EA Loosens Spore, Mass Effect DRM

An anonymous reader writes "In response to recent criticism, EA has decided to eliminate the periodic validation of Mass Effect and Spore. 'Specifically, EA's plan to dial in to game owner's computers every ten days to check whether they were running a legitimate version of their software has been scrapped, ShackNews reports. EA had planned to use the validation method for upcoming titles Mass Effect and Spore. EA now says that validation will now only occur when a user attempts to download new content for either game. Chief among the voices in opposition to this measure were members of the armed forces, who pointed out that they could not rely on having an internet connection every ten days.'"

Publicity

[Emb3rz]

The original story on this garnered attention from quite a large crowd (even just in the scope of Slashdot). It would have been foolish on their part to plug ahead when, as was pointed out by a poster on the original thread, their customer service was already trained with what to tell people who didn't like the model: 'complain so that we don't make the same mistake with our next game release.'

Re:Um, there's a problem with this.

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have to enter a validation code. The validation code (or hash thereof) is stored on your computer and checked against the database automatically when you try to download content.

So, unless you're downloading new stuff, it'll never try to re-authenticate. The previous scheme mandated that you re-authenticate every 10 days regardless of whether you could go online at the time or not which was pretty onerous for people who don't have 'net connections... like me when I visit my parents on their boat. A place where I'd like to play games when I can't be online, y'know?

I hope they get a revoke tool like Bioshock. I have 3 machines that I'd play Spore on already (laptop, home game machine, work game machine). What if I replace one? I'm screwed :/

Re:Um, there's a problem with this.

[Anonymous Coward]

You probably won't have to enter a code multiple times by hand.....
  Your code will probably be saved on your system...

Re:MIA

[Free the Cowards]

Yes, laptops. And it's not military issue hardware. Soldiers are allowed personal possessions. A lot of soldiers these days choose to bring their own computer to give them some entertainment in their off hours. In this respect they're little different than you or I, except that their housing is provided by their employer and often doesn't come with net access, or with extremely limited access.

Horse meat is great

[patio11]

Don't knock it until you've tried it. Cooked it is really quite similar to a very lean cut of beef, but raw and with just a dash of soy sauce it is really, really good.

Please don't all go PETA (OMG think of the ponies!) at once. They're dumber than pigs and pigs are delicious, too.