Spore DRM - Page 3

I don't doubt that, i just get pissed when any subject is defined in black and white, and insist on the subject is, at least, lack of vision. This is a discussion, and when two intelligent people discuss, different conclusions are made. In his case he defend it as a black or white matter, immediately pushing the reason to himself, blocking different opinions.

That always tick me off. It is as draconian as Securom itself.

1- You will have a very boring life.
2- You lack Critical Thinking, witch is a greater sin.
3 -Ill stop here due to this being a IT forum and not going even more off topic.

Like said before, you lack Critical Thinking, and you think generalizing is right.
Not it isn't. It is easy. Most times the easy way is different of the correct way.
Im not putting sjorner on the same level as myself. I have good fulfilled life so, and i will keep having it.
I do not know sjorner personally. This is a internet forum, where we are somewhat anonymous.
It is good because different opinions and arguments can be made in a good fashion that conclusions can be achieved.
Again, barring the way to discussion, or taking to extremist ends, is counter-productive, and stupid from various different angle.

Do not talk as you reached a level of superior enlightenment. The only ones that do that at the moment, or suffer from deep schizophrenia, or belong to the Church of Scientology.

I advice you to search this forum for other posts, witch produced much better discussion than this one. RobWright, Ohsnap, purplerat, martin, and many others participated in a excellent level, producing good results.

yay...

there many horror stories of the securom DRM

also if the whole piracy thing was as clear cut and black and white as some users here said it is then we wouldn't have any forum topics about it

how many times do you see people protesting Americas use of the constitution

To be fair, Razor constantly comes up with new and ever more absurd defenses for piracy.

Steam, when it is is working correctly, does let you play offline with no preparation. I have never had a problem getting it to work in offline mode. Apparently some people have had problems, but I never have.

I am willing to accept the risk of losing the service some day. Yeah it would suck massively, but I also doubt seriously that it will happen in even 10 years time. Right now it is raking in money hand over fist and proving to be a valuable asset to both users and publishers.

The last time I installed my computer, I just downloaded and installed Steam and Impulse, queued up all my games, and the next day I could play any of the games I had bought through those services. It was wonderful and saved me tons of time sitting there swapping out disks and futzing with keys.

Also Steam and Securom are not similar.

I can install my steam games on as many systems as I want as many times as I want. If I couldn't then I wouldn't support Steam. The core complaint with Securom is that you have 3 installs and that is it. That is quite simply unacceptable and I refuse to be a part of that. Also Steam, as I pointed out, provides a wonderfully useful service to it's customers. Securom does nothing for the end user except for make them jump through extra hoops.

but steam doesn't change the fact that the company can do mass seppuku and take their servers with them

then your games wont work properly anymore

while a drm free game will last forever

if there going to shorten the shelf life of the game then they should adjust the price accordingly also


which means steam could go out of business tomorrow or 2 days from now and you will loose your games, or at least much of it's functionality and you wont be able to reinstall them or upgrade your pc or many any significant changes to the OS if you want to keep the now crippled games

and there's no way to assume that a company will still be running 5-10 years from now

every empire through out history thought their empire was too powerful to ever fall, only to be wiped out the next day by another army or internally from corruption

nuclearshadow, you do realise AFAIK you can just phone up EA and get it reactivated if you use up the initial three right?

stfu.

Whatever your views about piracy doesn't change the fact that the game was cracked and released to bittorrent days before the official launch. All the DRM did jack squat against that and pissed off a whole lot of legitimate customers in the process. It was a complete failure, plain and simple.

And strangestranger, nothing in the world is black and white. You'll realise that when you get older I guess.

ha!

everything in life is black and white, only humans invent shades of gray.

Humans also invented morality, the idea that things are right or wrong. So what's your point?

That's just ignorant, and it doesn't make any sense.

Like I said, when you're older you'll realise the world is not as simple as you think. Until then I'm not going to derail this thread any further.

You are still too young.

Ill give you something to think about it.

Right or Wrong due to being concepts do not exist.

That philosophy/idea is over 2000 years. Start there. Leave this forums and start reading. Go outside.

Go read a bit of Kant, Kierkgaard and Socrates for starters. The morality you imply started with Aristoteles that based the "Cristian" morality. Witch you seem to base your right and wrong concepts and dogmas. You just posted a dogmatic line of thinking so ill believe it might be funded by religion. If you base your morality in the Cristian mythology pick up Aristotles first.

Start with Socrates, Plato, Aristoteles.By that order. Then you can pass to the other boys and girls.

We didn't invent morality its actually a instinct. Animals even show signs of morality of course not as complex as humans but its there.

Anyways back on topic. If you really examine the logic behind the activation limit its just pure bull. The cd-key is tied to the account so its not like even the legit cd-keys could be shared and lets face it 10,000 people logging in to the same account at once would make for a obvious ban. So where does the activation limit actually come into protecting against piracy? Whether the game is cracked or not I can't see any logic behind it.

If the game wasn't cracked those who wished to pirate it wouldn't be able to play anyways nor could anything on a legit copy go and help them in anyway. So where is the logic in the activation here?

But since the game was cracked now the people skip the whole activation process and don't need a legit cd-key or account. The only limit they have is they can't use sporepedia.

In both scenarios the only people hurt by the activation limit is the legit users. It never has nor will it ever effect piracy.

Because it is debatable. "Right" is determined by what an individual or group collectivly decides is the correct action to take in a given situation, and "wrong" is generally considered any other outcome to that same event. Any argument that degenerates to the point where "because its the right thing to do" is uttered, is an argument that has already been decided in the other direction.

So,by your logic,you can't say that i am wrong. You are still a human. You are incapable of deciding right or wrong.

You should read, do some thinking, and see other lines of thought. Not having Critical Thinking or at least a capability of unbiased analysis (witch you don't, you jumped the black/white, and now justified) and afterward, spew backed conclusions. We had in this forum much "quasi-flaming" discussion from both parts, for longer, without derailing, due to facts and due to each side backing up its statements. I like to discuss with smart people that disagree with me.

That sounded almost as fascist view of the things. Burn the books !! Burn them all !! Because you say they are wrong !!!
Ask any physicist what is your common sense worth ? Nothing.
Common sense has its uses but you must pass over it. It is reliable to cross the road, not to have a somewhat inteligent discussion.

Again, you still don't understand what i said as Critical Thinking.

[/quotemsg]

You lack both. Your opinion do not have any factual insider, no conclusion, just hammering of black/white opinions. As i said earlier, only freaking idiots politicians can do that. Prove facts with opinions. Because they are usually idiots.

You believe that is the right thing. Prove it. By your terms and dogmas you just posted. I'm all ears.

Right and wrong are already abstract concepts. To clearly delineate them is to imply that they are concrete, which they fundamentally are not.

In most things, if not all things, there are obvious shades of gray. I understand your point about piracy, but there are viewpoints that disagree with you.

Lets look at it this way...
There are aspects of any purchase decision that could be beneficial or detrimental to the majority. Lets explore some of them.

If a company has taken too many liberties with it's DRM and is clearly being abusive to the consumer, it is actually a very detrimental thing to buy their product, because it is in effect, giving them permission to continue to be abusive.

Downloading a game and playing it without paying for it is somewhat detrimental because it validates the impression of developers that piracy is costing them substantial sales. Also, assuming you could afford the game, it did cost them a sale.

Now, having defined the two opposing positions let us see which one is black and which one is white... Assuming each has to be one or the other, both end up black. That is not how the world works however.

It is more like this.

Buy DRM'ed game --- Wait until DRM is removed or reduced --- Don't buy game --- pirate the game now and buy it when DRM is removed or reduced --- Pirate the game because you couldn't afford it --- Pirate the game despite being able to afford it with no intent to purchase.

The whitest position on this line is probably Wait until DRM is removed or reduced or Don't buy the game. The blackest positions are the two extremes. No options are entirely beneficial or detrimental to everyone so no options are entirely black or white. This is what is meant by shades of gray. Things can be a very dark gray and still be gray.

In my world view, buying a game that has abusive DRM has an unjust adverse affect on the world. Would you say that that action is categorically wrong?

It has an adverse affect on everyone because it encourages the developer to continue to use abusive DRM. It has an adverse affect on the people who refuse to support that DRM and therefore don't play a game they very much were looking forward to. It has an adverse affect on people who bought the game not knowing that they were going to be shafted, it has an adverse affect on anyone who is a potential customer of any upcoming games published by the same publisher.

I would daresay it has more of an adverse affect than pirating does.

if you are starving then that is your problem unless ofthers provide charity. if every starving person were to steal from the vendor then he would not make money to eat himslef and so everyone would become to be in the same position.

Philosophers know damn all, they think too much without applying common sense in the same way as the paradox involving the hare and the tortoise.

that view is alright as long as you are not in the minority, as soon as circumstances change and you are in the minority then you would feel it is wrong so it cannot work, there is always one set of circumstance that is the best fit, that is what is right.

how you can reason that it is right that anyone should for no reason other than alot of other people do not agree with them, suffer i do not know.

that has been said and thrown out before. with a changing world so do terms change to fit the circumstances. as with not being able to take something froma shop without paying is theft, so is using software without paying.

it is no different and again, people like you are trying to muddy the waters to make up for your weakness.

the topic is not big, it is very easy to understand and very simple. stealing is wrong, you can steal data, and you can steal IP. no if's not buts.

From what I have seen of the games forums is that you have to call them up and it takes forever to get connected to someone. Sometimes after all of that you still will may never get anyone.

I recall one story on MassEffect forums a guy used all his actviations he called expecting to get a more activations and they ended up trying to sell them to him. Needless to say he was not pleased. So basically we may have to pay a unknown price just to continue to play. I don't know the number but I assume its in the manual somewhere.

I heard the direct download versions have the exact same protection with no differnces whatsoever.

Super evil DRM sickens me. Sure, DRM to prevent copying discs can be used but the whole securom thing? *cough* Sony Rootkit *cough*

Pirates WILL crack the DRM. Loyal customers won't. Pirates should pay without hassle. Loyal customers won't even be able to play properly.

If the activation system MUST be used why not have the ability to deactivate a machine like in abode CS3 or itunes?

Could the installs take hardware profiles and etc.? If it matches, no reactivation credit loss thingy.

Its obvios they haven't thought it though. DRM should be invisible. Users shouldn't have to crack their games to run them!

one thing i would like to see tried is for a company to release a game in two variants one with drm the other with a simple cd key approach or something similar and see which sells better.

obviously we know the answer but would be at least visible evidence to add weight to the arguments.

wow... alot has happened in the last few days. Sorry at all, I was afk for a bit. Had a new son brought into the world and thus more important things came calling.

so... where are we?

well, besides radnor accuses me of being black and white simply because I believe this piracy discussion boils down to a black and white decision... and he says I'm too young to make these calls... seems rather a juvenile argument (at best) and so I'll ignore it and his weak attempt at a follow up recovery. He then goes on to assume that stranger is a sheltered kid that does not read and stands on that argument until it has no more breath.

stranger has declared he is an athiest (which I already knew) and now we are proceeding similar to a talk that him and I had years ago (has it been that long man?)

purplerat jumps in (after ignoring his seemingly intelligent inner voice) with the idea that evolution causes this thought of right and wrong to always change...

infornography (I think) said that giving cracked copies is like posting up missing manhole cover warnings... and so is actually a moral "good".


That is the rough version as I read it currently, so here I go:

@radnor: I have made it pretty clear that in the current context, pirating or buying is a yes/no or black/white decision. Still is. I was not bringing overall morality into it, rather simply saying that you pirate or you don't and pirating is against the law. This implies that (according to the laws most of us live under) there is NO justification for piracy.

There is justification to simply "vote with your wallet" and show the DRM sellers that it is not wanted. That is it, no further discussion about morality can be brought in except to muddy the water and bring in all manner of other crap to confuse the issue and help you sleep at night with your thieving ways. (based on my interpretation that you pirate regularly and require this type of justification... if you don't pirate, then I apologize)

@stranger: Kudos for not using drugs or doing wrong... While I have not had a perfect track record on law breaking, I am always pressing forward with grace and forgiveness to succeed. In that I also have never used drugs etc and so applaud you. (and radnor... don't even bother assuming my age, my life is full of many things including the wisdom that only time gives) I agree w/ you (as you already know) that there IS an objective "right" and "wrong" that we all strive for. Both evolution and creation support this idea (as I'll explain) as do many philosophers that are not just trying to be argumentative.

@purplerat: I agree that evolution talks of change, but always in the context of making something "better". The idea that a "weaker" thing will die off and the "stronger" change will win. This actually implies that by there being a "better" way, there must be an ultimate "perfect" way. (else there is no scale and thus you can't have "better", only different) The way that darwin laid things out actually points at there being a "right" way and a "wrong" way. However dictated by the environment this may be in his theory... it is still an objective right that forces all things to behave within those parameters. Again... implying that there is a black and white delineation of things.

@infornog: I agree... but only if you already bought the game and the others that were downloading your crack had also bought the game. With laws in place currently there is no way to get a game w/o buying it unless you break the law. However wrong that law may be (depending on country/society that has it) you are subject to the laws of your land. If you want to go against that you have one of two choices (again w/ the black and white, lol) you can break the law and go "fugitive" and essentially discount your homeworld and live in total anarchy (as philosophically that is where you end up once you walk that road) or you politically/judiciously get the law overturned. Either way carries risks and in no way guarantees a win for you.

My own personal beliefs about all morality in all of life, in this context there is no way to see anything other than a digital decision. 1 or 0. While digitally you can represent "gray"... it is only representing it, faking it if you will and always can be boiled down to the base components it is derived from. In this case, any moral ambiguity introduced into the discussion of DRM making you pirate is only a smoke screen and clouds your view to seeing what truly matters... and so you see that piracy is not justified.

end of line.

lol... tbh I don't remember what it started about, but altruism indeed was what it ended up being about. Seems soooo long ago.

I have more of a problem with the one account tied to one game. Would rather have seen it be more like five accounts to one game. The DRM issue (and it is an issue) for me is the number of installations before you have to call in. If they would of just put it at ten instead of three I don't think we would of seen as much of a backlash. Three is a little idiotic and a little overboard.
I wonder how hard it would be to have a DRM that makes it near impossiable for the copy to be used through Bittorrent? ie: There would be a code ingrained into the game itself that if an application such as Bittorrent is used to make a copy of the software then it would corrupt the software on the recieving host thus making the software useless. To me that seems where most of the pirated copies are being spread through. Would make sence to me that they would want to make the biggest impact on Piracy with as little damage to the main base as possiable. Don't know if it can be done but to me that's where they should focus their energy at.
None of us are perfect. It's what makes us human. If you think you are then you are a hypocrit and that's even worse than being a Pirate.
Spore has a lot of good things they did right. We as a whole just should point out the features that PC Gamers love and would like to see more of.
I love the no DVD to run the game option. I love that the Orange Box and Sins also have this feature. I hope more Games will continue this trend.
I would also love to see an option to run the Game from DVD with a small install file. Basically, two options would be available when you install the Game would make the system perfect.
I also like the Account feature and I could see this progressing to something that would make future installations a piece of cake. I would like to see an Industry Wide PC Gaming Account System. The account would be an actual email account that you have to enter when you buy a PC Game. It would look like "name"@PCGaming.org. You enter how many computers you have with a max limit of 10 and then you would recieve all your Patches, Game News (related to the Games you buy), etc. all on this one account. When you installed a Game you would just enter your account and password and the Key would auto register.
Either way I found Spore to be a Great Game. It has considerable depth and is no way near five hours long. Me and my kids are on our third day of playing and still haven't beaten the thing. My one son is a power player while I find I'm spending most of my time on just the creation part. The first four parts should be considered just the begining.