EA think only 0.2% are bothered by DRM!

Don't know if anyone else has clocked this elsewhere yet, but EA's "official statistics" show that 99.8% of gamers don't care about DRM.

That CAN'T be right, even with all the casual gamers playing The Sims...

http://www.custompc.co.uk/news/605 [...] ys-ea.html

I think once people find out about it (can't install, whatever) 99.8% are bothered. It's how many will actually *find* the DRM.

Also, does that statistic incorporate that 60% of EA's gamers pirated it in the first place, 20% of them because of the DRM?

With crashes, most people blame their computer instead of the game. Besides, the biggest effect of EA's drm isn't actually stability problems. For example, EA's drm for Spore has 3 install limit, most people haven't reached yet, so they aren't bothered. Once they reach 3 times, percentage will rise. Those things take time.

Besides, since when are "official" statistics from a major corporation who has every reason to fabricate it, to be trusted? Not to mention that "99.8%" is the standard percentage used by every company to avoid legal consequences for deception (kills 99.8% of all bacteria, 99.8% of all costumers report weight loss... etc). It comes from nowhere. Judging by the pace of sales decline for games like Spore (initially, compared to a week later, when news of the 3-install drm became widespread), the amount of people bothered by it is more like 50%. It'd be an educated guess, compared 99.8%, which is a bad joke. Other games in the past didn't decline in sales at nearly as fast a pace.

it doesnt help combat piracy you nugget, it enforces piracy because it cause a big enough issue for most people to consider piracy over installing DRM. most of us format our computers allot and will use the 5 activations very quickly then we will be penalized by a call centre in india that dont understand english, so we can play the game.

the other issue is that there is nothing on the box to saw that the game is installing Securom, therefore in most countries this is against the law, then what about the people who do not have internet(yes there are still people out there without internet, or do not connect there gaming machine to the net).

*sigh*

Please reserve your comments for subjects that you have more than a 5 year-olds grasp on.

For me DRM it's a real pain in the A** since my gaming PC isn't connect to the internet. And I format my PC almost once a month.
And since this PC isn't connect to the internet it contains sensitive/confidential data and I don't want any software to be install that might cause problem and that I can't control...

And if you read the EULA and decline the licence agreement you can't install the game on your PC and where I live you can't get a refund for a PC game if the box is open.