Spore, EA, DRM, etc.

[GeneralAdmission]

Very interesting developments:
Gamasutra
Kotaku
Amazon

I skipped Bioshock, took a pass on Mass Effect, and will skip Crysis Warhead now that I know it, too, uses the same overly-restrictive DRM. I've never purchased or installed a Starforce-protected product, and now it seems EA's SecuROM gets to join the club.

While I know why EA does what they do, I think it's guaranteed that if they continue down this road, the backlash will only increase. Penalizing paying customers because of the actions of pirates is just bad judgment, and they are polarizing the industry's customer base. For me, I'm sticking with Brad Wardell's camp: pirates don't get a vote. Has no one at EA read Stardock's forums? The folks there LOVE Stardock because the games are great and they get treated as customers, not criminals. I'm not a marketing or PR professional, but I know that winning your customer's trust and respect is like sinking a self-replenishing goldmine...they will want to pay you for your products.

If the DRM is eventually stripped, I'll be happy to purchase. BTW, does anyone know if that has happened with Bioshock yet, as they promised?

PS- I had no interest in Spore as a game, anyway. The videos made it look crazy boring.

Correction I have purchased 2 Starforce games, but did not install them once I realized my mistake.

[Mesh]

I did same with mass effect.

I wasn't really interested in spore, just mildly curious, not enough to warrant dealing with the drm it comes with however.

I'm sure at least a few of the games I own carry starforce or misc. other drm. Heck I've seen game -demos- install them!

To protect what? a freely downloadable free piece of code hosted by the code makers themselves? Putting drm first was dumb, not removing it from a demo version is just plain lazy. If you want my cash, you'll have to work for it.

[skeeder]

its hilarous because Bioshock took 2 weeks to get a working crack. And by the time I downloaded...er...got mass effect, the same thing was in effect.

I have no DRM on my machine, I strip it all out and let friendly people do it for me too.

Honestly it stupid. Hackers work around it. You want a solid system? Ask for steam to put your product on it. Make it so its only offered through steam and that to play online it has to be a server registered with steam.

COME ON. Valve did it right...EA is so big and mighty they'll fall flat on their faces before they decide this.

[GeneralAdmission]

I knew I wasn't alone on this issue. :wink:

I agree, Steam is an extremely well-balanced platform. Years ago I wanted nothing to do with it, but now it is a terrific content delivery/product protection system that most of all, is easy for me to use and enjoy.

A few IMOs on various DRM:

1. CD or DVD checks: antiquated method, unacceptable.
If I install 100% of the content to hard disk, my CD should be unnecessary to play the game.

2. One-time, permanent online activation: acceptable and encouraged.
Steam has this built-in, and it's the best compromise between convenience and copy protection. Also, I can backup my Steam games, move them to a new PC, reload and play them (single player) without needing to connect to Steam again for authentication.

3. Limited installations: unacceptable.
Beyond a single activation, I should never again need to "ask permission" to use a product I have purchased. Ever. Period. End of story.

4. DRM services/drivers that stay resident all the time and screw up the functionality of my PC: totally unacceptable.
At this point you are generating serious ill-will on my part, and I simply will not allow a product on my PC that screws with my property.

EA needs to be reminded that human beings are really not that complicated:
Make them happy - they will come back for more Happy
Make them unhappy - they will leave you
Make them angry - they will attack you

...they're pushing really hard on number 3.....

[Mesh]

I've experienced steam purely because one of my previous ati cards came with a 'hl2 voucher'. Of course to get the game I payed for with the card I had to install steam, drm and all.

And the activation is not anywhere near once-only. I've ran steam in offline mode most of the times, when I downloaded separate mods and installed them to the hl2 dir I could -not- use them unless I went back to online-mod. All files are already installed why would I need to do that?

A cd check is still the best and least agravating solution with one caveat. At install time the setup system should be able to get a 'signature' from your physical cd and from then on could run without it.

No more cd checks past that, no system crippling, stealth installed drivers either.

Can't say I miss manual/page codes protections, if it would mean the banishment of drm/online activations though, I'd welcome it back.

Heck, include a 16mb flash drive in the box with per-box specific hash keys or rom hardware part or whatever, needed to run the installer and you've got a physical block to anyone that would copy the cd/dvd.

Point is, there are plenty of ways that would neither be a customer pain nor an ineffective pirate prevention system that you could use. EA and the rest are just too lazy and money-grubbing to make use of em.

[chabooka]

Every game should be released on steam...problem solved (for me anyways)

[The_cranky_hermit]

A cd check is still the best and least agravating solution with one caveat. At install time the setup system should be able to get a 'signature' from your physical cd and from then on could run without it.

How would that help? If you're in the process of installing the game, then obviously either
A: The disc is in the drive and a CD check is redundant or
B: The game is pirated and the CD check has been removed.

And if you remove the CD check after installing, you've just defeated the whole point of the CD check in the first place. The point is to prevent people who normally would not pirate games from going "Oh, I can lend my disc to the entire neighborhood and everyone can enjoy my game!"

Heck, include a 16mb flash drive in the box with per-box specific hash keys or rom hardware part or whatever, needed to run the installer and you've got a physical block to anyone that would copy the cd/dvd.

Casual pirates (as in people who don't know about P2P networks, cracks, and don't intend to break laws but might lend eachother install discs without thinking about the consequences) would just lend eachother the flash drive, and Internet pirates would just download a copy that was cracked by some group.

Basic CD check is pretty much the best copy protection you can build into a game distributed by discs. The way I see it, copy protection can only stop casual pirates, and will not affect Internet pirates. CD checks effective in stopping casual pirates, and doesn't waste time or annoy consumers for the sake of trying to stop Internet pirates. And for those of us who want the convenience of not needing a disc in the drive, the CD check is easily bypassed.

[Ryom]

I skipped Bioshock, took a pass on Mass Effect, and will skip Crysis Warhead now that I know it, too, uses the same overly-restrictive DRM. I've never purchased or installed a Starforce-protected product, and now it seems EA's SecuROM gets to join the club.

Same here, also disc checks drive me batshit. They need to be done away with.

[Mesh]

And for those of us who want the convenience of not needing a disc in the drive, the CD check is easily bypassed.

Yeah, by using modified .exe released by the same kind of people that control bot-nets and make trojans.

[Abram]

This is why i LOVE cracks.

I bought both Bioshock and Mass Effect but waited for a crack to get released before i bothered to install them. I too, have no DRM crap on my hard drive. And if i do, it's dormant.

I figured that EA would get its head out of it ass after Spore came out fully cracked three days before it was released. I have a friend that bought it last week and he was telling me the authentication tool is giving him errors and crashes, and thus he wasn't able to complete the install and play. After tossing him a Gamecopyworld link he got it working in minutes.

Just another example of these measures hurting legitimate buyers and, if anything, making the pirates (talk like a piratre day, Sept 19) wait an extra few days.

At least it's not Starforce.

My only problem with Steam is the lack of tangible item, such as the box, a pretty DVD, and a manual. But if the price is low enough compared to a physical copy then it makes up for it. Oh and downloading huge games really chews up my bandwidth. (i'm loosely limited to 100gb per month)

[Dem Pyros]

My only problem with Steam is the lack of tangible item, such as the box, a pretty DVD, and a manual. But if the price is low enough compared to a physical copy then it makes up for it. Oh and downloading huge games really chews up my bandwidth. (i'm loosely limited to 100gb per month)

I didn't see anyone mention it yet, but as of now Bioshock has all DRM (read: all) removed from it on for PC.

I agree with mikeh. I love the steam system, but would never buy a game from it because I do like to have a physical copy in the rare case that something went extraordinarily wrong and all Steam account information from all time was corrupted (or something to that extent).

I personally love cracks. I'm not saying I pirate things, I'm saying I absolutely hate to have to go scrounge out the particular game disk whenever the mood hits me to play a specific game. I recently bought Psychonauts, and the only security on it was a CD check. Hell, that or absolutely nothing is the way to go.

Another no-brainer to prevent piracy: stop jacking up prices. Half the reason people pirate things is because they don't want to spend so much money.

[GeneralAdmission]

I didn't see anyone mention it yet, but as of now Bioshock has all DRM (read: all) removed from it on for PC.

Good news...now it is eligible for purchase. ;)

Another no-brainer to prevent piracy: stop jacking up prices. Half the reason people pirate things is because they don't want to spend so much money.

Unfortunately, much of the industry is following Hollywood's 'blockbuster' business model: huge commitments to a few primary franchises. Maybe they're allergic to reasonably diversified investments. :D

Again Stardock is a good counterpoint. SoaSE cost about $1 million, and it has been HUGELY successful because it is a quality product based on sound design (eg-reasonable systems reqs) and delivered with respect to the customer (no DRM).

[Mesh]

I agree with the 'focus on same franchises' part. Example, I learned about psychonauts by pure luck browsing for other stuff on a computer shop site, I learned about psi-ops when it was released for free with a couple ads to support it. Neither of these games were remotely 'on my radar' when they were released. And I've got over 300 feeds, most of em gaming/tech news.

[GeneralAdmission]

Dem's post got me interested in Bioshock, so I went looking into the status on the DRM. Looks like it's not quite the 'freedom' I'd hoped for:

Our other methods of copy protection remain. You will still have to activate your copy, and you will still need to keep the disc in the drive. SecuROM has not been removed -- just the activation limits on number of installs and number of computers you can install BioShock on simultaneously. --2K Elizabeth

A step in the right direction, but I'd like to see them use the other leg as well...even if it's gimpy. ;)

[The_cranky_hermit]

Another no-brainer to prevent piracy: stop jacking up prices. Half the reason people pirate things is because they don't want to spend so much money.

No, the WHOLE reason is because they don't want to spend ANY money if they have the option not to. This will remain the case no matter how much they lower the prices.

Again Stardock is a good counterpoint. SoaSE cost about $1 million, and it has been HUGELY successful because it is a quality product based on sound design (eg-reasonable systems reqs) and delivered with respect to the customer (no DRM).

It's also successful because it was such a low budget project. Spore will be considered a flop if it has the same "success" as SoaSE.

[Soduka]

Another no-brainer to prevent piracy: stop jacking up prices. Half the reason people pirate things is because they don't want to spend so much money.

No, the WHOLE reason is because they don't want to spend ANY money if they have the option not to. This will remain the case no matter how much they lower the prices.

Again Stardock is a good counterpoint. SoaSE cost about $1 million, and it has been HUGELY successful because it is a quality product based on sound design (eg-reasonable systems reqs) and delivered with respect to the customer (no DRM).

It's also successful because it was such a low budget project. Spore will be considered a flop if it has the same "success" as SoaSE.

It's going down in history as a flop because of its DRM now; what's your point? I understand exactly what you mean, but my thoughts on the issue is that the harder companies become on piracy, the more problems of piracy they will cause themselves.

[Dem Pyros]

Another no-brainer to prevent piracy: stop jacking up prices. Half the reason people pirate things is because they don't want to spend so much money.

No, the WHOLE reason is because they don't want to spend ANY money if they have the option not to. This will remain the case no matter how much they lower the prices.

...not necessarily. A lot of pirates will pirate a game because it's fifty dollars versus one that is twenty dollars, simply because they don't have the budget to and/or don't want to spend that much for a software that cost less than five dollars to physically manufacture (not produce).

[skeeder]

price is another debate.

companies now can't setup mario with 8 blocks and call it good...have you seen the previews of games coming out? graphics are off the wall, physics, AI, etc. All of this requires more coding, more layering, more texturing (some of us know what this is like here) and honestly probably more money to get the game or idea off the ground.

What I hate is the lack of good games...I BOUGHT HL2...and that was the last game I've BOUGHT (with exceptions to TF2 etc). I loved COD4...its on my "to buy list if I ever have money" but honestly besides that game not much makes me think...yeah $40 is worth it for a 10 hour game...or a 20 hour game....nope...give me a GOOD multiplayer too...then I'm interested...

Game designers have something up there butt that their game has "replay-ability" well, unless its got a good multiplayer, people normally lose interest.

[mengzor]

Honestly it stupid. Hackers work around it. You want a solid system? Ask for steam to put your product on it. Make it so its only offered through steam and that to play online it has to be a server registered with steam.
Valve did it right...

^This.

I kind of find it funny that this sort of stuff deters people from buying the product if they had intention to and that the pirates will eventually get it anyway.

[Dem Pyros]

companies now can't setup mario with 8 blocks and call it good...have you seen the previews of games coming out? graphics are off the wall, physics, AI, etc. All of this requires more coding, more layering, more texturing (some of us know what this is like here) and honestly probably more money to get the game or idea off the ground.

What I hate is the lack of good games...I BOUGHT HL2...and that was the last game I've BOUGHT (with exceptions to TF2 etc). I loved COD4...its on my "to buy list if I ever have money" but honestly besides that game not much makes me think...yeah $40 is worth it for a 10 hour game...or a 20 hour game....nope...give me a GOOD multiplayer too...then I'm interested...

Game designers have something up there butt that their game has "replay-ability" well, unless its got a good multiplayer, people normally lose interest.

Have you ever played Bioshock?

My god, that was an amazing game. Great story, shocking twist, terric gameplay, and an environment that almost made me crap my pants when that hydropsphere came over that ridge.

But once I beat it...I didn't want to play it again so soon. I just finished beating it on Hard without Vita-chambers, and that's why its on my mind, but still. It was an amazing game, but just had no replayability value.

Now COD4? I can literally beat that story in under two hours. It's a complete joke. If I want to buy a game that is almost entirely multiplayer only, I'd buy one that actually LASTS and continues having value months and months afters its release date. Team Fortress 2 anyone?