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Mass Effect and Spore DRM detailed
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 7th May 2008
Mass Effect and Spore will require online authentication once every ten days.
BioWare technical producer Derek French revealed that Mass Effect and Spore would feature a copy protection system similar to that used for BioShock, except that it will require online authentication once every ten days.
"After the first activation, SecuROM requires that [Mass Effect PC] re-check with the server within ten days (in case the CD Key has become public/warez'd and gets banned)," said French in a BioWare forum post.
If the game cannot authenticate itself over the internet within a period of ten days then the game will stop working.
"After 10 days a re-check is required before the game can run...An internet connection is not required to install, just to activate the first time, and every 10 days after," said French.
French said that the method would be clearly described on the packaging for the game, but also that the same method would be used to authenticate Wil Wright's upcoming sim-game, Spore.
It seems kind of...well, it is a little...how can they...Hm. You know, we're betting we feel the same way about this as you do, so why don't you just let us know what you think in the forums and save us the effort of ranting ourselves?
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Comments (319)
EDIT: it's in cases like these I'd prefer to donate to CORE or PhrozenCrew for their efforts...
They'd be far better off just releasing it on Steam...it's easy to use and non-invasive, unlike this nonsense.
God, and I was looking forward to Spore.
what happens if my genuine key gets into the wild...do I have to purchase the game again? what happens if I want spore on my laptop and home pc WHICH I WILL? any idea what percentage valve charges to have a game distributed on steam?
This whole super-invasive copy protection lark simply encourages people to pirate the game. Crackers will invariably see these kind of implementations a "challenge" to be met and it surely won't be long (maybe 1-2 days or a week max) before you can grab the game (illegitimately, granted) for free without any such restrictions.
Do devs not see this? Do they not realise that the ones who really suffer are the ones who purchased their software, legitimately, in the first place? Do they not see that many people will avoid titles that incorporate such invasive copy protection systems?
Maybe PC gaming has hit a terrbile point. Here's to Valve and Steam for providing the final great bastion of PC gaming.
I was looking forward to this, I really was. Oh well, Bioware just lost a sale - and I hope they lose a lot more sales because of people choosing to boycott the game.
...
I give it two weeks after it's official release before the copy protection is broken and the pirates can start playing without all this nonsense. Honesty, why is it that the fight against piracy equals 'try as hard as possible to alienate the paying customers'?
its just to easy to pirate pc games now, just look at the stats on COD4, the amount of users playing online with a crack copy was crazy.
consoles are the only safe bet now, useless the user doesn't want to play online at all.
As long as SecuROM doesn't bugger my PC up, everything will be fine - my Machine's online all the time anyway.
It's not a great move, and I totally agree with putting it on Steam. It won't be though, as it's an EA release I think, and they have their own Digital Distribution Model.
Mass Effect I have zero interest in anyway.
Oh, I know it's easy to pirate games these days. Heaven knows, most people know how to steal a copy of a game.
Consoles are easier to govern, ala XBL banning modded consoles, but that doesn't stop people doing it. Forcing people to a cheaper platform (No one can deny that PC gaming is expensive these days), with pretty easy to install mod chips, and just as easy to come by copies (Often easier and faster released than PC copies) is just going to bring in a new collection of piracy, for consoles..
He does not have internet connection at his house. He will certainly NOT be playing those games. :D
Will that not send a message to Bioware that we condone these measures? I call for a boycott! (perhaps a poll?)
Possibly, but they're not going to listen anyway, are they?
These kind of over-the-top copy-protection measures are definitely counter intuitive - they even persuade people who would have bought the game to pirate it.
Why is it that DRM only affects legitimate consumers? I mean i only watch DVDs on my PC atm and the anti piracy warnings have gotten so annoying that i've taken to ripping my collection to HDD just so i dont have to wait 5 min before my film starts.
So every 10 days when you open your game it will take like what, a minute to check its self online and then you can play. Seems like everyone is whining for the sake of it. I agree it seems a bit much, but only compared to what we are used to now. I know this system will fail for a few people and get them really annoyed but thats the same with everything in life. Really this whole process will go unnoticed by most people.
Damned if we do, damned if we don't.
This would be like me not having a TV licence(and no TV) but the TV licence agency coming round my house once every 10 days to check to see if I still havnt got a TV.
Waste of money developing this system further when Steam is perfectly capable of protecting their game as well as being able to install it on all your machines, getting updates super easily and being able to target your marker directly via steams advertising.
When your paying customers can't be arsed with you, its no wonder you go running to consoles. Give it a month and we'll here how another major dev is off to the console because its too difficult to make money on the pc despite the fact they seem quite happy to piss on their user base.
ps: not you as in any one in particular just the royal you
Exactly. I've been looking forward to buying Spore for a long time, but if this is the case, I'll just wait until it shows up on TPB.
They will listen if enough people vote with their wallets.
P.S: I buy games to support the companies involved in their creation, however I refuse to support a company which doesn't seem to care about its users.
Quite an astute answer :) While I agree with most people that from and end-user point-of-view this kind of anti-piracy measure is invasive and very "guilty until proven innocent" in nature, the few days before it gets torrented to buggery are what will net them a huge number of sales as Baz pointed out.
Its not that, its the implication that if you dont open your game within 10days it goes dead unless you are hooked up t the web.
the problem is when your key (eventually) becomes blacklisted and you are locked out of a game you legitimately own, or something similar happens... you need only look back to BioShock's opening week to see the nightmare that this sort of thing caused.
The silly SecuROM stuff was eventually removed from later prints of BioShock though wasn't it? hopefully the same will happen with Mass Effect and Spore, and that will be when I buy either of them. (This news is causing such a negative flood of news about the games on the internet at the moment that I wouldn't be surprised if the SecuROM stuff is scrapped before either releases)
I agree with you, however the problem is spin.
If a game doesn't sell dev/publishers spin it as excessive piracy not a political statement against invasive CP methods.
The cynic in me thinks that some over arching plan is get every one to just buy consoles, all the big releases are on all platforms (or will be going forward) and pc gaming is becoming more and more irritating, making it more and more "whats the point in pc gaming"
its the only way forward. Everyone can see that. Look at all the publishers peddling their stuff on steam now. ID, Epic, THQ, 2k, Activision, Sega, Rockstar... its the perfect solution. And its so bloody easy to use.
sooner or later ubi and ea will cop on and get with it. I don't think there even IS a fee to publish on steam now that they've released the SDK
if the guy up the road from you figured out how to get free satellite, and sky turned around and started telling you you had to ring up and give them your credit card number every ten days from now on or they'll disconnect you, would you do it?
or would you start thinking about asking the guy up the road how he gets free satellite?
Which would be an excellent sentiment if it made any difference what so ever. Bioshock was pirated even with its extensive CP this will its a matter of time, hell you can get steam games if you want CP is rarely an effective detterent to dedicated crackers and once its broken people who choose not to pay are in a better position to those who choose to purchase the game. Whilst i appreciate companies want to defend there products if its done at the expense of paying customers its gone too far.
<Insert vaguely realistic real world comparison regarding cars with locks which need to change x times a month>
<users warez game as it is more convenient and 'customer'-friendly to pirate rather than buy the actual game, in an insane paradox>
Hey guys, you stole our last game for some reason, so we're not going to release to the PC any more. We blame piracy.
..Nevermind that all your crap caused this in the first place. You know it's bad when downloading and cracking a pirated copy is easier and less hassling than actually buying the game. Noone is shooting themselves in the foot here but BioWare. I didn't buy BioShock and I won't buy this, even though I was actually pretty set on buying Mass Effect.
I mean, didn't you NOTICE the massive backlash your idiotic BioShock release got? Didn't you NOTICE that pirates EASILY bypassed your silly, annoying, unclever, clunky protections? Did you not LEARN from this experience?
The point is that *not* everyone has the internet and that once you have bought something from someone you should *not* be under an obligation to continually renew that purchase with the threat of deactivation of that item hanging over you.
As a few people have analogised above: if this happened in any other market.. well it simply *couldn't* happen in any other market. How they are getting away with it here is beyond me.
I didn't buy BioShock for this reason only and now it looks like Mass Effect and Spore have lost sales as well. Incredible how stupid these people can be
What if you're out of town for more than10 days?
Very nicely put. I think that the best way for companies to make money is to produce genuinely decent games for which customers WANT to pay.
THESE GAMES WILL BE PIRATED. As will be every major release in the foreseeable future. The people who pirate either do so because they can't afford the game or don't like it enough to support the developer, therefore in my mind they are not 'lost sales' as they wouldn't buy the game anyway.
In the meantime, customers who actually appreciate the game enough to pay for it are stuck with draconian CP methods which detract from their enjoyment of said game. This leads to the current scenario where customers who are really excited about a new game and WANT to buy it (i.e:myself) are being put off it. That's what I call "lost sales".
Wake up, BioWare! You will never FORCE people to pay for a game if they don't want to. You are better off improving the experience for those who support you.
what's the.... my god man. what next? lets put off the paranoia and 1984 talk for a minute and just talk logical progression. first it was a game authenticating once, now its a game authenticating every ten days.
Then it'll be a game authenticating whenever you want to play it.
Then it'll be a small fee every time you want to play, to cover the cost of the copy protection.
Then it'll be a subscription to a copy-protection 'service', that bills you for every game you have installed every time you try and play one.
Then it'll be robots coming to get you for not being authenticated enough times.
Seriously though, I'm so tired of this debate its not even funny.
People will steal what they want, when they want. This kind of nonsense only affects legitimate customers because they are the only ones with the DRM infested version. All the pirates are laughing their heads off as they install and play a DRM free version with no strings.
I can't believe publishers/devs can be so stupid and lets face it, they must be stupid if they can't see what everyone else can.
So what will happen is the following...
1. People will buy the legit game and spend hours, days complaining because things don't work properly e.t.c
2. The pirates will get their DRM free game without spending a penny.
3. The only winners are the companies providing the DRM.
And the point was?
Incidentally I didn't buy bioshock for this reason and the same will go for these two titles, they can keep their nonsense :)
Making the game auth to the server is pointless when it just gets removed by the crackers, no matter how often it checks, will they ever learn???
Sadly I think too many people will still buy the game to make a difference, but it would be great if very few bought and made them wake up and listen.
If you think the company are right to do this then by all means continue to support them and before long you will be so bogged down in DRM you won't know if you are coming or going. The pirates........, well they will still be playing on a DRM free, no strings attached version.
Please people, WAKE UP :)
Just so you knowm it is the PUBLISHER EA who is responsible for this, not Bioware.
And of course, nobody forced Bioware to sign up with EA ;)
I highly doubt there's anything like "insurance" on game software, but as everyone has pointed out, surely the game devs *know* CP simply doesnt work. Is it the publisher then, that enforces this so that they have some form of what they wrongly assume as security in their investment? I mean, it costs them to implement it and it *always* fails to deter piracy...
Since the days of the C64, I have yet to see a CP system that actually, truly works.
I would have 1000x more respect for a dev/publisher that said, "Ok, there's no DRM/CP on this game -- we're hoping that the quality of the work itself is enough for people to pay for it". I think some Russian team did that a little while ago. And sure, it wont deter the person who refuses to pay for anything, but for the vast majority of us here, I hopefully assume, would pay for the game.
If it's good, ofc! ;)
EA bought Bioware doofus, geez.
EA bought Bioware, gee guys, know the facts before discussing something. They never signed up with EA, they got bought out by them.
And please try and be polite.
It does need to connect regulartily, doesn't cause any issues for the millions of people on it. This is an overreaction by a minoroty on a forum.
Valve, as usual, do things right. They give you a gaming network that blows xbl out of the water, give a huge variety of games available through nice 'can't be arsed going to the shop' downloading, no need for a CD which will only get scratched anyway, maintain low levels of piracy and cheating and they let all the other developers use it. why aren't they using it?
So they are the same company and you are telling me that it's not Bioware it's EA?
And you are calling me a doofus?
Sigh...
It doesn't matter WHO is responsible, (and I am pretty sure there was a mutual agreement) the only way to stop companies from going further and further down this route is to vote with our wallets. I will not buy games with this kind of DRM. I feel this is the best way to make a statement.
More mis-information, Mass Effect does not ened the Cd in the drive, so no CD or drive damage. Also, Steam also needs regular connection to the internet, so how come that works so well? Overreaction.
You will not even know it is checking, get real, making mountains out of mole hills. What a close minded bunch. If you have internet and a legit copy, the game will work as normal.
What is next weeks lotto numbers?
Did the X-Box version of Mass Effect have this or something equivalent? Like you drop the game into the drive and an on screen dialog states that you need to 'phone home' by dialing the 900-number (read: $3.99/min. access charge) on screen using a 'special' keyboard (that you had to pay extra money to purchase and use, by the way...) plugged into the X-Box and you have to wait on hold for 20 mins. before you can play the game you actually paid for. My guess, no.
So, basically if I don't turn my system on for 10 days I'm SOL for my key? Is that what I'm understanding? What if the local cable access happens to go down due to a huge district outtage, and we all don't have net access for 10 days?
I love Bioware's work, but this is making me annoyed. Maybe even annoyed enough to cancel my pre-order.
Thanks, EA!
;)
ROFLMAO!!
You'll notice when it returns a nice popup window telling you that your illegal key ( this will be the same key that you legally purchased ) has been blacklisted and your game is now disabled. Or when you pop on for a game and the master server is down or busy and you simply can't play your paid for title no matter how hard you try.
You'll also notice when the invasive DRM conflicts with some software on your PC and you start getting mysterious crashes e.t.c.
What is it with you? Do you want to pay people for the priviledge of jumping through hoops or are you just confused?
what about the people that don't have good enough spec graphics cards to play them? its just another system requirement in my eyes.
I disagree with this method of CP there for i will not purchase the game, simple, no mountains just your abusive tones. I put up with steam as i brings benefit to me I do not owe a dev/pub anything if they produce a product i want to buy i will if not i will not. The reason I and others vent on forums is to try and get the point accross to devs/pubs that sometimes there games bombing is nothing to do with piracy and more to do with there business practices, if the they choose to ignore this or believe that this time there CP will be infallible then that is there problem. In a free market if one publisher or developer moves on or dies another will move in to fill the void and when they do they will perhaps bring some new and fresh ideas to the market.
As for not knowing if your net connection dies you'll find out quickly enough when it tries and fails to validate at least steam there is the option to work off line.
Pure BS, it has come along way just as steam, many of these assinine comments were said about steam at first, you are spreading scare mongering, it had issues at first, it has come along way. What are nexts week lotto numbers again?
Yep, pretty simple concept.
I'd rather have SecuROM with an web-check every 10 days than a game on Steam that I can't sell on (or even give away).
Until valve allow you to transfer games from account to account, I will regard Steam as broken. I will happily install Mass Effect/Spore and out with an inconsequential check every 10 days, and when I am finished, I will uninstall and sell/pass the game on.
Should Valve change their attitude, I'll change my position, but as it stands, the Bioware option is the lesser of two evils.
Check out the Bioshock forums and then come back and tell me I am scaremongering. DRM does not work, pirates will always steal what they want. You and I are the ones that suffer with DRM, not the pirates.
Please try and understand before old age intervenes :(
It makes it harder to pirate and does work, see steam sales as proof. I know several people who tried to pirate Bioshock and could not get it to work, they ended up buying the game. even a couple days can mean thousands of extra sales. These companies have detailed sales data, you think they are doing this ona whim? Get real, everyone thinks they are a game market analyst. Because There were rpoblems in the past, does not mean there always will be, Steam was terrible when HL2 launched, look at it now.
Royal you, that is.
Just one is all I ask.
I'll be here waiting.
Just because it has been pirated does not mean it has a effect on sales, where are your figures that these large companies have? Get real. If it didn't work, they wouldn't spend time and money implementing it. I know several people who bought Bioshock because the pirated version didn't work due to DRM.
saying it does not work without any fact is as usefull as ttis ona bull, come back when you have indepth market studies like these companies do.
Plenty of good games without this crap, so why would I buy one that has it.
Sigh, you have already decided that big business can do no wrong. Talking to you is clearly a waste of time.
Incidentally though, where are your figures and in-depth market studies that suggest DRM is a good idea?
Edit:
Sorry but just how naive are you??
Can i ask what you think they should do instead of DRM then?
They spend big money doing it because they have to battle it, but don't know what else to do. EA tried the Steam route with the EA store, which didn't work for them either. They're trying to find a way to protect their property while still making money and, while I agree that this is the wrong way to do it, you can't really fault them for that.
Here's an idea - instead of whining here, why don't you guys grab an email address off of their website, contact them and TELL them to go on Steam if you want it so much. That's the only way you'll get what you want and what we as a market need. Go on. Tell them what you want. Send them a letter to the address given on their website.
Electronic Arts Limited
Onslow House,
Onslow Street,
Guildford,
Surrey,
GU1 4TN,
UK.
Thing here is that few here are even arguing that copyright theft isn't bad, that isn't the argument at the moment (it will be soon mind). The argument here is that invasive CP is an insult to your paying customers and as was shown by bioshock is of limited effect. People dislike steam and so don't buy through it, people dislike this type so don't purchase these games, its an individuals choice but when it back fires and these game fails to meet their own inflated targets lets not hear that it was because of Piracy. All that does is infuriate your paying customer base not only have they put up with the CP and the game still didn't sell, what does that tell you, you shouldn't have bothered, you would have the same (lower) sales levels but you wouldn't have pissed off your customer base and probably ensured you don't have any repeat business (starforce).
And no i wouldn't feel for these guys its business, them's the risks, any product could fail to sell for many reasons.
Again Royal you.
Release quality titles and charge a sensible price for them? Of course I am living in a fantasy world but that would do the trick :)
There's more I could say, but it'd probably ruin some content I've got coming up soon.
No CP, seems to have worked for StarDock.
LOL, invasive? It will check without you even knowong, less invasive then the Steam everyone seems to love. Talk about exaggeration.
If they stop peddling crap and start releasing quality products at a sensible price I think they will all be pleasantly surprised.
By the way dude, we are whining here because one of your colleagues invited us to do so in his article.
Also I haven't mentioned steam so I think you're barking up the wrong tree there my friend.
Finally, someone with some sense. I wish people would get so angry at pirates as they do DRM, double standards.
Take your sarcasm and shove it. Anyone looking at Mass Effect and Spore and saying that they aren't quality titles is stupid. Anyone saying that £30 starting price (falling quickly to around £20, £17.99 if you shop around online in the first week) for those games is unreasonable is moronic. Those same games on a console would cost at least a tenner more.
I actually bought The Orange Box for a gift for someone today on Xbox 360 and saw that it was almost half the price on PC, so I know this is true.
BS argument, many great games around that get priated in the millions, get your head out of the sand, anotehr BS excuse.
Mass Effect is one of the best RPG's in years, a lot of quality titlse get pirated the most.
Who is saying that?
Sorry? So my argument is BS because you don't agree with it....hmmm now why does that sound familiar? Games will always be pirated, but the way to get more people buying them is to make them more attractive...i.e better and cheaper with no senseless strings.
Welcome to my ignore list.
Steam is invasive, Who said it wasn't, I put up with it because it is also offers certain advantages i belive off set the invasive CP THIS DOES NOT.
It will check with out your knowledge till it BREAKS, that is the point which has been made a half dozen times now wich you seem to ignore. All software would be great if it worked as advertised but it doesn't it never will.
Take my sarcasm and shove it? That wasn't a sarcastic post?? And suggesting I am stupid and moronic too, is that really neccessary?
I never said Mass Effect and spore weren't quality titles and I never said they were overpriced???
Charming.
saying games are pirated because they are crap is a dumb argument, as some of the best game released in years, also happen to be the most pirated. If thatis your stand, then I laugh. many Pc games are cheap as it is, yet people pirate because pirating is free. Has nothing to do with the quailty of the titles. If there was a chance people would get caught, that is the only way people would stop, or prevent it from happening, which is difficult.
You are living in a fantasy world. I assume that titles like Mass Effect and Spore aren't good enough. And no, I'm not even referring to DRM here and Joe has already answered the utter tripe about PC games needing to be made cheaper than they already are; just look at the price of console games and they sell orders of magnitude more than PC games.
How is it invasive, it does it and you will not even know it. If that is invasive, how do you tolerate windows or many other software that alwasy try and connect for updates, etc....
On the box it's stated that you need internet to play it. You are allowed 3 installations on 3 different machines and get validated every 10 days. Also he stated that on the 5th day it will try to validate the game. If it fails it will try on the 10th.
I don't know about Mass Effect but Spore will require Internet either way to download new content and species from other players all the time.
Two issues I have.
a) what happens few years down the line they pull the plug on the servers. We will not be able to play it?
Even is the Bioware rep said that by then they will release a patch to break the DRM it's the most worrying thing.
b) What happens when a key generator produces your key and becomes flagged. How I will be protected?
To tackle that, I prefer to be able to create account (up to 3), with my key, and enter username & password every time I want to play. I prefer than and I feel more secure.
Imho I like that and I will buy Spore. Better now because it will save me to buy second box for my wife, since she want to play it too at the same time. It will save us some money.
Closing, I believe that DRM infestation isn't good. However they are trying to protect their investments and I appreciate it.
If we stop using pirated copies they will ease the grip. Or else either PC gaming dies, or we play what we buy.
Where did I say that?
This is the thing. This is a kneejerk reaction, but it is a sensible one.
If any gamers out there love BioWare games and love Wil Wright and Sim City then they should be angry at pirates, not the developers and not the publisher.
DRM sucks. I know. It's a bad thing. I hate it and it's put me off playing Mass Effect PC a bit too. Unfortunately, because of pirates it's also seen as being needed by publishers because publishers are out of touch with the communities.
There is a solution, in three easy steps.
First - Don't get angry at developers and publishers who are just trying to protect themselves. They need to make money to live and none of them want to make bad games - they want to be famous for making good games if anything.
Second - Get angry at pirates. They are the ones who are out there ruining games by making this sort of stuff needed.
Lastly - Be vocal and contact publishers. In an example like this, EA isn't going to do anything unless confronted. They won't go to Steam unless told to. If you really want them on Steam and you want to see that, then contact them and tell them. Go to their website, grab an email address, tell them what you found out and then suggest constructively how to fix it.
You aren't going to change anything whining here. What you do instead is tell your friends not to pirate, tell them its hurting PC developers they claim to love, and contact publishers and let them know what to do to make things better.
Hell, if you have trouble contacting the publishers or whatever then let me know and I will personally either hand over your complaints or find the right channels for you to work through. My email address is on the About Us page, so let me know.
LOL, you do not even know what you said. You obviosuly said if they released better games they would see less piracy. BULL CRAP, the better a game the more it gets pirated, PC games are already very cheap, hell, at launch you can get mass effect for 30 bucks for one of the best RPG's in years.
So better quality titles for a better price is a bad idea?
Hmm well that's your opinion and thats fine. I think games are grossly overpriced, especially on consoles and would love to see a reduction across the board.
Yep, I'd really like an open session with some of the developers too. The people that make the games, because I'd want to shake them by the hand and thank them for all the enjoyment they've given me (and all the money I've spent, too... which is a frankly quite frightening amount).
Royal "them" of course. And excluding any who thought that DRM was a good plan. So.. that'd be Stardock and Bethesda in the modern climate, then.
Piracy is a problem, yes, but so are incredibly restrictive DRM systems and pricing that is slowly creeping up and up and up... there is no 'magic bullet' for piracy - and it certainly isn't DRM in the forms publishers seem to be trying out at the minute.
...
Y'know what would complete the trilogy now? The announcement that Fallout 3 was going to use this same DRM system.
...maybe I shouldn't give them ideas...
I don't I tell windows when i can connect not the other way around. Its only invisible till it is not available, bit like aeroplane windows.
Yep, amazes me when piracy is mentioned so many here tend to brush it off as not a big deal or almost OK, but when DRm is mentioned they grow horns. You can't blame them, it is either this or continue to see PC games disappear. Piracy needs to stop, so then will DRM.
If u think that is the only way Windws in invasive, well, I pity you.
LOL!!!
Piracy will never stop, what's next??
There is blatant sarcasm (fantasy island) in there and an obvious insinuation that these games are low quality and over-priced.
Where did I say it would? Please learn how to comprehend simple sentences.
For the industry, I think it's a bad idea to lower the cost of games, but for the consumer, it'd be great in the short term. In the long term, it'd backpedal though because quality would suffer.
You see, game development costs have spiralled upwards but the price of a game has remained largely the same over the last ten years. When you factor in inflation, you're actually paying less for more these days - I'll no doubt get quoted out of context here, but you're getting something that takes longer to develop for less money than ever before. I believe Crysis cost in the region of £20-30 million to develop and there are rumours that GTA IV cost upwards of £50 million... £25 for a PC game isn't a lot to ask, is it?
Hell, games like Battlefield Heroes will be free and the developer will (hopefully) make their development costs back on microtransactions.
Oh i know plenty ways that windows is invasive but then i don't use it apart to launch games, sir you obviously do use windows so allow me to pitty you.
Sarcasm????
The only sarcasm inferred was that I was being silly to expect cheaper titles increasing in quality. Nowhere did I suggest those two titles were low quality or overpriced!
I haven't even seen them yet!?
No, it isn't, I remember paying $60 for NEs games, mass effect is 39.99 at launch. Top quailty and many hours of entertainment for little, yet, people still pirate.
So why are you arguing for DRM?
If you don't think it will stop piracy what is it you are arguing about?
Incidentally you will notice I haven't insulted any of you at all in this thread but you can't seem to help it ;)
Hehehe.
with dev costs through the roof, and Pc game prices not changing for a decade, and being cheaper then consoles, you expect them to lose money by selling them even lower? Get yourt head out of the sand. It is business, not charity.
Who is arguing for it, just saying it is not near as bad a smnay here make out, it is either this, or get used to PC gaming continue to go in the toilet. The real problem is pirates. You can't balme them, they have no choice, if you want to continue playing on PC, work with DRm, or buy a console.
isn't console just as easily cracked? i'm pretty sure a mod chip is cheap and they throw in like all the latest titles when you get it done.
it sounds like a legal spyware, that the user agrees to. collecting user information and monitoring their gaming habits, privacy is dead welcome to the mailing list.
My point is that DRM is not working, it doesn't stop piracy and is alienating existing customers. That is why I originally posted here after reading the short article and I stand by my convictions.
Personally I think that 'video' games in general could do with being cheaper and certainly a lot of them could do with not being released at all ;)
I don't condone piracy in any shape or form either, I work for what I want and if I can't afford it I do without!
What I can't abide is people telling me that DRM is neccessary and that it will benefit us all in the end when it clearly will not ;)
Have a nice day :)
So now you are saying that you are not arguing for DRM?? OK....
I will carry on playing games on my PC and I will do it without the need for DRM. Should that requirement change at some point in the future I will simply find something else to do.
And I can blame them because it was their choice!
Yes consoles are just as easy. In fact I don't think it will be long before the 'piracy problem' is worse on consoles ;)
Blame DRM on the pirates. DRM sucks, nobody in their right mind would argue with that, but companies are trying to protect their multi-million investments. Of course, that means we're all treated like crooks, but when you've got games that are selling maybe a million copies and then estimated illegal downloads are in the region of two to three times that... THEN you start to realise just what a problem piracy is.
leper, you really are starting to annoy me. I've seen you misquote people before and now you've gone and done it to me. heres what i said:
"Valve, as usual, do things right. They give you a gaming network that blows xbl out of the water, give a huge variety of games available through nice 'can't be arsed going to the shop' downloading, no need for a CD which will only get scratched anyway, maintain low levels of piracy and cheating and they let all the other developers use it. why aren't they using it?"
i never said you needed the flipping cd for mass effect, all i said was that you don't need cds full stop for steam.
and i agree with what steveo said, steam offer things for their 'invasive drm' (your opinion of it, no?) which i think should be labelled as 'really useful software'
you're one of these that can't leave a computer unless everyone on the net agrees with you, and i think how you bring your opinions across is both rude and patronising. As many seem to be saying 'Welcome to my ignore list'
Even if it has the check for updates, which really peeved me about Steam, I'll still get it. It's not like it's going to update every 10 days anyway. I don't really see what the fuss is about.
:(This is obviously NOT the way to deal with it. The more draconian the CP method the more people want it cracked. I'm almost tempted to say that no CP is the best way forward, as there are no 'kudos for cracking it'. The way things stand, paying customers have to dial in and pray every 10 days, while pirates enjoy the game whenever and wherever they want. :|
:(There is also a lot to be said about companies blaming bad sales on piracy. While I'm sure that there is some real loss due to piracy, I very much doubt that it's as high they claim. As I said before, I believe that many of the people who pirate wouldn't buy the game even if piracy was impossible. Quite often, what we see is companies delivering mediocre titles which don't live up to hype and expectations and then trying to pass the blame for poor sales.
@BT Staff: Could we possibly have a poll on this issue?
Can't they see the first person to activate a certain key and keep THEM active, and de-activate all the subsequent poseurs?
You raise a good point and your solution might work... but what if the key is stolen before the customer has bought the game? An inside job (most likely at the distributor level) is probably the most likely way that games 'get out' and onto BitTorrent before retail release.
I've said this about 10 times now but one more won't make any difference, these systems are all well and good until they break, once they break there may or may not be any incentive to fix them. Even if they are fixed a few days later why should the PAYING customer be inconvenienced. If your happy with it great fill your boots, lets just hope the next time its not starforce they decide to go with.
===
@Joe/Tim - Thank you for your most recent posts as they actually fleshed out your reasoning behind your earlier comments.
@Leper/Shadow vs Wicz/Steveo - Its been a 6 page circular arguement. It is obvious you guys won't agree. And I think the points have been exhausted.
===
Internet connection *is* a system resource requirement. People who don't have broadband/internet can't play WoW or any MMO, but I don't think everyone is up in arms about that. Its not that it requires the internet to autheticate, its that it does it every ten days.
Some people who are gamers are also full time workers for real jobs. I know plenty of people away for more then 10 days for an over-seas convention/meeting/wtfe. Also if you have it on 3 machines, what happens when you play it on your desktop for 4 days, laptop 3 days, but forget about the 3rd copy? Does it lock then? And then the key-gen lockouts once pirates get ahold of the game.
I'm used to connecting to an authetification server, but not by a DRM program forced on me. Also: Why does it have to be every 10 days? Why not just every time you load up the damn game without threatening to break it? I'm not "Pro-Pirating" and its not the authetification. Its that it can't just verify on connect. It has to force a program on your computer and force you to check every ten days or it breaks.
I don't think on this thread anyone is suggesting pirating is good. They are expressing their disgust with this particular service model by explaining that it is driving otherwise eager customers to an alternative source of very low repore. Alot of the people saying they'll pirate it were actually going to be happy customers until they read this news.
Pirating is rampant, it needs to be kicked in the balls. But the most you'll ever do is stifle it. We need a method that helps protect the developer (THE DEVELOPER NOT THE PUBLISHER). To say if you make it good enough people will buy it is a lie you tell yourself to justify having BitLord on your hard drive. If that was true there wouldn't be people stealing fancy cars, high-end jewlry, or AAA-Games. And try and tell me one of those is different from the other.
However, this is not it. No, I don't have hard numbers to prove this will fail; but no one has shown me a fancy chart yet that has proven DRM --does-- work. DRM hurts the consumer. It punishes the legitimate user. You can't even argue that. I get what its supposed to do; but it fails. It. just. doesn't. work.
A few million uniformed masses will buy the game and never notice a damn thing, shrug and move on. A few million more will pirate the game-- either they can't afford it or they justify it with some other excuse. (And really, not having money isn't an valid reason either. You wouldn't go down to the Jewlry store and steal a watch just cause you couldn't buy it.)
Both publishers, developers, and gamers need to look at games like any other object. For some reason the world seems to think that because games/music/movies are digital that they shouldn't be held to the same rationelle as physical items.
This model is like buying a car and being pulled over ever 300 miles to have your plates run to make sure you still own your own car that you bought and paid for. And what if someone dupilicates your plates and drives by? Suddenly your keys are taken too because of it. Does that mean you should take the Porsche with the unlocked doors and key in the ignition? No. Does it make it easier to justify the act? Yes. Does it help anyone but that one single pirate? No.
As it was said, the **** that gets pulled in the games/music industry couldn't happen in any other field. The company would go under so fast you couldn't even make a timely satirical web comic about their demise.
Do I support DRM? No, its bullshit and it doesn't work in this incarnation or any incarnation yet concieved.
Why do I know beyond a doubt it doesn't work? Cause we're having this sodding arguement.
But I do support the idea and I think the community needs to too.
Steam isn't the holy grail. It isn't the best thing since sliced e-bread.
Lack of transfer of ownership just plain sucks.
But Steam got popular for a reason: It works.
Not perfect, maybe not even as well as it should.
But better then alot of things out there.
...Ann-nnn-nnd...
I'm done. Cheers. ;)
===
(PS - Isn't Spore single player? Wtf...shouldn't even need to touch the internet. :| )
Sorry m8 I just don't agree. Piracy is a problem, I think we can all agree on that ;)
The problem is that piracy isn't nearly as big a problem as the devs/publishers would like you to think and punishing customers on the strength of this argument alone is a crock to say the very least.
They ( the devs ) cannot make their products 'pirate proof', they know this, yet they still insist on including this pointless, non functional CP which as I have said countless times, the pirates simply 'go around'.
A classic situation arose one evening last year while at a friends house. He had just bought Bioshock from his local games shop and couldn't get it to auth with the online server so had joined a forum for advice.
While waiting for said advice he couldn't help but notice so many of the other forum members were playing quite happily. Being an inquistive chap he asked how come they didn't have any problems playing and he was greeted with the following reply...
"We didn't pay for this version, we just downloaded it with bittorrent and it doesn't have to speak to any servers it just works"
To cut a long story short he immediately phoned the bioshock tech helpline and explained his issues and what the other forum guys had said about their downloaded version and waited to see what could be done. After about 5 minutes the tech support guy announced that they were working on the server issues and he should just be patient. So he asked what if he downloaded the 'other version' and the tech guy said well you could play now but it would be illegal. He returned his copy of bioshock for a full refund the next day after waiting nearly 18 hours for the server problem to clear, which of course it didn't.
Where is the incentive to pay for a title that may or may not work when the 'free version' just works?
DRM does nothing to encourage pirates to stop being pirates, it is therefore fundamentally not suitable for the job it is being expected to do ;)
Whether i'll download it or not i haven't decided yet.
It's a shame really, as with all DRM, the only people this hits is the paying customers. pirates won't need to deal with this crap :(
seems fairly obvious to me this will cause orders of magnitude more piracy than it prevents
Wishful thinking im afraid, the crackers wont just release one or 2 cd keys, it'll be hundreds maybe thousands aswell as the program that generates those keys. I can understand that devs want money for the work they put into games, that goes for publishers aswell(even though EA publishes everything and they're ****ing scum!!). But this 10 day authentication is ****ing ridiculous!:(
What about in game advertising? If games cost like... tenner or fiver or something with in game advertising subsidising the rest. People would buy the games, because for that price you might aswell just pay up, and the devs would get the cash. Obviously its abit more complicated that this, but perhaps its a way forward?
Nice one! I notice people completely ignore the folks without internet when they rabidly masturbate over Steam!! (btw whats the big deal with steam?!)
You guys are LOOKING for things to complain about. I bought Bioshock retail and never had the slightest hint of trouble. And I installed it on two different machines too!
I know the DRM situation is a bit ****, but we as PC gamers don't have much choice here. PC gaming is at risk, and piracy really isn't helping. At present console versions of games outsell their PC equivalents by 5-10 times. That doesn't make a very good case for developers spending much money on PC ports.
I was very pleased but also surprised to see Mass Effect make the leap to PC. We can't take this for granted anymore... if publishers/developers decide not to make PC games any more they we are all f*cked.... I AM NOT GETTING A CONSOLE.
In summary, stop whining about DRM lest we lose PC gaming altogether.
My 2 cents.
My sentiments exactly, and nothing whatsoever to do with piracy either ;)
Yes, piracy is as big a problem as they say it is.
And you shouldn't need an incentive to obey the law, so stop being an idiot. It's harsh of me to say this, true, but as I said before I think the only way to correct this is to punish the pirates who are the cause, not the publishers who are defending themselves.
Stop pirating. Stop being friends with pirates. Stop casually encouraging piracy.
Then it dies, but lets face it if one pub dies moves on then anther will simply replace it. Its a multi million pound industry and it has been heavily pirated for 20 years, its still here it will continue as long as people continue to buy games for a very simple reason, people want to take your money from you. Since I and others wont buy the game with DRM of this type by not talking about it and just not purchasing a game it doesn't help the industry any.
DRM doesn't stop pirates from pirating... it generally stops casual pirates from acquiring the game before release when day-zero leaks hit BitTorrent - I think it has done that job pretty well over the past year. Think outside the box for a minute and look at the big picture: imagine the marketing dollars a publisher might spend on a game, building up the hype (through internet advertising, magazine advertising, TV advertising, etc) ready for a big splash of day-one sales. Games make most of their money in the first few days, so if it appears on BitTorrent before any sales can be built up, that's going to be pretty telling on the success or failure of the game. You (as a publisher) are advertising a game that's available for free if prospective customers know how to use a search engine.
I remember back to Half-Life 2, when Steam literally broke - the uproar was massive because people couldn't play probably the most anticipated game of relatively recent times. Valve worked to fix it and there haven't been the same problems in subsequent releases. DRM, in the same way, is a learning curve and having spoken to publishers and people that work closely with developers, I can say that the industry has nightmares about the activation problems - they're not as evil as they may come across (because DRM is evil and therefore they must be evil too). The saying goes: everything looks perfect on a PowerPoint slide deck, but nothing ever goes that smoothly.
Roughly 1 million sales to an estimated 2-3 million illegal downloads for a game like Crysis is a pretty big ratio. Saying that piracy is not an issue is incredibly short sighted. I am not of the opinion that all of those that pirate the game would have bought it, but it is certainly a little off-putting for anyone trying to make money building games for the PC.
Cogs are being turned and heads are banging together inside the PCGA, but there's nothing I can report just yet. I just hope that the what I've been told is a hive of activity inside PCGA is actually coming up with the answers that PC gamers want to hear.
What the hell is wrong with you????
I AM NOT A PIRATE and I could have sworn I already made that abundantly clear?
Can you please stop insulting me and for gods sake please stop insinuating that I am a pirate!
I have never stolen any software from anyone in my entire life! I think the least you can do is apologise for your slanderous and totally uncalled for 'statements'!
Its not the publishers that will die, its the PC. Publishers will move to locked platforms that they can fully control, like the Xbox 360. PC users wont be able to play games anymore.
Basic fact is there needs to be a happy medium, make it easy enough for paying customers to be able to play the game without problems, and just enough CP to stop the more 'casual' people who will try to copy the game
You will NEVER stop ALL piracy with excessive CP
You WILL upset paying customers with excessive CP and drive them to piracy
Consoles have 'okay' CP, enough to stop casual copying but it doesn't stop piracy on chipped consoles either.
Steam does a similar thing - Valve just chooses not to talk about it.
Rubbish, if all PC games pubs stopped selling PC games tomorrow there would be HUGE gap in the market that would be exploited this is still a Multi million pound industry, the games may go more indy, yes the next release might not be as pretty, but the platform would remain and be exploited precisely because it is an open platform and not locked to an individual company, it may even improve as new blood is injected. PC gaming is not going to die pubs and devs will come and go DRM and piracy will eb and flow. Once the Console is the only source of games do you honestly belive that piracy wouldn't become rampant on it? In fact devs might long for the days of the PC when at least they could install starforce on your PC.
I thought it was with the "SecuROM" itself. While debatable, it's been likened to a rookit and installs software on your machine that *isnt* specific to the game in question it's meant to protect, meaning it has/could have knock on effects to other software on your PC.
Of course, I (we) have a choice -- simply to *not* purchase the game(s). Which I won't. Any other CP, like serial nums, internet pinging, whatever, I'm fine with -- I just don't want to pay for a company to install poorly designed, poorly implemented CP software like SecuROM on my PC. Doesn't mean I won't snag a copy off the newgroups, as I do want to play these games.
Shame EA didn't setup a "PayPal" donation area -- I'd *happily* donate the ££ of the retail cost of the game for a pirated version. I'm not against buying games -- just don't like their choice of **** CP protection.
Two things:
1. That is what they would like you to believe. The truth is that for every company that moves away from PC's others will move towards it. It makes money! And some poeple don't even do it for the money. There are plenty of open-source games out there.
2. There is no such thing as a locked platform.. except perhaps the GameBoy? Think about it.. even the PSP has piracy..
I think he means that by accepting piracy as an inevitability, were unconsciously condoning it. For instance you mention "the free version"... this suggests that you consider a pirated copy of a game to be a legitimate option. You also say "it has been heavily pirated for 20 years", as if its some kind of tradition.
Piracy seems to have become legit by osmosis, but just because many people accept it doesn't make it OK.
Really? You noticed I mentioned the 'free version' but you didn't notice I was talking about someone else?
Also I didn't say "it has been heavily pirated for 20 years", that was someone else too but he's right!!
Apologies for any insult, but it does kind of seem that the whole 'my friend pirated it' was kind of a mask. And I do think that unless you confront people on this issue then you are casually condoning it, which is very much what your 'piracy in inevitable' stance seems to be doing and is something I disagree with.
Help me out here - what would you like to see done and what are you views, in full, on this topic.
That too.
Dude, any apology due is accepted but seriously, when did I say that my friend pirated the game?
You assumed he did and that is part of the problem I'm afraid :(
My friend is honest to the point where it sometimes becomes painfull. He didn't pirate the game, He simply returned his copy of the game ( which is precisely what I said ) when he realised what was required of him to own it ;)
Of course hearing that pirates don't have to fulfil any of these obligations didn't win the bioshock devs/publishers any love either.
I think PC gaming goes back to the Speccy and C64, but the folks who can actually remember that are starting to get long in the tooth. Gone are the days when a single person could crank out a best selling AAA title in a few months (e.g. PacMac, which FAR outsold Mass Effect, Bioshock, Gears of War, etc..!). It takes years, huge teams, and millions of dollars to make a game like Mass Effect. If the big studios decide to leave the PC behind its going to get harder and harder for someone to come along and fill that void. Sure we'll probably always have indie games, but that's not enough for me, and I doubt it is for you either!
Oops, sorry yes! Forgive me. I'm replying to too many people at once!!
I think a couple of us (me especially) have made our views in full in this topic :D
Hehe you're forgiven ;)
Copyright protection does not drive people to piracy. People talk about how they are fed up with the security measures to justify their desire not to spend money. If this were any other industry, these claims wouldn't be taken seriously for a moment.
"Man, the bookstore just installed a magnetic security device. I don't want them scanning my ****! I'll just break in through a window tonight and rob the place."
"This is BS! The airlines want me to show a photo ID to prove I actually bought my ticket?!?! F that noise, I'll just hijack one of their planes."
It's an exercise in reductio ad absurdum, but it's still informative. If it was just Securom that bothered you, you could buy a copy of the game and then crack it so you don't have to re-authenticate. It would still be an illegal use of the software, but at least you aren't stealing it. I'll forgive you for bending the terms of the EULA because at least that way I won't be paying for the game for you when I buy and use it legitimately. Let's please stop trying to justify theft in reaction to security measures.
Piracy, of course, leads to more CP because developers want to (legitimately) protect their product from theft. So what should we do if we want less restrictive safety mechanisms attached to PC games?
i feel that they will change this once they see the amount of people saying they wont buy this....
what bothers me the most is that they are using securom.....
And the airport example is just off-the-scale OTT by orders of magnitude :)
piracy leads to more CP
CP leads to more piracy
result: piracy increases steadily without anything to keep it in check untill it becomes not viable to release games.
The above was the same approach the music industry took to DRM, see how increasing the DRM helped them so much *cough*
they're doing just fine with unlocked MP3's now.
So the simple solution, as i said before, small CP to deter the most casual pirates. Thats it.
Steam does need to autheticate every four or five times it runs a game in offline though apparently. Valve just won;t discuss it with anyone.
I'd love to know how many people where, like me, going to buy these games but now won't be.
Way back in the day, I used to do a lot of LAN gaming. The main problem was, however, that game manufacturers loved to have you "Insert the original CD" to play the game. This meant you had to carry around all your game CDs with you, and that was a problem, as they could get scratched etc. It also meant there was a (not insignificant) delay loading games to play because you had to dig out the CD, insert it, and the game had to recognise it.
So sites like GCW started appearing. They didn't pirate the games, they simply detailed what files needed to be copied off the CD to "finish" the install properly, and removed the CD check from games you already owned. Great! No more carrying around binders full of CDs! Faster loading times! More convenience!
Unfortunately, in the eyes of games publishers, this was still "Piracy".
I believe we will start seeing a return to those days, where "Copy Protection Removal" patches become more frequent. Take the HL2 launch (Where the Auth servers went down for days on end due to the sheer weight of traffic), or the Bioshock launch (Where similar things happened), and now look forward to that happening every 10 days, as more and more purchases phone home to re-authenticate, adding to the strain. And, of course, the other thing no-one wants to talk about is that you can bet your ass they will be using this to monitor how much you play.
So, does this mean I will *have* to start up these games every 10 days if I want to keep them? Or will a rootkit-like "service" sit in the background and "do it for me"? I can activate on 3 computers, so how do I "De-Activate" a copy for when I upgrade my PC? What happens in the event of a hard-drive crash? Does each "Activated" copy have to dial in independently? What happens with LAN Cafes?
I'm not condoning piracy, but copy protection systems this invasive will only serve to alienate customers, driving them towards people who can give them a better gaming, and computing, experience. That will either be programmers publishing patches to remove the draconian copy protection measures, or pirates who remove those measures to make illegal copies.
And those who think piracy doesn't exist on consoles are sadly deluding themselves. Sure, sometimes it takes a hardware modification to make it happen, but don't think for a moment that means people won't do it. There is a huge culture of warranty voiders out there, many of which also enjoy making the most out of what they have, and hanging out in places like here.
Piracy will always be around. And typically those who pirate material are not likely to have bought it in the first place. But measures like this will tip that balance. When downloading, extracting, burning and installing a pirated copy is faster and more convenient than buying a retail copy and playing it legitimately, the pirates have won.
You know this isnt that hard, make a good game, make sure it has re playability, sell it fairly cheap. Piracy issue = gone, your bank accounts look awesome.
Who would download a hacked copy if you can go legit for cheap, I mean really? I like having the real deal but developers/publishers dont make it worth my while for the price most of the time. Example is Orange Box, well, well worth the $45. You get single player, a concept puzzle game, and endless hours of fun with TF2. And it also looks great on most systems
Now, the same $45 could be spent on Crysis, which has a blase story line, graphics that make my PC beg for a bullet most of the time to actually make it look decent, and some tacked on multiplayer.
I wonder which one would sell better...
I don't like giving my money to people that don't let me play games without the internet (Lost Planet single-player was a bad example until it was patched), and I think instead of buying these games I shall buy something else without this ridiculous copy protection.
I didn't buy any games with Starforce and I wont buy these games, so you might say that their anti-piracy measures have cost them sales.
you really think that huh?
u know... there's something called chipped consoles hmm? ring a bell? and actually... basically everyone I know... that owns a console with a chip simply decides to stop buying games and burns them, most PC games downloaders actually buy the games they play, unless they're under 12 :P
In reading the initial story I was "Hell, no, I'm not buying something that has to keep verifying." Then I scrolled through the 175+ messages (so far) and saw some very valid points.... Be mad at the pirates..... You already have broadband, what's the problem?... and such.
I believe Spore would be a PC game I would really enjoy, and I do buy the games I play so i have to decide if it is worth the perceived inconvience. At this point in time I think that would be acceptable but I also worry about what's next? If we accept a small eroding of our "rights", then what is the next right that is taken away?
Regardless, it is interesting to see how many comments this topic has prompted.
Given these days as cynical and jaded as I am on the topic of games, Its very rare that I'll pay launch prices for any game, that negative is sufficient to likely put me right off buying either of these till the price has dropped a fair whack(£10-14) which is a shame, because I have been looking forward to them and theres a good chance I would have bought one or both if the launch prices had been reasonable. (to my mind, no more than £24.99 and lower is better, obviously)
I can point to another effect of copy protection from my personal experience by the way.
I've noticed that I almost never crack games I legitimately own, but If I don't finish them in the initial run while the disc is in the drive, its very rare I go back and finish them, which in turn makes it very rare that I go and buy any expansions (and to a slightly lesser degree sequels) since somewhere in the back of my mind is the fact I need to finish the original first.
I've actually completed the majority of games I have on steam however and the ones that come on discs but don't require the cd in the drive seem to also fare better, so I have tended to buy into expansions/sequels more.
The older I get, the easier I find it to stick to my principles even when they cause me some discomfort or inconvenience -- in this case, missing out on a few games I was looking forward to. If I bought these games I'd be telling the publishers that their DRM was acceptable, and it isn't. So I won't.
I also pirated CoD4, played it, enjoyed it, bought it. Civ4: same story. Stalker, NWN 2, SupCom same again. Do you know what games I've bought without pirating? Steam games. Why? Because it is more hassle than most other games and steam is ridiculously convenient. I can have my games installed on as many different systems as I like. I get direct downloads. Pre-loads so I can be playing within minutes of release (assuming the servers don't crash under the load :p). Community features that work across any game. Not to mention the huge selection of games available in the first place. Not to mention the fact that it actually ****ing works! It had some teething issues early on and people like Lepermessiah like to remind everyone at every chance the get.
What does SecuROM offer? Disabling the game if I don't connect to their servers every ten days. Thats it. Bugger that for a lark, I'll take the easy route and not bother with the game at all.
edit: sitting back and thinking a little.... spore is going to bloody rule, and it is going to be the most pirated game in the near future..... maybe the devs are afraid high levels of piracy will make it fail....
Crysis - It's shinier and so everyone goes "OMFG AMAZING GAME!" ;)
----
Copy Protection vs Perceived Pirating Threats @ Expense Of Consumer Freedom
sounds very similar to
Nation Security vs Perceived Terrorist Threats @ Expense Of Civilian Freedom
:(
Episodic Content I think meant to address this. But... kind of failed... :(
I'm not happy at all about this crap, but I'm keeping the pre-order in regardless. Grudgingly. >:(
Read the thread and you'll see how we've already pointed out that PC games are ussually a maximum of £30 on launch day and falling quickly after that. Compare that to console games where the price is ussually £39.99 minimum and stable for many weeks.
Unless you live in Portugal were prices of pc games usually stay the same for 6 months - 1 year at about 40£...
edit: http://shopping.bit-tech.net/uk/product/5436560/the-sims-2 , in the UK, 30£, almost 4 years old.... here? 47£
even if this case is kind of rare....
Didn't really want to draw that conclusion given how much typing i was doing in this thread, but its quite an analogy isn't it.
And depressingly accurate. The freedoms of the many should not be compromised by the actions of a few. But unfortunately this is always the case.
The biggest problem i have with Spore using this CP (don't care about Mass Effect TBH) is that all through development Will Wright has said that he didn't want to alienate any consumers. To do this he proposed low system requirements, compact unique models and content on the DVD. The last two points were so that people with either dial up or no internet could participate in his grand idea. This 10 day forced activation looks to be killing this idea. How does he propose that those without internet use Spore? If there is to be some form of telephone activation code that removes the 10 day check then there's the flaw in the system that lets the pirates in. From everything I've read I don't understand how how Maxis could sign off on this.
And yes this is pretty much a more eloquent repost of what i said earlier but I was riled up as was everyone else and it got lost in the bile. Plus I've calmed down a bit and this seems more rational.
Where is the fun in just connecting to the ntardnets and letting the computer do it for you?
Ofcourse, people have photocopiers now.
Its a hot topic and I am sure it would be a popular link across the net.
Fair does then, and I feel sad for you.
Still, don't pirate though.
so i do the next best thing, i don't pay them what they want and go without.... kind of making the same effect (choking them financially) but at the same time saying their game is crap and not worth my time......
edit: about inviting someone from the game industry here to discuss DRM..... great idea!
Actually, piracy is NOT a problem, except in the minds of developers.
There are two kinds of pirates, those who would never buy the game and those who won't buy it until they try it out first. Neither constitute a lost sale. The only people who matter are the ones who want to buy a game.
The problem here is that EA is alienating the only people who want to buy these games. The pirates don't care, at worst they'll have to wait a few days to get a cracked copy of it, though that's actually unlikley. What EA is doing is pissing off the people who want to give them money for their game while not hurting those who pirate at all.
The best course for publishers is to make good games that people want to buy (which EA did) and ignore those who will never buy, but pirate instead.
And as for getting a dev or publisher in front of us, bring it on. I'll happily tell them about all the games I choose not to buy and why. I've never yet pirated a game, but I also don't buy many.
Finally, a sensible poster. Just seeing the attitudes of many here with regards to piracy, no wonder devs are dropping the platform, PC gamers don't care enough about their favourite platform, they are destroying it themselves.
I don't like piracy or DRM but I do like PC games and if these companies feel the only thing they can do is use really restrictive DRM then so be it.
Just please make sure it's geared up and ready to take the strain of launch day.
Nothing more frustrating than buying a game, excitedly installing it and having to wait days for a server malfunction to be resolved.
All the while people who got the pirated version days before release have already completed the game. :(
Good post, I do agree, the only REAl issue here is at launch day the servers not going down of the load, that is a concern, other then that, the vast majoroty will not even know there is DRM in the game. This thread is a gross exaggeration and over reaction. Devs are in a no win situation, on one hand, they have to spend money and time, plus piss off some gamers, just to sell more copies, but not a large amount, or they go the no protection route and let the pirates rape them. Anyone made at them is ignorant and never worked years on something you poored your heart into only to have pirates take it when they want.
So cd key on the box you enter it, game connects to server ok thats fine game is unlocked if the sever is down game temporarily unlocks till it can connect. No shite need be installed bar the game. Few days/weeks later as the game moves towards the value end of shelf release a no cd patch (ala supcom) by this point the game has been cracked any way so its about showing you care about your consumers and removing an inconvenience factor. With the no cd patch is also the decrypted for the game so what ever happens you can still play your game. The simple CD requirement stops me giving it to my mate and the CD key should stop it being leaked since it can't be decrypted till the release date, then in a few weeks when the requirements to validate are removed those of us who don't wish to use these particular types of DRM can purchase the game. Two waves of sales all your customers are happy. There will still be pirated copies floating around but then thats going to happen any way even if the game has to validate every 10 days.
It doesnt have limited installations, or has it?
I hate this DRM crap. It only makes it more of a burden on those that legally purchase the games.
by the way, tell me the difference in effect, on the dev team, between a person that does not buy a game and a person that pirates (aka downloads it) it. And again, please respond rationally and without insults.
ninja edit: i think someone should name the effect that talking about piracy does in a forum.....
if it was an online only game then it would be okay, butotherwise its stupid. Similar to the fact that whenever i try to play Company of Heroes it tries downloading all the patches so i can play online, even though i only want to play offline. Devs need to realise that they're hurting themselves. No wonder they say PC gaming is dying
Thinking about it now copy protection has evolved considerably but has it prove effective hmmmm hell no.
Mass effect - i was looking forward to buying this as i wanted to support bioware but maybe not
spore - well i already knew this was going to be a massively multiplayer single player game so it doesn't bother me too much on that front.
Many of the games developers dont see DRM as the answer but they have no say in it, its those greedy bar sterwards like EA ramming this rubbish CP down our throats and i for one am sick of it.
Crytek recently cited that because of piracy there will no longer exclusively make games for the pc they say that there low sales were because of piracy which is rubbish, there low sales were because there game ran like a hog on the best of systems and they didn't even bother creating anything more than a glorified tech demo, i personally can't wait for them to make the rest of their trilogy just to see how long they can go and i wouldn't even download that crap.
WOW i really need to stop ranting like a crazy person.
true, but hasnt Steam cut down on the amount of piracy?
EA really just needs to join Steam like most of the developers/publishers have.
Now... for this fiasco... who's gonna bet that both of these games will be pirated like crazy, and then the devs will complain that "piracy ruined them". No, piracy didn't ruin you. You can look at games like Sins of a Solar Empire to see that people will buy games even when **GASP!** the game has no anti-piracy measures what so ever.
Finally, as much as a closed system like steam makes me a bit uneasy, the system is so easy to use and so portable that in many ways its better than just buying or even pirating a game. Why? Lets say I go to a friend's place and he wants to play HL2. But wait... I don't have a copy with me... All I do is download the steam client, login, load up HL2 and go for lunch. Assuming the connection doesn't die, my friend can try it out quickly and easily, no CD required. What if I don't want him to play on my account anymore? I just don't save the password on his system. Oh... I can also give him one of my free copies cuz I bought HL2, Episode 1, and episode 2.
the voices in my head say your not crazy :)
No it isn't -- there's posts either for or against the use of DRM/CP but more specifically, the type of CP being used and implemented. You're just arguing for the pro-CP side, which is fine, but you're doing it with such a moralistic, almost righteous attitude it's putting people off from your otherwise quite valid arguments.
Let pirates rape them? Gimme a break, don't be so dramatic. You're implying that no CP equals piracy. And it doesn't. People are people and some of them will steal/cheat/deceive to get what they want, period. You cannot count that as part of the equation because they cannot be reasoned with.
So you look at what makes the casual/averge gamer/user want to acquire pirated software and address those issues. And installing malware on their home PC is *not* the answer.
My argument has not been against CP -- but against the use of a *particular* type of CP which SecuROM comes under. It's invasive, it's unstable, it causes various non-game related issues and can has adverse effects on other areas of your computer that are not related to the game in question.
I see nothing wrong with dark sectors on a disk, serial/key numbers, internet reg, blah blah -- so long as the software DOESN'T install extra kit that could be seen as a rootkit or malware that ****s up your PC. Which some technologies, like SecuROM, have a history of doing.
I'm a developer myself. Not of games, but of software that has budgets exceeding £5-10million. I often see my software on the net. Our elaborate CP gone in a matter of days or weeks. Hell, we even used to use dongles you plug in the back of the machine. And that didn't last long! LOL!
Point is, a developer can add all the CP they want, it won't help. You're only trying to add bandages to an already damaged model. The real issues to address are that of the people; social ideals and ethics on what is and what isn't acceptable, what is and what isn't a crime as not everyone sees things the same way.
"...let the pirates rape them" -- best phrase I've seen this morning!
Need I explain myself much more?
P.S: Leper, do you think you could get through 5 posts without insulting anyone?
Or, you guys can just carry on whinging and shooting yourselves in the foot.
there. i don't play the game, i don't talk about the game, i don't buy the game. not only do they not get my money, but they don't get any free publicity from me. complaining doesn't work, piracy doesn't work. the only thing these guys understand is seeing their brand awareness and sales take a tumble.
But your completely missing the point of this entire thread, almost every one here wanted to support spore/mass effect and now some of us have decided that due to the restriction in place we will not. I do not owe these guys any thing just as they do not owe me any thing its business, if they release a product at a fair price in a manner which i want to consume i will purchase it if not i will not. Its a fairly simple transaction. And the fact that you consider voicing a real concern whining is just depressing.
I say fair price more as a course of habit having argued with impar regarding digital downloads, for the record i do not think PC games are over priced.
No, you're missing the point. The point is that if you don't want to buy the game based off of this then that is fine - EA won't mind losing a sale because it believes it can get those sales back from potential pirates. If you disagree with the reality of that, then as I say, contact EA.
EA, Bioware, etc aren't forcing you to buy the game or forcing you not to buy it. They are offering you a product if you want it, letting you know in advance what will be in that product and giving you time to contact them if you disagree with them. If you don't want to buy the game then it is your choice not to, not because EA has forced you to. They are perfectly right to try and defend their product from those who might steal it.
Now, say you're one of those people who won't buy it now. OK, fair does - I'll get it, I'll play the game and I'll have fun. You won't out of choice. No problem there, except you'll be a little miffed but the reality is that it is your choice. What I have issue with though is the people who won't buy it and who will pirate it to spite EA or to get around the phone-home which would (in reality) never inconvenience them at all - those people are the ones who will bury this industry if left unchecked.
This isn't an erosion of consumer rights, this is someone trying to stop themselves from being stolen from. If you disagree with their methods then it is a shame, but not a tragedy. Either way, the only way forward is to contact EA and let them know what you think the way forward is.
That's the point - a big company taking a mis-step in the right direction and gamers as a community needing to come in and show them how to do it properly. Enough people contacting them will make a difference - it was based on community outcries that Ubisoft stopped using the unstable Starforce protection.
You are voicing a real concern - but you are voicing it in the wrong place if you expect your voice to make an actual difference. At least contact EA and show them this thread.
But I, and many others, *will* play it -- we'll wait for a pirated copy to appear. I don't WANT a pirated copy, I'd much prefer to support the dev/publisher. The big problem ISN'T that it has CP/DRM but the *type* of CP/DRM. And not the internet pinging -- that's nothing, many software packages and tools do that anywaze.
It's potential malware/rootkit technology installed on one's PC which has a serious risk of affecting things other than what it was installed for. And I'm not paying for that. I'm absolutely happy to "donate" the cost of the game via PayPal to EA when I get a pirated copy *without* the hazardous CP in it.
I agree with you, but you aren't seeing the bigger picture. Sales charts don't reflect intentions or motives. EA won't see a guy who just wanted a copy without DRM and wanted to pay for that. EA will just see a pirate and will make the next game worse to cope, or go console-exclusive.
I agree with you all about the DRM and how annoying it is and damaging and so on. However, all I'm saying is that if you do want to get a legit copy, but you don't want DRM, then don't just talk about it here. Contact EA. Send them an email to Piracy@EA.com, or to a feedback email. Find the email address of their PR team or start an online petition. Let them know so that they can change it before release.
It took nearly an hour to remove Starforce from my pc from the demo i've never had that much trouble with any virus or trojan.
Any way your right complaining here isn't going to get us any where i'll try to find or draft a letter that any one who care can send to EA. I'm not so eloquent as has been demonstrated many times over this thread so i'll post it here and any one who cares to help can do.
Yes, you're absolutely right, everyone here having a p1ssing contest won't actually get anything done :) I have sent an email to the address you mention. Hopefully others do as well. I was honest in it, saying it had nothing to do with cost of the software or the idea of CP itself as all companies have the right to protect their investments, but in how it was implemented. But I suppose time will tell.
It's not an erosion of consumer rights because they are very clear, very up-front and very honest about it being there and what it does. They are telling you what they are doing and asking that by using the products you sign the EULA and agree to use the product as they indicate. You have no right to use the product in any other way and you have no implicit right to the product. This isn't food, education, safety or shelter - if you don't want it, don't buy it. But don't buy it and bitch about it afterwards when they've clearly told you and will be labelling the package.
Starforce isn't being used by EA and not on these products - it was Ubisoft that used that most famously and, when enough people complained, they got rid of that too. I agree that Starforce is a bitch and I've had trouble with it too.
It was along these lines.. Again, it was honest from my POV and not what others might admit to...
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To EA, <whoever>
I am writing in regards to the recent announcement of the DRM and copy protection decisions to be implemented in the upcoming games, Mass Effect and Spore.
To start, I am not against copy protection or any other legitimate means by a company to protect its investments -- you spend millions developing software for the benefit of others, only to suffer losing a significant portion of revenue due to piracy. As a developer myself I can understand the frustration and annoyance as it affects current and future endeavours.
The concern at heart is in the type of copy protection you are choosing to use, namely the SecuROM copy protection software.
In previous instances, it has caused serious harm to my home game PC; the worst was completely disabling my DVDROM unit to point that I had to reinstall Windows in order to get back control of it. It also had other side affects, many of which are reported around the internet by other, very annoyed and angry game users.
As I said before, you have every right in the world to make the best efforts to protect your software, but the choice in using copy protection that is widely regarded as malware and even in some sites, a rootkit, is unjustifiable. When I heard this recent news from EA to use SecuROM, that effectively killed my decision to purchase copies of both Mass Effect and Spore.
Even with the various copy protection methods you're going to employ, you know it will be only a matter of weeks if not days before the games appear in full on Torrents or the Usenet, stripped of the nefarious SecuROM malware.
And sadly, at that time, devoid of potentially harmful copy protection software, I might download copies of the games. I would happily donate to EA, via PayPal, the full cost of the games I might download to compensate because I do want to support your developers and designers fully, but I simply cannot risk another installation of a copy protection system that has been proven to do harm to one's PC.
I hope perhaps others write to you with similar opinions and feelings and maybe you might opt for a less intrusive, less harmful copy protection system. For the most part, many of us support your efforts 100% -- again, it is NOT the idea or concept of copy protection I or others are against -- it's your choice on *type* that many of us in the game community are simply not convinced with. We shouldnt have to put our expensive game machines at risk to play a video game.
Kind Regards,
Me.
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It wasn't well documented at the time of Bioshock and it was most certainly not on the box when people purchased it. They did not tell you they were installing a program which could not be removed from the windows explorer or that it was installing hidden entries in your registry. I did not buy it I installed the demo before the truth of it was general knowledge HAD i known i wouldn't have even gone that far! Show me the place in the EULA they mentioned a
root kitun-removable program? Show me on the box where it mentioned the fact that after the game has gone this **** is still in place.Securom Removal: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/98241-25-remove-securom-malware-uninstalling-bioshock-demo