EA Is Now Officially On Steam, Spore Loses SecuROM 354
Trevor DeRiza writes "Today, Valve and EA revealed that this week's earlier rumors were true: Spore (and other EA games) are coming to Steam. As of today, Spore, Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack, Warhammer Online, Mass Effect, Need for Speed: Undercover, and FIFA Manager 2009 are all available for download on Steam. In the coming weeks, EA will add Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, and Red Alert 3. On the official Steam forums, when asked whether or not Spore would contain the dreaded SecuROM DRM that contributed to it being the most pirated game of 2008, a moderator replied, 'It does not have third party DRM.' EA has also finally launched a 'de-authorization tool' to free up limited installation slots."
Several readers have written to point out other news about Steam today: they've begun selling games priced in local currency for European customers. The only problem? Their conversion rate seems to be $1 per €1, somewhat less favorable than the current exchange rate, which is roughly $1.40 per €1.
AKA (Score:5, Funny)
Re:AKA (Score:5, Funny)
No problem (Score:5, Funny)
The only problem? Their conversion rate seems to be $1 per â1, somewhat less favorable than the current exchange rate, which is roughly $1.40 per â1.
Yeah but they don't have to physically ship pixels when they change money. Pixels are heavy, bytes are dense.. it's a complicated system of pipes and transmission lines.
Re:AKA (Score:3, Funny)
"Spore's DRM is Half-life'd"?
It is an improvement, after all...
>.>
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Funny)
And once people start buying the game, it stops being good. Haven't you ever heard the term "Sell out"?
Re:This is good...Maybe. (Score:5, Funny)
Is there any other kind?
Back in my day we only had analog downloads! And we were glad to have any at all! Why, if we wanted to play a video game one of us had to mentally interpret and reconstruct the current running through our hands back into the original binary! Then we had to crack the DRM - by slamming our heads just right against a stone wall to purge it from our memory. And we were grateful for the opportunity!
...
Then our father would cut us in two wit' a bread knife.
Re:AKA (Score:3, Funny)
Only if you have a quacking fetish, which, after hearing about you using ducks to pickup girls, i have to wonder...
Re:This is good...Maybe. (Score:5, Funny)
i prefer analog downloads using real steam. unfortunately, it took me several ruined hard drives to realize that analog steam downloads are incompatible with digital storage media. but i finally got a water tank installed in my computer, and it's been working great ever since.
see, whenever you download something the steam travels through a network of pressurized pipes--a series of tubes, if you will--until it finally reaches the computer, at which point it has to go through the Steam Condenser System Interface (SCSI) before it's finally written to the liquid state drive.
it is quite dangerous since the pipes are filled with highly pressurized scalding hot steam. if the network link ever becomes oversaturated it can easily result in packet loss and 3rd degree burns. but i think it's worth the risk. analog steam is perfect for cloud applications and downloading vaporware.
Re:AKA (Score:2, Funny)
The series of tubes has just been upgraded to Steam-power.
Re:Finally! (Score:3, Funny)
I know you caught the sarcasm, thankfully.
I would like to just see the DRM dance end, really. When DRM that people don't notice is "perfected", the same situation as now will occur: The smart people will figure out how to get around it, and the rest will happily lap up.
I have portal on my steam account which I rarely if ever use; should you wish to play it you can use mine. Just leave me some comment with a way to contact you or something.
Re:AKA (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, don't bring drugs into this. Drugs' spokesperson announces that drugs have no affiliation what so ever with DRM and do not wish to have their name tarnished by the association.