EA Denies DRM Problems With Sims 2

Fizzlefist writes "For the past 2 weeks there has been an uproar on the Sims 2 forums concerning the inclusion of Sony's SecuROM DRM software in the latest expansion pack, Bon Voyage. It seems paid customers have been having problems since day one of release, but EA is only now, 5 weeks later, issuing an official statement on the matter. A lot of what's in the statement is outright fiction with proven reports of issues with disabling of disc burning software, optical disc drives, printers, cameras, system slowdown and even system crashes. Fan responses have been cold to say the least. Interestingly enough, the expansion pack was cracked and up on the internet less than 24 hours after its release."

Class action suit...

[Anonymous Coward]

Treat it like a DoS denial of service attack. EA installed malware that denied their customers access to their computers. Could be criminal charges too and a massive class action suit.

Re:What the DRM providers don't want you to know..

[icepick72]

Or maybe your company's product is not in high demand.

Re:What the DRM providers don't want you to know..

[jonwil]

More likely your program is not popular enough to be worth pirating.

Re:It sounds to me that they want to help.

[Billly Gates]

More than likely people who install sims2 do not get the connection with a malfunctioning pc and their game. Instead they might call AOL or Dell and yell at them for a hardware issue.

Meanwhile EA says only 12 callers were affected?? Great it works then! Lets put it on all games! .. meanwhile Mike from India who works for HP/DELL gets yelled at by the angry consumers.

This makes me happy I dont do help desk anymore.

Only had one problem with SecuROM

[MaineCoon]

and that was with Sid Meier's Railroads. I did the Analysis, sent it in to SecuROM, and the next day they sent me a modified binary that would supposedly ignore the specific authentication failure. However, I didnt encounter the issue once I had rebooted, so did not need the modded binary.

I installed BioShock Demo, which did install SecuROM... uninstalled the demo, and SecuROM was uninstalled with it.

While I dislike DRM, SecuROM is probably one of the more benign forms. Anyone remember Starforce?

In a perfect world that would work but...

[rubenerd]

I remember when people were infuriated at first with the idea of Windows XP Product Activation and said that as long as everyone "voted with their wallets" and didn't buy XP Microsoft would be forced to change. We all know what a load of good that did.

The problem with the logic that consumers in these circumstances can make a drastic impact on a supplier by "voting with their wallets" is that it's next to impossible to reach the critical mass needed to make such an impact. People on the whole are apathetic, don't know about the issues and don't research the products they purchase, especially for software like games.

I think it will be far more likely that growing and increasingly vocal consumer frustration will cause a change in these ridiculous copy protection schemes, not people "voting with their wallets". But even with this scenario I'm still skeptical because again it assumes that companies actually care enough about their customers to listen to their cries for sanity and to take their needs into consideration.

Re:In a perfect world that would work but...

[erroneus]

Eventually the word will get out "EA software will break your computer"... eventually. The Sony rootkit CDs issue eventually hit mainstream media and results were a little pleasing where various government entities prosecuted.

The Sims series is hugely popular and has very real potential to hit mainstream media if they let the problem get out of hand.

Sony = king of spin

[Spikeles]

You really have to admire how they dance around some of the questions as well as an experienced politican.

So in perspective, while we'd like to have zero calls, we have received 41 calls on the more than 100,000 copies sold.

So.. because only a small number have reported the problem, it means there is no problem!

3) How does SecuROM interact with the Internet? A: Not at all, if you install a game using a CD or DVD. In that case SecuROM comes with the game on the disc. If you download a SecuROM-protected game from the Internet, then you have to use your Internet connection to request a license for the desired application. The communication is a simple request and response to a server used for this purpose. No personal information is collected or stored during this or any SecuROM process.

Well then. The answer would be "Yes it does connect to the internet"

8) Is SecuROM harming my computer? A: No. SecuROM does not damage a computer in any way.

So is that a guarantee that securom will never ever damage my computer ever, even if it had a bug?

19) How do I remove SecuROM from my machine?.... The registry keys described above in FAQ No. 5 above are not removed by the above uninstall process; otherwise, the copy protection function of SecuROM would be completely undermined. The registry keys, which contain license data, remain on your PC and do not affect any of your PC's functions. This is no different than other commercially available software programs that employ a similar use of registry keys.

Well then. It's not actually "removed" is it?

We don't disclose specifically which copy protection or digital rights management system we use --in this case, SecuROM -- because EA typically uses one license agreement for all of its downloadable games, and different EA downloadable games may use different copy protection and digital rights management.

"We don't tell you what DRM we use because different games use different DRM"?? Can someone please explain that in english?

EA.....

[IHC Navistar]

EA has a horrible reputation for Customer Service. It is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to get a straight answer from anyone, mainly because the process needed to actually get to a human being has been made by EA to be as twisted and complicated as possible.

EA loves to sweep problems out of sight by telling customers to use their "Knowledge Base", which is pretty much useless as it is, or to "contact" them by filling out a Bug Report/Complaint form, where they say they will "get back to you."

It took me forever to get the internet gaming part of Battlefield 1942 to work, and it STILL won't work at all. I spent a day trying to find a Tech Support phone number, which was supposed to be included in the manual (the text actually referred to the number to call in case of continuing problems), but the U.S.A. number wasn't given, only the website ant the Canadian number. I ended up calling 411 and asking for the n umber to their Redwood City office, and called that to get the Tech Support number. After calling that number, I got stuck in a phone tree offering Cheat servies and other junk, and an option for Tech Support. After choosing the tech support option, I got a recording referring me to their "Knowledge Base", to which I had already been to and found useless. After calling the Redwood City office, and asking to be referred to a person, I finally got a number for live Tech Support. I spoke to 2 differnt "Techs", on 2 separate occaisions, and both of them kept telling me to go to the EA website and download patches and updates. I downloaded 2 or three of them and none worked, or did anything for that matter.

EA can rot in hell for all I care. All they do is sell games, and nothing more. No service, no help, no functionality, nothing. They make it as hard as possible to take up any of their "precious" time by asking them to make their products actually work. I know BF1942 has a funtioning internet multiplayer component.

I kept getting an error message "UDATE NEEDED!" How can you call yourself a gaming company if you don't even know what your own error messages mean?

But I digress.....

Re:It sounds to me that they want to help.

[Fallingcow]

I used to buy all of EA's games, but they had the most annoyingly long load times from floppy.

Nothing's changed. Sims 1 and Sims 2 each looked about 5 years behind their times graphically when they came out (ESPECIALLY Sims 1) but on a modern machine either one will take about 3-5 minutes to load the game, and another 2-3 minutes any time you change areas. It's ridiculous. IMO, the things are damn-near unplayable.

Aren't they ever going to learn?

[Akaihiryuu]

DRM does not stop "pirates"...it doesn't even slow them down. Quite frequently, cracked pirated verisons are available on the torrent sites before the actual products are released. The ONLY thing DRM does is inconvenience paying customers...you know the ones who actually went out and BOUGHT the product rather than just downloading it from a torrent site. Every time this happens, a fraction of those inconvenienced paying customers will get fed up and start downloading rather than buying. You'd think this is what the publishers wanted, from the way they act. Either that or they're just insane...the definition of insanity being repeating the same action time and time again expecting a different result.

They PUBLISHED Battlefied 1942

[rbarreira]

You made battlefield '42!

Nope, they published it! At that time, DICE was not owned by EA yet (they bought them later, EA style).

what's new here?

[v1]

the expansion pack was cracked and up on the internet less than 24 hours after it's release.

In other words, the only people having problems as a result of this DRM are... the honest customers.

So as usual, DRM designed to make the pirates job impossible while not damaging the user experience have the exact opposite result, and the pirates are the only ones with a hassel-free experience, while the paying customers are left to suffer alone in the cold and dark that is Customer Relations.

Re:It sounds to me that they want to help.

[asuffield]

We want you to call. I want you to call.

Have you ever tried calling the support line? It is very apparent to anybody who calls that you do not want them to call. Some mouth-breather wastes 20 minutes of their time reading from a script that clearly does not accept the problem can exist, and you charge the customer for the privilege of this annoyance.

You've only got 12 calls logged for this reason because all the other people with the problem either had called you before and knew it would be a waste of time, or else they did call you and eventually got sick of arguing with a script, so they hung up and downloaded the crack instead.

Re:It sounds to me that they want to help.

[Harik]

Again, which is why you get a cracked copy of said games. "Sorry I won't share a computer with that _OTHER_ software" is bullshit. I don't know what the hell they're trying to do, either - I installed the cracked version of C&C3 via daemon tools. Most of these are cracked AND out on the net before release day - hell, you can finish games before you can legitimately buy them. Seriously, what are these clowns thinking - why the fuck would I pay money to infest my system with crippling viruses? When I buy it for real, I _STILL_ have to go download a cracked copy just to play the damned thing, the legitimate version refuses to install. Newsflash - we hate your rootkits, your securom and trying to type in 40-character keys with "o" and "0" in them. You're not stopping piracy and we all know it. Just release the goddamned game so I know I can go to the store, buy it and install it.