          However the vast majority of those people will be bitching while they are purchasing said products, while they are using said products, and while they are talking to their friends about said products.

          Very few
      • It says it conflicts with cd emulation software. It really detects cd emulation software and refuses to run. They try to make it sound like there's an overlap in resource utilization, or an incompatibility of some sort, but it's a lie. They just don't trust you.

        I find that particularly troubling, because I've had Easy CD/DVD Creator, Nero, CloneCD, Alcohol 120%, AND ISO Buster installed for well over 6 months. Of course, even with all those programs installed and used regularly, I'm still able to run The
        • I'm not saying it's not an issue... but maybe, just maybe, could it be either user error, or possibly something with a pirated version of the game?

          Since you have no trouble accusing me of pirating software Or being an idiot, I'm going to have no trouble accusing you of lying. If you have CloneCD installed, and it's not some fancy new stealth version that I haven't heard of yet you didn't get something protected with SafeDisc 3 to run without intervention. As for it being something with a pirated version,
    • Is it Starforce 3 copy "protection" that they added to the game (which, btw, installs driver-level software to do its dirty work), or is it a different widget causing these problems?

    • It's irregardless what the technical issue is - the simple fact is that more and more games are being shipped with ridiculous 'copy protection' that is extremely offensive to the end-consumer.

      I recently returned the game 'Killswitch' for the exact same reason - you get the 2 CD game installed, run the launcher and click on 'Play Game' (specifically labeled as PLAY GAME) and suddenly the launcher is installing who-knows-what software onto my machine and then says 'copy protection software installed, please

  • Roxio's EasyCD? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sgant ( 178166 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @03:56PM (#10300759) Homepage Journal
    Um...that came with my wife's Gateway machine. It's not like we copied some "l33t" CD copy program hack. It fricken CAME with the machine!

    What up? Then they list a patch that will bypass it anyway? What up? Why did they even include it in the first place?

    Again, what up?
    • Um...that came with my wife's Gateway machine. It's not like we copied some "l33t" CD copy program hack. It fricken CAME with the machine!

      More than 90% of PCs sold in North America come with this software right now, as well as the vast majority of burners. If a PC has a CD-RW installed (I've seen ONE in a retail store that doesn't and I don't believe Dell or Gateway offer many online), then it comes with something to use it, usually Nero, EasyCD, or a similar program.

      In roughly two to three years, blocks
    • The headline is incorrect, Roxio's Easy CD is not affected. The actual article [custhelp.com] states emulation software such as... ROXIO

      The only emulation software from Roxio is packaged with their european product called WinOnCD which has a portion that mounts disc images as drives, this doesn't affect most people.

  • This is why I play console games. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Godeke ( 32895 ) * on Monday September 20, 2004 @03:56PM (#10300762)
    I'm a developer and as such I use some of the more obscure tools: including CloneCD (I have a library of my MSDN subscription CDs imaged on my server, for example). I back up to CD, so I have CD burning software on my machine. This isn't the first game where someone decided they know what is good for my machine better than I do. "You want to *use* your machine: then don't buy our game!" they say. I have learned my lesson: I don't buy your games. How exactly does that help your bottom line?

    From the discussion board it appears it took two days for a NoCD crack to become available. How does *that* help your bottom line: you have people returning the game (rightfully so, many will have no clue why you want to cripple the computer just to play a game, even if they know *how* to cripple it) and yet the pirates didn't even skip a beat?

    Nothing but bad press and bad customer service. Yes, the consoles are protected, but they are protected in a way that doesn't break the game and doesn't require gutting my machine's functionality to get there.

    • Re:This is why I play console games. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @04:01PM (#10300816) Homepage Journal
      the only winners are the companies selling this snakeoil(it's snakeoil, since it doesn't really do anything better than the cd checks before it because it got cracked in an instant) to publishing companies.

      customer loses and the publisher loses.

    • Everything's copiable if given enough time. The only reason why people copy less console games is because of the console life span. PC games, once purchased can be kept forever. And it only runs faster and faster as you keep buying new PCs.

      • Try Thief or Thief II on Windows XP.
        Try any DOS game (Terra Nova, Syndicate Wars, Crusader, Madden '98 damn that was a fun game).
        Try Baldur's Gate (anything over directx 8.1 kills it).

        I have 3 old machines specifically for video games only,
        no internet and no patches.
        1 Pentium 133 with DOS 6.22 & Win95
        1 Pentium III 450 with Win98 SE Direct X 3? Maybe 2 whatever Diablo came with.
        1 Pentium III 933 with Direct X 8.1 (Original Baldur's Gate)
        1 Pentium IV 2GHz with all the latest bullshit (note: Norton Antivi
      • Um, that's seems backwards. I still have a Super NES, and it works great. Meanwhile, my DOS games and many of my Windows 98 games won't run on my XP box.

        Additionally, people *don't* buy "less console games": the PC market has been surpassed in volume and dollar share by console games. Or had you not noticed the shrinking wall of PC games in your local shops? The anemic PC game magazines of late?

        Things like this type of "protection" for the PC game crowd simply mean that even less PC games are sold as peo

  • Why? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by johannesg ( 664142 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @03:59PM (#10300794)
    What's the point of not allowing CD emulation? If you have a legal copy of the game I don't see why you shouldn't be allowed to play it from an emulated CD, and if you do not have a legal copy the crack will take care of it anyway. So what are they trying to achieve?

    • Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ChaosDiscord ( 4913 )

      What's the point of not allowing CD emulation?

      The same point as all modern PC game copy protection: to delay access to cracked copies. While emulation has many valid uses, it's likely that most CD emulators are used to play illegal copies of games. Disallowing CD emulation makes it harder, increasing the window where it's easier to buy the game than to get a working illegal copy.

      I still think it's scummy (It's not their business what I run on my PC. There are valid uses for such software.), but that'

      • Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @05:32PM (#10301819) Homepage Journal
        uh, the window was exactly couple of hours or something along those lines. well, actually the warez version was available WELL BEFORE THE GAME WAS AT RETAILERS, reducing the window to zero. not only that but it would have been for some customers easier to just warez the game than buy it(in which case the whole setup is on it's head already, the "works everywhere" warez version being available *earlier* than the retail version and with *less hassle* - that's just insane of the publisher).

        there's no valid _good_ reason.. there's valid reasons to buy this snakeoil(from companies that actively push it to publishers), but they're not good reasons. and now most new computers that come with a cd burner(read: all) have burning software that comes with such emulation so you're automatically asking for trouble, especially with such high visiblity title as sims 2 that will be copied no matter what and be tried by *legimate* customers on wide array of different computers.

        (not only that but actually there's a spesific warez release just to be played using virtual drive... )
      • Ah wait, now I get it: this is to stop those people who have a reasonably modern PC and a highspeed internet connection, but no CD-burner, nor any friends with CD burners. Both of them.

        Well, I'm sure it is worth the inconvenience to thousands of paying customers to stop these curiously equipped, friendless pirates from pirating...

    • It's not just CD Emulation software. It's the CD mastering software that comes preinstalled on just about every PC sold these days.

  • CloneCD Current Version is Directly Causing Issues (Score:5, Informative)

    by Necromancyr ( 602950 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @04:00PM (#10300807)
    Having CloneCD installed (the current version as of this posting) is one of the biggest issues people are having. Simply changing the Reg Entry for CloneCD allows you to run the Sims no problem - of course, you have to change it back for CloneCD to work correctly.

    Basically, it's checking for a registry entry. That's it. Very effective. :/

  • so what (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 20, 2004 @04:02PM (#10300826)
    daemon tools works fine

  • Ironic (Score:5, Funny)

    by DeadBugs ( 546475 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @04:09PM (#10300902) Homepage
    I heard that people that have Doom3 and Unreal Tournament 2004 installed are refusing to install Sims 2. (no matter how much their girlfriend complains)

    • (no matter how much their girlfriend complains)

      Wrong attitude, man!

      Were they smart, they'd buy her her own computer (this part is not optional, but it's not really expensive anymore), and a copy of the Sims 2 and get her interested in it. Why? Because if she's busy playing Sims 2, that means you can play UT2004, D3, HL2, etc. uninterrupted.

      Alas, it tends to mean that nobody is downstairs doing the dishes, but that's the price of progress ... at least she's not dragging you to a play or somethi

    • That's the wrong attitude. How about this?
      "I'll install Sims2 for you, but every time you want to play it, you'll have sex with me."

      • Re:Ironic (Score:3, Funny)

        by Phexro ( 9814 )
        That's probably prohibited by the EULA.

        Either that, or it's contingent on you giving "certain rights" back to the publisher.
    • I heard that people that have Doom3 and Unreal Tournament 2004 installed are refusing to install Sims 2. (no matter how much their girlfriend complains)
      Yes, EA has heard about that as well. Pending a patch to fix the failure of response to complaints, the workaround is for the girlfriend to withhold sex until installation is completed.

  • What really gets me is this... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dark Nexus ( 172808 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @04:13PM (#10300950)
    Reading through the posts, I come across a post from someone at EA responsible for the board (or support in general, I'm not sure which), in response to one customer who got so annoyed they returned the game:

    There is no conspiracy of silence. I've seen posts from people running Nero and CloneCD who aren't having problems with the game and those that are. We can look into it, but I don't have any answers for you today.


    And murronrose, since you returned your game, that means that you are no longer a product-registered owner of the game. Which means you shouldn't even be using this BBS... I'm most likely going to have to remove your posting priveledges if you don't cancel your account yourself.

    -MaxoidLucky

    Check out The Urbz - Sims in the City
    The next great game from Maxis!
    http://www.theurbz.com


    Absolutely wonderful customer relations... "You have a complaint, so instead of trying to fix the problem and get a few customers back, we're just going to remove you from this board and pretend it never happened."
    • Do notice though, that the account was not removed, murronrose and MaxoidLucky got into a dialogue, and murronrose is working at documenting solutions.

    • Re:What really gets me is this... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by hambonewilkins ( 739531 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @04:23PM (#10301048)
      murronrose basically responds like that. However, murronrose backs down and says (essentially) "I like Maxis, please don't kick me off the board" and offers to buy the game again.

      Looks like the threat worked. To the rest of us, it looks like AWFUL customer service!

    • Yep, really poor customer relations. He does have a point though: It is possible to be running Nero's disk image software if you are using the CD version of the game (as opposed to the DVD version). I've been running it fine with no problems w/o having to use a nocd patch.

      I really see no point of this kind of copy protection though: The warez guys had the game online at least 3 days before it hit stores. Casual copiers using crappy disk image programs will not get past more primitive copy protection mechan

      • "really poor customer relations"?

        That's putting it mildly.

        This moves EA down a notch from my "I refuse to buy anything from them" list to my "Friends don't let friends buy products from fucktard companies" list.

        Let's see how long before they get on my currently empty "Register an anti-company website and document all their stupidity" list.
    • Looks like they're taking customer service lessons from SOE.
    • EA's customer relations gets better later on in the thread.

      As I said, I've seen this issue and we are looking into it. Can we solve it today? Nope. But I am here and I do hear you.

      But... didn't you just threaten to ban the guy?

      if there's a fix you will be able to read about it.

      Wait, so EA expects CASUAL gamers who have trouble playing the game to monitor their website to see if they fix the problem? If you were talking about a hardcore community like the Half-Life community or /. community I'd unders

    • Absolutely wonderful customer relations... "You have a complaint, so instead of trying to fix the problem and get a few customers back, we're just going to remove you from this board and pretend it never happened."

      Well, it brings up another issue too - which is whether or not he's actually been "unregistered" by EA. Are they going to delete his name/address/phone number/email address from their records, and give him verification that they've done so? If not, then I can't see how they have the right to r

  • State it in the System Requirements (Score:5, Insightful)

    by meanfriend ( 704312 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @04:40PM (#10301195)
    If a company wants to take such stupid measures with their games, go ahead, but let me know *before I buy it* so I know which lousy products not to waste my $$ on. With most store policies regarding open box returns (ie. dont even think about it) they owe it to the consumers to notify them if something that has become quite common on modern systems may prevent the game from running.

    Don't all games have a little section of the box indicating the system requirements? Like:

    1 Ghz CPU
    Direct X 9 video card
    1.2 GB free Hard Drive Space
    NO Installed CD emulation software: (eg: Nero/Alcohol/CloneCD)

    If they did something like that, then consumers would have no complaints. Sales may tank, but that should tell them something too...

    And no fair adding emulation detection code in a patch like Ubisoft tried with Raven Shield. (It was retracted quickly after a good backlash from the users)

    • Same companies already do that. For example, if you check Stardock's The Political Machine box, you'll find something similar in the hardware requirements. Others, however, treat this as a trade secret. Actually, that was the exact excuse of Dreamcatcher, whenever they removed posts on their forums that identified their games protected by a similar system.
    • Expect to see just that. Also, expect to see MSRs begin to say "Except Laptops" or "Laptops aren't supported" or "Except mobile chipsets" or something to that effect. Lots of conflicts brewing. Its definitely fun to watch.
      • SOE Did that to me I lost support for Everquest once they found out I was playing on my Laptop. It was enough for me to cancel my account. Hell I payed my subscription and nowhere did it say my system was unsupported. Not only that but my problem was completely unrelated to any hardware issue (I had a character stuck in a zone that had issues). But it pissed me off enough so I demanded a refund of my unplayed time and canceled my account.
    • If the game refuses to run on your system and you meet the system requirements, return it to the store. The store is required by law to accept it for a full refund as they have sold you goods that are not of merchandisable quality.

      That said, I bought the DVD edition of Sims2 and had no problems. I have daemon tools and nero installed.

  • Pffft... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why do they even bother anymore... a fully cracked version of Sims 2 was available via torrent before most places had the game in stores. People who WANT to copy the game illegally will do so. The only thing game companies do by adding crappy copy protection is annoy legitimate customers.

  • Killing PC Games Market (Score:4, Insightful)

    by blueZhift ( 652272 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @04:45PM (#10301257) Homepage Journal
    This is just lovely! Just another nail in the coffin of PC games. The usual sort of system setup woes are bad enough without the game publisher intentionally causing pain in the name of copy protection. The average user is not going to even try to figure this out, they'll just return the game. And given the large presence of casual gamers in the Sims demographic, that could be a lot of returns.

    Yeah, I know most casual gamers probably wouldn't have CD emulation software installed themselves. But a lot of people share the computer with others who might have installed who knows what, especially kids. The Sims 2 scheme is just a recipe for disaster, which still won't stop the real pirates anyway! I won't be buying this for my PC, but I might check out Sims for Xbox which is going for $20 these days and got pretty good reviews.

  • That's weird (Score:5, Interesting)

    by thelenm ( 213782 ) <mthelen.gmail@com> on Monday September 20, 2004 @04:48PM (#10301300) Homepage Journal
    That's weird... I went out and bought a DVD writer so that I could play the Sims 2 DVD edition (oh yeah, and my wife wanted it for making DVDs too). The DVD drive came with a bunch of Nero programs for creating DVDs, which I installed. Then I installed Sims 2 with no problems. I wonder why I didn't see this issue?
    • I've seen reports by others with Sims 2 DVD, who also have no problems with their burning/imaging software. So I do wonder if it's just that the DVD doesn't use the CD edition's "protection" control?

  • Not the only one (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hawkbug ( 94280 ) <psxNO@SPAMfimble.com> on Monday September 20, 2004 @04:56PM (#10301416) Homepage
    Have you tried to play Far Cry yet? The game came free with a brand new video card I bought, the eVGA Nvidia Geforce 6800, and after I installed it and then patched it to version 1.1, it refused to load. It said something about detecting drive imaging software on my machine, and it said it would not load until said software was removed. I can't tell you how much that ticked me off. So, rather than uninstall the cd copying software because I NEED IT FOR LEGIMATE PURPOSES, I simply found a crack for the program I legally own, and was forced to use it. It's just wrong. There needs to be a class action law suit, I'd even help spring for the lawyer.
    • The funny thing is the Crackers and their target audience are the ones who won't have problems with this.

      Whereas as we can see, the legitimate users are the ones having problems.

      It is common for some legitimate users to resort to using cracked versions because they just _work_better_ for them. Say you're a sysadmin for a small/midsized company with 100-200 pcs, and you have the legit licenses for software for all the PCs. Often using Cracks (and a few corporate keys) and a custom compilation "installer cd

  • Works like a charm (Score:5, Informative)

    by Dark Lord Seth ( 584963 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @04:57PM (#10301432) Journal

    Currently got "The Sims 2" up and running -- Illegally. Works fine with CD-burning tools. Mounted the images with the latest version of Daemon Tools, installed it and can play it just fine as well. ( It is currently running in the background ) It even works fine with Nero still installed, though for the record it SHOULD be noted that this version of Nero is an OEM-handicapped version taht came with my Plextor burner. Won't burn anything on any other burner. Maybe it won't conflict because I use CD-drive emulation software? Don't know. Bottom line is, this protection is MASSIVELY uneffective. A large site that I frequent has counted at LEAST 10k hits so far on people who downloaded the game. Works fine for the majority of them, let's assume 80%.

    Personally, I really like the game though. I'm not going in depth on that; this ain't no damn review. Suffice to say, I'm going to wait a few years, then pick up the fully patched and complete game ( What EA calls expansion packs ) on 2 DVDs for EUR 29,95 in 2006. Untill then, I'll just hobble about with this pirated version. :)

    • I'm so glad there are hackers out there writing no-cd programs. I get tired of looking at xfire and seeing which game my friends are in, and have to find the cd. Just click and go.

      You have to have a legit serial to play online, so a cd check is freaking abusive to the customer.

      What we need is a company selling no-cd programs, maybe in IRAN. ;)

      BTW, too bad these programmers cant get a paypal tip jar, at a buck or so, they might make a few thousand...

    • Seconding this. I used Alcohol though. Whatever.

      Funny thing is that I, having the game four hours after it hit suprnova, never noticed this until I heard it from other people who actually bought the game! Nice going, guys!

  • Useless waste of time and money (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bonewalker ( 631203 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @04:58PM (#10301439)
    I just want to know who the genius is that thought this was a good idea?

    "Let's make the game more difficult to play with a pirated version which will prevent about 0% of piraters from playing the game illegaly, and prevent about 75% of legitimate users from easily playing the game after they have paid us their hard-earned money. Sound like a plan? Good, get on it. I expect to see large ROI numbers by next week."

  • Just another example of why copy protection loses (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Stevyn ( 691306 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @05:00PM (#10301464)
    This is another example of how copy protection does little to stop piracy, but pisses off honest customers for no reason. I'm sure if a crack isn't already up, it will be soon. It's the same situation with Windows activation. The customers who bought the software honestly deal with the hassles while the people who downloaded it illegally won't have to worry. It's like the audio CDs that restrict use on windows machines, but downloading MP3s lets you do whatever you want. It's like paying for songs off music distribution services gives you a product that is more restrictive than if you went on Kazaa and downloaded it.

    One of these companies arguments against piracy is that you get a better experience if you're honest and buy the product. However, for these protection schemes, I fail to see how things are made easier or better.

    • Re:Just another example of why copy protection los (Score:5, Informative)

      by Marc_Hawke ( 130338 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @05:48PM (#10302007)
      Almost all games now-a-days come with the requirement that the CD be in the drive. UT(99) was like this. I wrote in to Epic, and the publisher (GT Interactive) and complained, and listed 5 legitimate reasons why that requirement made it impossible for a valid customer to play the game.

      Epic, the developer said it was a requirement forced by the publisher. The tech support for the publisher actually pointed me at www.gamecopyworld.com to download the 'NoCD fix.' (That was good customer service. :) )

      In other news, when Tribes 2 came out it didn't have a CD check. However, it also flat out didn't work on a great number of PCs. And, on the PCs where the game actually worked, the online component (the whole game) was in very poor condition, and many of the features simply 'weren't in yet.' There was a massive public backlash and a mass 'returning' of the game to the retail outlets.

      In the first patch, they implemented a CD-check. The reasoning..."Our retail partners are concerned with the large amount of returns they are getting on this game, and they feel it's because people are simply copying it to their harddrives because there was no CD-check."

      Sure..it has nothing to do with the game simply NOT WORKING!!!

      But I've guess we've seen that kind of attitude before in different industries. (RIAA)

    • It's none of their damn business... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Kozar_The_Malignant ( 738483 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @06:00PM (#10302141)
      What I have on my hard drive. I have three different sector editors as well as CD copy software. Are they going to scan for the editors, because I might use them to edit their executables? If I buy a program, I expect it to run with whatever I have on my hard drive. If there are conflicts with common software, I expect the publishers to fix it and issue a free patch. I definitely don't expect them to be scanning my registry for keys that they think might indicate that I might be thinking about maybe making a perfectly legal backup copy of my legally purchased software. There are a couple of RTS games coming out this fall that I'm interested in buying, but if they have this bullshit in them, they'll go right back to the store, or never be purchased if I know ahead of time.

  • reminds me of another situation (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bigbigbison ( 104532 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @05:11PM (#10301588) Homepage
    It is interesting that this situation is similar to the ways that anti-virus and anti-spyware products detect bad stuff. I wonder how long it will be before cd imaging products have to adopt some of the sneakier ways of hiding their presence that spyware and viruses use?
  • Interestingly enough, all Mac games I've tried have played just fine with an image.

    I have a laptop and I don't like carrying around the CDs.

    I'm becoming more and more certain that the people pushing this are the companies selling "Copy Protection."

  • Future anti-infringement measures: (Score:5, Funny)

    by base3 ( 539820 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @05:20PM (#10301688)
    The Sims 3 will refuse to run if any of the following are true:
    • Suprnova is bookarked in IE
    • .NFO is associated with any text editor
    • A debugger is installed
    • An IRC client is installed
  • I have The Sims 2 and I also have both Nero and Clone CD installed. I haven't had any problems. As far as I'm aware there's nothing special about my copies of those programs, I wonder what's different.

  • It ain't the first and won't be the last (Score:5, Informative)

    by spyrochaete ( 707033 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @05:40PM (#10301928) Homepage Journal
    True Crime: Streets of L.A. [truecrimela.com] for PC did the exact same thing. Wouldn't load until I removed Daemon Tools and CloneCD. It wouldn't even tell me what the offending software was! Like one poster above, I just cracked the software.

    P.S., if you use a No-CD crack in The Sims 2, you can't change flooring! Double whammy!

    You know it's a sad day when you start missing those Monkey Island code wheels!
    • > You know it's a sad day when you start missing those Monkey Island code wheels!

      Ah, the good old days of the XOR data file, which was byte-code interpreted.

      Kids these days with those new-fangled CD emulation tools. Back in my day we had un-photocopable paper and we liked it!

      --
      The evolution & "supposed" pre-ancient history of man is a crock.
      One of the many proofs that intelligent pre-historic civilizations existed long BEFORE man's ancient civilizations...
      1. Progression of "apparent" history of " [toyen.uio.no]

  • The moral is... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RotJ ( 771744 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @06:02PM (#10302171) Journal
    The moral of this story (and any other stories detailing CD protection idiocy) is to always download the NoCD crack for any game you own. This bypasses any stupid annoyances caused by misguided copy-protection software, as well as saving you the trouble of having to insert your discs whenever you plan on playing a game.
  • So I guess in 10 years, when my Sims CD is scratched due to normal wear and tear, EA will remain in existence as a company and provide me - free of charge - a replacement CD, whenever I ask?

  • Maxis Represenative Responds: Fuck Off, Customers. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by EllF ( 205050 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @06:57PM (#10302650) Homepage
    My goodness. I was reading the BBS for the game, and there is one individual who purchased the Sims, found it to be inoperable on the system that he uses to do photo editing and digital video work, and returned it to the store with an explanation. He then posted, trying to get Maxis to do -something- -- he is apparently a longtime customer as well as a polite, well-spoken fellow.

    Here's the Maxis represenative's response: "There is no conspiracy of silence. I've seen posts from people running Nero and CloneCD who aren't having problems with the game and those that are. We can look into it, but I don't have any answers for you today. And murronrose, since you returned your game, that means that you are no longer a product-registered owner of the game. Which means you shouldn't even be using this BBS... I'm most likely going to have to remove your posting priveledges if you don't cancel your account yourself. -MaxoidLucky"

    That's unbelievable. You don't threaten your fucking customers when they're justifiably angry because you released a ridiculously broken product. Fuck you, Maxis.

  • Brand Name Computers? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Twintop ( 579924 ) <david@twintop-tahoe.com> on Monday September 20, 2004 @07:27PM (#10302980) Homepage Journal
    So, if someone buys a computer from Dell/HP/IBM/Gateway/etc. that comes with pre-installed burning software, they can't play? I can see the protests now. The Sims might have been the best selling game ever, but with stupid copy protection B.S. like this, The Sims 2 will be lucky if it is the bestseller of the year.
  • There is one, and only one copy protection scheme that is truly effective-- registering online with a serial number.

    I've played quite a few games acquired... Not so legitimately. None of them had a copy protection scheme that couldn't be easily bypassed. But with the better games-- Star and Warcraft, Call of Duty, Unreal, etc. I paid full price for copies so I could play multiplayer online. AFAIK there's no way to "hack" Battle.net so that you don't need a unique and registered SN.

    This is the directi
    • AFAIK there's no way to "hack" Battle.net so that you don't need a unique and registered SN.

      ever heard of bnetd? there are pirate master servers for just about any game, the problem is the games are good due to large numbers of people so you can always find someone to play against, not so on a lonely pirate server running off someones DSL line.
  • What's next?! Game publisher houses deciding what we can and cannot have installed? Games that dele... oh wait, it's The Sims.

    Sorry, my bad.

  • Boy, this takes me back... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bluemeep ( 669505 ) <bluemeep@@@gmail...com> on Monday September 20, 2004 @10:25PM (#10304538) Homepage
    There's been worse copy protection schemes. Anybody remember having to type word 36 on page 16 of the manual before being able to start a game? And then discovering your Mom threw it out months ago? Then that bastard Timmy who sat across the lunch table from you wouldn't let you borrow his copy because he was still mad you lost the Victoria's Secret he swiped from his Dad's closet?

    Yeah, I hated that.

    • There's been worse copy protection schemes.

      LensLock, anyone? :) It was a small lens which you had to place against your TV screen. Only with this lens a combination of characters displayed by the program became legible... Boy, that was an odd way to protect software *g*

      And the very first "Leaderboard" used an dongle for the joystick port - at least on my old Atari 800XL.
    • Yes...that story reminds me of Metal Gear Solid where the head of Arms Tech (or whatever the arms corporation was called) forgets the radio channel for someone you need to contact to progress further in the game. I figured it must have been some kind of copy protection, since it was really out of place and seemed to rip the player from the game world.
  • Just burn The Sims 2 CDs from your Linux partition with cdrecord. Play in Windows.
  • Same thing happened to me with doom3. I was going to buy sims2 as a gift (today actually) but now I'll be finding a different game for the person. I can't stand this BS.

    CD check, ok, I don't mind that, I've been playing with the cd in the drive since CD games came out, and hell, at liest I don't have to swap between cd's anymore.

    I think the happy middle ground is to check for the cd key on install. Then check the cd key against again for TCP/IP games on the publisher's servers (not lan, so freaken annoyin
  • For those who are finally fed up with this kind of bullshit, and actually want to do something, here is the phone number for EA.

    (650) 628-1500

    I invite you to call them, ask to be transferred to the marketing/PR department, and POLITELY and INTELLIGENTLY explain to them the folly of their situation. Such as how this won't stop the pirates, who will just release a precracked version that will run fine on any computer while the people who actually bought the game won't be able to play it.

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