EA Patches Spore, Eases DRM 161
EA has released the first patch for Spore, the purpose of which is to fix a number of bugs and tweak some gameplay settings to be more entertaining. Some of the visual effects were upgraded as well. They've also officially responded to the complaints about Spore's DRM, stating their intention to increase the number of allowed installations to five and to set up a system to "de-authorize" systems in order to reclaim the installation credit. They plan to allow multiple screen names per account, which was an issue for many families trying to play the game. This comes not long after EA made similar changes to the DRM of upcoming RTS Red Alert 3, and after Spore's DRM protest spread to in-game creature designs. Reader SoopahMan notes that users in EA's Spore tech support forum are reporting a number of new issues caused by the patch.
How gracious of them (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if they actually believe this is going to change how people feel about the DRM, or if they just don't care and are trying to curb the Amazon comments?
Re:How gracious of them (Score:5, Insightful)
Easy. You make enough people happy that the protesters can be comfortably ignored. Deactivation isn't enough for me, but it's no longer renting the same way it was. Add in a promise to completely disable all drm if/when they shut down the servers and I think you could get most people onboard.
Not me, but enough of the mainline gamers for it to matter.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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The only company I could believe shutting down the DRM when they die is Valve's Steam, and I'm still fairly skeptical of that.
Luckily I'm not a big fan of the crud being churned out by Big Content these days, and quite happy with independent publishers who dare to stray from clickity-click click FPS type games. Though I do enjoy a good run of Halo from time to time:-)
So yeah, I hoard my old Microprose DOS games, and some really old EA titles for the Commodore 64, and share them with others when I can.
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The only company I could believe shutting down the DRM when they die is Valve's Steam, and I'm still fairly skeptical of that.
LGP [linuxgamepublishing.com] has stated that everyone in the company is authorized to release patches disabling DRM if the company goes under...
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awesome. But given it has linux in the title, I'm not really surprised:-)
Re:How gracious of you (Score:5, Informative)
Copyright infringement, at best. I am getting tired of having to point this out to those who ether refuse to acknowledge the difference, or are simply too brainwashed to tell.
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Not if he lends out the original disks long after he's uninstalled the games on his system. Then it's fair use, which for old games is likely the case. I've borrowed lots of old games in their original packaging after the first person to use them has long tired of them and deleted them to save space. That's usually the default way of things among gamer friends.
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Re:How gracious of you (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh did my rental expire? My dad bought the games decades ago and gave them to me. Or was the right of first sale retroactively abolished too.
Re:How gracious of you (Score:4, Insightful)
More importantly, calling things which aren't stealing stealing is slowly but surely making the concept meaningless, or at least not carrying the negative overtones it once did. That can and probably will have nasty consequences, when someone does the obvious conclusion that since downloading abandonware is OK, so is looting a store, since they are both stealing.
It's a bit like how the word "sex offender" is losing its meaning due to being used in every conceivable and inconceivable context: guy who pees in the bushes, guy who walks in the street naked, guy who rapes little girls... These are all "sex offenders" if caught, so the last nasty critter gets to hide behind the first two harmless ones. Not to mention the guy who was proven innocent in a court of law but is still kept in the registry...
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The next one to have the limited Activation stench is Crysis:Warhead.
I wouldn't worry, since no one is going to be able to run the game anyway.
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That's not technically true, the DMCA anti-circumvention section includes exemptions for certain things. One of those things is basically if you can demonstrate that the protection is harming you by preventing you from making non-infringing use of the materials within the next couple years.
But yes, I do agree with the sentiment, I'm not going to be buying until it is free of unreasonable DRM.
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Add in a promise to completely disable all drm if/when they shut down the servers and I think you could get most people onboard.
Maybe, but EA's rep is shot with me. The last two games I've bought with their name on them crash often enough to make them unwinnable and what's the point in playing a game like that? I already have a family subscription to World of Warcraft ...
EA - you suck! Or you just have no clue how to program a PSP, or maybe both. At least Blizzard doesn't kill me and make me restart every time I reach a new level after doing something hard.
Basic psychology (Score:2)
I studied psychology (yeah, go figure) and one thing I liked to learn was how to control people.
One thing you can do is ask or impose something completely insane and then settle for something less. Everyone will be happy.
On the other hand, this "something else" would have been rejected without a second thought if it had been proposed first.
So, this patch will most likely make people accept the DRM more easily.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door-in-the-face_technique
Obligatory Star Wars quote: (Score:3, Funny)
C3PO: Surrender is a perfectly acceptable alternative in extreme circumstances! The Empire may be gracious enough to...
(Han nods at Leia who promptly turns him off)
Are they really that naive? (Score:5, Insightful)
We're willing to evolve our policy to accommodate our consumers. But we're hoping that everyone understands that DRM policy is essential to the economic structure we use to fund our games and as well as to the rights of people who create them. Without the ability to protect our work from piracy, developers across the entire game industry will eventually stop investing time and money in PC titles.
Not only does this sound hilarious ("essential to the economic structure...") but not once in the history of software piracy, as far as I know, has DRM -ever- stopped piracy.
I have to wonder if the CEOs and the decision-makers are out-of-touch and naive. Who do they think is actually going to believe this shit? Do they? Frankly, I don't think any actual malice is going on, just complete stupidity by non-techies easily wowed by the DRM snake oil.
People like to go "ugh EA is fucking us!" and also complain "But the DRM actually hurts sales!" (probably true) and yet they STILL bang their head against the wall. If DRM worked, then the EA fucking us thing might be true. But given how worthless DRM is and how hackers break it the day it comes out (and often, before, as was partly the case with Spore) I frankly have to wonder if someone is simply just out of touch.
Actually, I have a better idea. DRM is being used not because it works, but because someone (or some group, the people responsible for fighting piracy or such?) in the corporate structure ants the people up top to think they're doing their (impossible, and they likely know it) job so they don't get sacked. DRM stinks of a product of bureaucracy.
Re:Are they really that naive? (Score:5, Insightful)
To stop piracy they crack down on BT through various means. The purpose of this DRM is to destroy resale value and make people need expensive reactivations/buy new copies if anything goes wrong/so they can shut down the servers and switch to a new model any time they want.
This is similar to how child porn is used to justify measures that do nothing to prevent the people who make it, but seem to have an awful lot to do with curtailing protest against the gvmt.
Re:Are they really that naive? (Score:5, Insightful)
Your first paragraph sure nails this thing. That is precisely what DRM is about. Not pirating software but to make it harder to resell games. Games companies have already mentioned that places like Gamestop that sell used games hurt the developers.
Sony and Microsoft are combating it in a similar way with the PS3 and XBOX360. They are trying to push for more games being sold through PSN or XBox Live. Your reselling of games at that point is pretty much toast. What they don't seem to realize is that in the long run this hurts them too because by not being able to trade in the online purchased games they users are not able to afford purchasing as many new games.
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Actually, I've heard that point before and forgot to consider it. Yeah, the whole "EA is fucking us!" thing might be true then.
But now I wonder, if DRM hurts sales all-around, then it even prevent the initial sales that may have ended up a reseller like GameSis still stronger, and EA should know this. So maybe my "appeal to the pointy-haired boss" is still stronger--or another version of it that I forgot to mention, "make the shareholders think we're trying to maximize sales," which may be an even better
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Yeah, the whole "EA is fucking us!" thing might be true then.
They produce half-assed games that either suck if they don't crash, or suck because they do crash. A couple of their Sims titles on GBA were not too bad though.
I'm really, really pissed at their stuff on PSP though. Computers and electronics should *never* crash, ever, and games that crash deserve their own ring in hell.
For EA, fucking customers is a way of life.
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It was promptly what by the what and the what now?
Re:Are they really that naive? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only does this sound hilarious ("essential to the economic structure...") but not once in the history of software piracy, as far as I know, has DRM -ever- stopped piracy.
(1) The goal isn't to completely stop all piracy of the product, just curb it. Some people would prefer to just buy the game rather than waiting for a crack or having to hassle with it. While it varries, this is the case sufficiently for companies to consider it worth the downsides. Of course this isn't the case when the DRM more trouble than just waiting a bit more for a clean crack, or if the crack is out before the game actually launches (as happened with Spore).
(2) BD+ is still pretty locked down.
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I already considered your point and I thought the implications of my post addressed that. When has DRM even -curbed- piracy? Again, Spore's DRM was cracked before the game was even released in America (iirc it was released early in Australia or something for some reason, maybe accident?). The DRM gets cracked pretty much the same day, and the cracked versions are easier to deal with, to boot. So how, exactly, is piracy being curbed in any way, shape, or form? Nobody "waits" on the crack, except usually
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I didn't know that there was any hassle involved with cracking games. Generally I just copy an .exe over to replace the original--an .exe that had be crafted by some unknown hacker days or even weeks before the games official release at that!
I think that EA is just mad because Spore turned out to be really, really lame. It's little more than bits and pieces of several other games cut and pasted together in the most asinine of ways. The Creature Creator itself is fun, but the gameplay is bland at best and th
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But again, if DRM results in less sales anyway, why would they be doing this?
Your explanation is simply adding another layer of complexity. Okay, so DRM doesn't work for and isn't meant to reduce piracy... so, it's to prevent reselling? That still just means people are going to pirate it, especially moreso with the restrictive DRM. It's a possible explanation but not one that really explains why they continue to release DRM that presumably (and I am assuming it for the sake of argument) results in even l
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"It's marketing stupid...."
That is the mantra at every company that sells DRM to these PHBs. "It will protect your valuable precious IP (TM,C,Patent Pending)". Although DRM doesn't prevent piracy, it does keep the honest from reselling the crap on the net. The thing is, pirated copies of games can be removed from sale sites with the added bonus of getting the user banned from said site. So while pirated copies can be had, the resold/rented market dries up. Do you think a place like GameStop is going to put
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I don't think you understand my argument. Yes, the reselling dries up, but then so do FIRST sales BECAUSE of the DRM.
My post contains a number of implicit assumptions however that may not be true. But it does call into question whether that is exactly the case...
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0) people download and play game, and see how unfullfilling, widdled down the game really is after all the hype
Seriously, Spore is one of the two most over-hyped games of this year. The only other game as over-hyped is Age of Conan (boy did that one fall flat on its face!)
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0) people download and play game, and see how unfullfilling, widdled down the game really is after all the hype
+
Seriously, Spore is one of the two most over-hyped games of this year.
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DRM
=
Opposite effect. [torrentfreak.com]
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FFS, if somebody buys your product, they are a "customer".
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Actually DRM is working.
I don't buy, or download the game.
So, even tho they are losing a sale, they aren't being hurt by me pirating.
Now, if I could just put the game on the hard drive of my non internet pc and play, I'd buy the game - but even I know that's just silly talk.
YAY DRM!
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the crack that is floating around (arrrr!) will let you run spore on your non-internet pc. bonus irony points if you do it with a retail copy.
Nah, they actually believe it (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, from the very limited sample I've seen (two people, for two different products, to be exact) they actually do believe that it'll help. That somehow _this_ time, surely people won't find a crack for their hare-brained protection scheme, at least until the first weeks have passed and the sales went past their peak.
Re:Are they really that naive? (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder what they have to say about the fact that the game was already cracked before the release date, and more than half a million people pirated it in the first week alone? How do they still justify that it prevents piracy?
In many cases the crack lets you get the game running faster than trying to mess around with driver and firmware upgrades to get the DRM functioning.
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But we're hoping that everyone understands that DRM policy is essential to the economic structure we use to fund our games
I don't have to understand or accept anything at all. If I'm out to buy a game, I set the criteria for what is worth buying, not you (you = EA, or any other publisher, in this reply). Having no activation scheme is such a criteria, and no complaining that you need it will make me change my mind. If you stick with any activation scheme, my money will remain in my wallet, and you can keep your game to yourself.
If everybody did this, your so-called "economic structure" would break down completely, despite (or
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DRM on pc games has very little to do with stopping piracy, they're not THAT stupid. It's easy enough to make casual 'here mate, have a copy of this' rare without the huge level of measures affecting users. If anything, these measure are indeed pushing people to work out how to find torrents and CD cracks.
No, it's about locking in legitimate customers, and killing the doctrine of first sale. Copyright infringers are not buyers, and likely never would have been. However, someone that buys a USED copy from a
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Too little, Too late. (Score:2, Insightful)
They could have acted sooner. alot sooner. now it's too late. they put me off, and I wont be swayed with this pathetic "fix"
To borrow a phrase... (Score:5, Insightful)
"They could not have missed the point further if they had fired in a completely different direction and the point was in another country altogether."
The point is, EA, I WILL NOT be treated like a criminal. 5 activations is more than 3, yes, but it's still less than infinity, the number I should have. The number every other game (BioShock and Mass Effect aside) gives me. And I will not buy a single-player game that you can turn off at any time for any or no reason. Period. So back off the insane DRM or you will never get another penny out of me ever again. And I doubt I'm alone in that sentiment.
Re:To borrow a phrase... (Score:4, Informative)
They say "let us manage your rights, you can trust us." I say "let me manage my rights, you can trust me."
The difference is, I've never helped someone pirate a game I bought, and I don't buy games with DRM (aside from dumb shit like cd keys/anything that is replay vulnerable)
They screw over honest players time and time again.
Until the free (pirated) version is harder to make work than the expensive broken version, I'm not buying.
Or rather I'm buying from competitors and skipping Spore because it is, as noted below, a shallow, tedious clickfest.
I hate half baked games nerfed to appeal to the IQ of 60
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but it's still less than infinity, the number I should have. The number every other game (BioShock and Mass Effect aside) gives me.
That's not entirely accurate... [2kgames.com]
Windows activations? (Score:2)
5 activations is more than 3, yes, but it's still less than infinity, the number I should have. The number every other game (BioShock and Mass Effect aside) gives me.
How many activations do the games included with Windows XP or Windows Vista give you?
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I bought Spore. The DRM is irritating. But you don't need the cocking disc in the drive to play.
Re:To borrow a phrase... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm on death row. The death is irritating, but at least they're not using the electric chair.
Somewhere along the line, you've missed the point; This DRM cripples your rights to resell a game (if it stinks, you can sell it on and recoup some of your losses, if it's not one you want to hold on to and play again and again, you can resell it). It cripples your ability to do anything with it that you'd normally expect to do with something you buy (you can lend a book to your mate; CD in the drive protection allows you to do this with a game, DRM doesn't).
There is a whole historic section of law that guarantees the purchasor's rights to do what they want with items they have bought. Software companies, and DRM in particular have been trying VERY hard these last few years to work their way around the law, so that technically, you do still have the right to sell on the game (you can put the install DVD on Ebay or whatever), but it will be useless to the person who purchases it, making your legal rights useless.
In other words, yes, these companies are effectively stealing from you (yes, exactly what they're saying pirates do to them).
They are deliberately killing the resale market, ensuring you have no ability to recoup any of the money you spent on the item (or donating it to charity in the way of charity bookshops etc.), in any way the law says you should be able to do with such an item (as it was fair to be able to do such a thing).
Yes, I know the first sale doctrine is confused because the software companies say that software is 'licensed'. The day they turn round and say that they'll replace all media once it's broken, and allow perpetual updates, and not tie it to any particular machine, and vastly reduce the cost, then I may think twice (actually, I use Steam, as it lets me do most of that).
As it stands, the companies are way too greedy and grasping, feeling quite at home screwing over their customers in the attempt to create larger sales. The sooner this ends, and a 'fair' market resumes (in the same way it happened with books and such) the better.
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Yes, I know the first sale doctrine is confused because the software companies say that software is 'licensed'. The day they turn round and say that they'll replace all media once it's broken, and allow perpetual updates, and not tie it to any particular machine, and vastly reduce the cost, then I may think twice (actually, I use Steam, as it lets me do most of that).
But that is just it as well. There are several MAJOR court cases in the USA that have upheld the rights of owners of these "licenses" to sell them.
Autodesk v Vernor [arstechnica.com]
Another case in California state court ruled that you have the right to resell bundled software that was contained on a PC.
Yet another case has said that you can resell music CD's, even ones that are "not for resale" insider promo CD's.
As much as companies like EA want to make first sale go away, it has been upheld each and every time it has
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Somewhere along the line, you've missed the point...
You missed the point. The entire point of my post was to correct the parent's false statement: that you need the disc in the drive to play. You don't. I still don't condone their use of DRM. In fact, their DRM prevents the game from working properly, so I'm returning it to the store.
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I've never really understood the fundamental basis for this objection. It's inconvenient, it drains power on laptops, sure, but to me, those are annoyances and not fundamental flaws.
It's a minor annoyance for desktops. A minor one, but one that I shouldn't have to deal with. A constant reminder of DRM.
But it's more annoying for laptops. When I'm traveling, I don't want to take a cake box of CDs with me, but I often do want to play video games on the plane. What's more, my current laptop (a Thinkpad) doesn't even have a CD drive, so I'd have to bring a big honking external drive, and even that wouldn't work on a plane, because I'd need to power it.
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I'm usually against all activations and restrictions, but I actually love steam.
I have bought games, played them, stopped playing them, lost the packaging, reinstalled machine and eventually repurchased the game.
With steam, I don't even have to thik where my installation media is when I total my hard disk.
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And before someone says that "but what if Steam goes down?", Valve has claimed that in the event that they close up shop they will release a patch activating the games without needing to be online.
Frankly, I think Steam is the case where they do things right, because it provides both a service with the DRM--the service to download and play your games on any computer, tied to an account.
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Personally, I *DON'T* give Steam a pass, not at all. That was the final straw that knocked me out of PC gaming for good.
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Steam is pretty great. Like you said, the only problem is the inability to resell games. The copy protection is hidden, the company behind it has a decent history that means one can reasonably expect steam stuff to be made free when they fold. Most importantly, they make is almost as easy to buy a game as it is to pirate the game. That last point is the most important one. A lot of people are willing to buy games, most of those same people are willing to pirate them. In general piracy is FAR less comp
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I fixed it a week ago already (Score:5, Interesting)
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you miss the point (Score:2)
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Which is kinda the point. It's fine until it goes wrong.
Who chose this title? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Meh (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm honestly not entirely sure what I've been let down by. Perhaps it's something to do with the DRM or maybe it's just a random bug in the game. Whatever it is, I haven't been able to actually play the game for over a week now. I've Google searched the problem endlessly, but haven't been able to come up with a solution and I've even resulted to dealing with EA support (albeit comically*) to try and figure out what's wrong.
I purchased the game the day it came out, installed it without a hitch and had a generally okay time playing the game. It wasn't everything I had dreamed it would be, but I found it fairly entertaining in its own right. For whatever reason, on the third day the game stopped working. I hadn't updated my system, changed any settings, or done anything that should suddenly stop the game from working; but for whatever reason, it just stopped working.
I've pretty much stopped caring and even if I were to get it working again I'm not entirely sure how much more I would play the game after having to deal with as much crap as I have. I looked over the patch notes and it seems as though there might be a potential fix, but of course I'm running the Mac version of the game so who knows when they'll actually patch that. After dealing with EA, it hasn't even been the DRM that's turned me off so much as the customer support in general. I've finally become a casualty to this monster that people have been decrying for so long. I guess I'll take my number and join the group.
* In case you were wonder I've been undergoing support through EA's online support system. This entails me submitting my problem and them getting back to me sometime within the next three days with generally unhelpful advice. The last piece of advice I got was from a guy (every time someone has got back to me, it's been a different person) who instructed me to follow steps which started with "Go to Start -> Run ..." despite the fact that I'm on a mac. I got a pretty good laugh out of it, but at this point I really have to question how much EA has their shit together. From my end the answer seems to be, "Not very."
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I looked over the patch notes and it seems as though there might be a potential fix, but of course I'm running the Mac version of the game so who knows when they'll actually patch that.
It just uses a Windows binary within a 'compatibility layer' from Transgaming (known for Cedega). So you don't have to wait for a Mac-specific patch.
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The windows patch may not necessarily work on the mac if the mac version of Spore is like the mac version of C&C3 and contains programmable pixel and vertex shaders that are customized for the mac version.
People are complaining but (Score:2)
I seriously don't think the DRM has hurt Spore's sales. There are too many people out there who are in the "I have to have this game" mindset. The proof of this is all of the bittorrent people who don't have the self control to hold off on buying the game even if the DRM bugs them.
The time when DRM will truely negatively start effecting sales is when the game loses it's hype. I think the negative press right now is actually the kind that will make the hype last longer. You know, the harder something is
Nope. Still going to pirate it (Score:2, Insightful)
For god's sake! I could see a limit to the number of installs in a certain time making some sort of sense, but they've still removed any resale value.
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Unfortunate (Score:3, Interesting)
Though this has already been hinted at... (Score:3, Insightful)
Stardock saw it, why can't EA (et al.)?
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Overwhelming Gall (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't believe the gall of EA to speak about the PC game industry like this. Here is the largest third-party game publisher in the world (unless Ubi Soft has them now), holding exclusivity contracts with multiple major sports franchises so their yearly Madden installments have no competition - who routinely releases malfunctioning games to the end consumer - who has been called out for overworking and underpaying its employees - who would rather charge you a buck to unlock a cheat code, or put ads in your game, than respect you as a customer - and this guy has the nerve to speak about what is good for the industry?
No, EA. Not buying it. Not buying your game, not buying your bullshit. Cry me a fuckin' river about software piracy -- no way I'm feeling sorry for you being hoisted by your own SecuROM petard.
Still puts a damper on second hand sales (Score:2)
DRM (Score:2)
It's not the Secure Rom or anything like that which bothers me...
It's the limited installations. I cannot think of how many times I've installed an OLD game like C&C Gold or Red Alert. Would the authentication servers still be online over 10 years later? That's why I hate limited installs.
Make it unlimited or I'll continue to pirate.
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That's it exactly. I still play SimCity 2000, Warcraft II, Master of Orion, and several other old games. I wouldn't be able to play them now if they had limited installs.
Hell, my (still hypothetical) children are going to be playing those games, too, because I'll be able to install them 10+ years from now. Anyone playing Spore in ten years will be playing a pirated copy.
Fortunately for anti-DRM, it's not a great game. (Score:3, Insightful)
Spore has two problems. First of all it has rather annoying DRM that probably actually has negative effects on about 1% of its players. But more importantly it's just not that great of a game. It's style of play and features will probably appeal strongly to about 10% of players.
So the game is not going to do anywhere near as well as they hoped. But the gameplay problems are probably at *least* 10x more the cause of this than the DRM issues.
But who are the developers going to blame? Which do you think is more likely:
A) Developers admit "The game wasn't that good really. Next time we'll try harder. Sorry about the $50M we spent over four years."
B) Developers blame DRM protests saying "This game is a failure only because of the DRM related issues. We are saddened by the fact that so many people were pushed into bootlegging the game which prevented its being a commercial success."
Anyone else think "B" is slightly more likely?
The net result is that everyone blames the DRM stuff so that they don't have to take any personal blame for the failure. And so the anti-DRM crowd gain a huge win that will dramatically reduce DRM use in the future, even though DRM probably had little to do with the relative success of the game.
G.
P.S. After wandering through a computer store and seeing hundreds of copies of the game in both regular and collector's edition versions this weekend, I have a new tag-line for it:
Spore: It's what's in stock.
Neat but no sale (Score:2)
Spore looked kinda neat. As a -casual- gamer, I mostly replay games I already own like Civ and the Ultimas. Some I've played for years on a progression of a dozen computers. I usually buy one or two new games each year and Spore looked like a fresh, innovative addition to my collection.
Then I heard about the DRM. No sale! I may eventually pirate it once its good and cracked, but I'm not in the habit of paying for the privilege of being hassled.
EA/Maxis threatening to ban Spore accounts (Score:3, Interesting)
Over on the official Spore forums all threads about SecureROM, DRM, or questions about these threads are now being instantly LOCKED by EA/Maxis moderators. Also, this was edited into one of the threads by a moderator:
http://forum.spore.com/jforum/posts/list/3869.page
quote:
SecuROM as been discussed and discussed so much and it causes arguments in threads. If you want to talk about DRM SecuROM then please use another fansite forum. If there is any change you will be able to read it on the official Spore site.
Please do not continue to post theses thread or you account may be at risk of banning which in some cases would mean you would need to buy a new copy to play Spore. /quote:
So it would appear EA/Maxis's OFFICIAL stance is that if you question them, they will lock your account and force you to purchase another copy.
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So the DRM is gone
Read the summary again. Or at least the full title.
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So the DRM is gone
Read the summary again. Or at least the full title.
Hey it WAS "ERASES DRM" but they eased the the "R"!
Could be salvageable (Score:2)
Having done some game development myself, I appreciate how much of the balance and flow of a game isn't apparent until very late in development. In fact, you don't really know how the game will play until it's in the hands of hundreds of players. That's far too late to make fundamental changes to the design. But if there really is a good game underneath the tedious parts, then a bit more polish can make it shine.
Remember that even a great classic like Starcraft wasn't great in version 1.0. It took a doz
Re:Installation limits (Score:5, Insightful)
What ever happened to The First Sale Doctrine? You have a right to resell that game when you've finished playing it.
They're just trying to kill the second hand market.
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If you're a believer in free-market economics, markets are NEVER a problem. The problem is people who think there's a problem with markets.
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Gamespot makes far more money off second-hand games than by actually selling new games. Go in sometime - they _really_ want you to buy the game used (for about $10 less than retail), and then sell it back to them afterwards for $10 or so. So for a $60 game, they're making $40 each time it's sold. Which is highway robbery, but still a choice you can make. I understand that EA/Take2/etc want to get their proper due with each copy. But it's mine - I bought it, I can do with it what I want. Is it okay to
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Still, there's supply and demand here. Presumably you have no stats as to how many times games are resold on average.
Honestly, I don't fault Gamespot for doing this. Games are expensive, and they're serving an apparent market niche here. I think people are insane for paying so much and selling for so little but they have the choice.
The developers themselves tend not to receive roy
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There's one flaw with your argument.
They don't sell used PC games, only used console games.
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EA isn't going to sell games forever. Eventually they stop publishing because it ceases to be profitable.
Go into a store and see if you can find a copy of SimCity 2000. Now look on eBay. As long as product activation continues to be a trend, you will not see today's games on resale markets 10 years from now, no matter how good they are. The only sellers will be those that try to scam the buyer into buying a game they cannot use.
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WTF? (Score:2)
You crazy? Car manufacturers don't get a pie of used car sales. Movie studios don't get a % of used DVD sales. The same for every fucking thing out there, CDs, houses, hardware, you name it. Where the heck you got the idea games should be any different? Besides, people has been selling and buying used games since, like, forever. It don't think it stopped EA from becoming the mammoth it is today or the games industry from having higher sales than the music one. Even if it did hurt considerably your sales -
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If it wasn't for the second hand market, far less people could afford to own a car.
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Or you could just EA pulled their heads out of their asses lol.
Impossible to believe based on what they sell. I used to think the crap Konami sells in the domestic Japanese sports market was the lowest of the low, but thankfully, Tiger Woods 2008 for the PSP has proved me wrong. And how they can find a way for a Sims game to crash, like The Castaways is beyond me.
Way to go EA! Whatever it is your QA guys are smoking, please send some my way in lieu of a refund. Thanks!
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