Spore DRM - Page 4

Last message on previous page:
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.

@cuddles: tbh the "one account tied to one game" model is what steam is... it works and is (largely) accepted. I don't think that increasing the install limit to 10 (or even 100) on others like securom would be as widely accepted as steam's "no limit" model. Steam had it's early growing pains but now is solid and (virtually) hassle free compared to any other option... it is still rather invasive though and does attach one game to a single account. If you lose internet connectivity w/o updating and setting up steam for that mode of operation you are screwed I think. So far it is still a ton better than securom or others of that type...

no, god no, that was Razor. You had a bizarre nonsensical analogy laced with hyperbole and you thought it was me? Now you got me paranoid about how I come off.

My argument was that the very concept of morality is fuzzy at best and stripping any topic related to morality to strictly black and white positions is frankly absurd. I also stated that the way I see it, knowingly buying a game that utilizes abusive DRM is just as bad if not worse than pirating it for the overall health of the industry.

I would say that I found the philosophers who were always trying to pigeonhole every subject into polar opposites to be the most argumentative and combative. Those who strove for understanding the shades of gray were usually the more level headed.

This is a complete misrepresentation of evolutionary theory. Nothing in it implies in any way that there is a right way and a wrong way to do anything. Actually it states just the opposite. There are many MANY ways of doing things, some are better suited to the current conditions than others and when those randomly occur, they get selected for naturally. There are not only two ways to go and there isn't only one good way or even a single best way.

There are many events in history that would disagree with this premise. Some of the biggest criminals and criminal organizations can utilize law and legal systems far more adeptly than the honest ones. Also most times that there is a successful armed or forceful disagreement with current law, new laws and order are quickly established. Anarchy never lasts for long. You overgeneralize your arguments and weaken your position as a result.

right and wrong is not always a polar proposition nor is it always a direct continuum. In many case the most right options lie towards the middle or off to one side, but extreme positions are usually not the most functional or useful ones.

everything you said is fine apart from this bit, the company will see your pirate copy as a lost sale and you will inadvertently support there case for DRM...... EA doesnt know that you bought a copy then downloaded it, they just think someone bought a copy then someone pirated it and they lost a sale, therefore they should put in more DRM

I scanned the rest of the thread, so sorry if I missed it amongst the philosophy:

What happens if you buy a used copy (say off of ebay), try to install it, and the key wont work.

Will EA give you new insatllations if you call them?

And even then chances are they would charge you for the activation.

My point was simply that taking the position that there is a single right or even a single best answer is folly. There are usually multiple answers that are roughly equally "good" and the value of how good an option is depends on multiple things all of which can vary greatly.

For instance, some see buying software that encourages the industry toward more draconian measures to be the good thing to do. I view this very negatively. The "truth" is completely subjective and often varies dramatically from person to person when it comes to matters of morality and ethics. As with evolution the fitness of a particular change depends on the circumstances and situation. Where in one circumstance a certain choice would be beneficial, in another it could be very detrimental.

to boil it down, all I am really saying is that to take the position that there are only black and white positions to everything is to ignore differing circumstances in just about everything. I recognize that there may be certain issues where it might be black and white, but I don't think the piracy debate is one of those. There are positions that are clearly pitch black, but there are also many that, based on certain perspectives, would be less clear and issues such as supporting DRM that could easily muddy up the waters a good bit.

I would not say that a person who buys Spore is in the black or completely in the wrong, but I do think they do more harm than good to the industry. Already we have a shade of gray.

People who buy the game and then download a pirate copy, would inadvertently also be providing that pirate copy to other pirates who might not have paid for it (due to how bit torrent works), but I would not say that they are clearly completely wrong in their actions either.

If you refuse to see the gray in a situation then you will fail to understand the motivations and behaviors of most people.

I've argued before and still maintain that a large part of why digital piracy has become such a problem is moral ambiguity towards it. The average person is just simply not innately turned off by digital piracy. Most "normal" people do not spend the time we do debating the issue and to them, as viewed on the surface alone, copying digital content is harmless. Think about it from the perspective of somebody who is mostly ignorant of the issue. Making a copy cost you nothing but it also does not directly take anything away from the creator.
Even when we sit here and debate the issue all attempted analogies fail because really nothing else compares to digital piracy. So to the average person with nothing else to compare piracy to and left to make an uninformed decision on their own wouldn't you expect them to do what's in their best interest? What reason is their for somebody who hasn't otherwise put real thought to the issue of piracy to reject it?
Compare it to book reports written by early school aged children. Most likely they will be rampant with plagiarism. Why not? What better way to show your teacher that you read a book than to directly lift parts of it into your report. Even when you explain why plagiarism is bad a lot of people have trouble understanding why or even how to tell when they've done so. I remember critiquing class mates essays in college and seeing plagiarism done purely out of ignorance. I only tried pointing it out once before I realized that even at that level a lot of people just don't get it.
I'm not trying to analogize plagiarism and game piracy, there are similarities but are not the same. What I am saying is that if people do not understand the issue it's unrealistic to expect them to make the "right" decision, especially if the "wrong" one is the one that most benefits them. And the newer an issue is the less understanding there is about it amongst the general population. When it comes to something as old as stealing a goat the morals are pretty well understood (now I sound like Razor ). Plagiarism is somewhat newer - I guess as old as written language but really for the general public only in the last two centuries or so when reading and writing became common. Before that passing stories and information by word of mouth was the norm. Not until those words were put on paper was there any real concern about giving the originator credit. Now we have the copying of digital content, something brand new which to the masses has only been readily available for the past decade or less. And it's nothing like stealing goats or plagiarism. Who knows, maybe we are the people identifying and molding a whole new set of morals.

I worked at Best Buy for 2+ years and it's an utter schock for many that PCs do not come with Office. In fairness though you used to get a lot more software with a new computer, including Office. Whether it was bundled into the price or not was another thing, but no Office included in Windows is more of an anti-trust issue than MS not wanting to give their software away.

Thus One Note and Microsoft Works was born. Anyway.

I like my computers like my scotch, straight, not a single drop of water. Or bloat ware.

Open Office FTW !!!!

95% of the users use below 10% of Microsoft Office total capabilities. There are several SP for Office and nobody complains. Why?

Because Open Office, One note and Microsoft Works are more than enough.

Eh? I must have missed the point where Office was bundled with windows? I thought both works and office have only ever been "optional" extras...

From memory works was originally a dos package and very mickey mouse... It was no Wordstar Office was released quite a bit later, by that time windows was becoming quite widely adopted.

I remember when wordstar, dbase and lotus 1-2-3 were the standard business suite, and pirated rampantly...

Bingo... therein is my issue with most of the opinions here.

(editing of the quote is mine)

I agree that w/o education you can't make an informed decision... and if you are in the area of ambiguity you mentioned above (which most are IMO) then you are now coming from that foundation and (probably) thinking from that ambiguous state of morality. That means that you will try to conform any new knowledge on this "new" issue to your current state of morality on the subject. Most are not willing to let go of their current beliefs when presented with something new and so struggle in this question as they try to fit it within the current state of their heart on it. To remain teachable we all must consider that what we believe CAN be wrong and test new thoughts against it. (basic scientific principal that most... including scientists forget) This includes whatever moral foundation we stand on.

lol, agreed.


basically, with the current laws in place it is stealing. So... while we cannot directly compare the whole of the piracy situation with plagiarism or goat-theft (as rat said and I agree w/) the fact that all of it (by law, currently) is considered stealing then there IS a comparison that can be made.

lol... nice stretch.

ok, if you bring a biblical idea into it and say that Jesus multiplying the fish and loaves, then we must look at who "made" the fish and loave, which for that is going back to God as the creator of everything that was multiplied there (the grain that the bread was made from etc) so He was actually giving away His own creation (that He also allowed man to use to make the bread etc) so you could almost look at it as a GPL kinda thing...

but I digress... you are dead on I think with the view of sharing vs. stealing. I think that hits the nail on the head when you listen/read so many that are outraged that they cant give away music. Or are pissed when they are not allowed to freely copy a book for a term paper etc... again, that moral ambiguity to rules and regs.

rofl... divine appointment, that's just what pirates need; Godly justification.

lol, isn't that scientology?

Umm actually they did. Just scroll down a few threads and you'll see where somebody just today resurected a thread from May discussing what type of DRM EA would be using for Spore. You can also find info on it on the EA website.

You just posted it.

"... end user license agreement required to play.
...
EA terms & conditions and features updates can be found at WWW.EA.COM."

What's so unfair about that. The box flat out says you must agree to their terms and directs you to where to find them.

It's perfectly fair because when you buy the game what you are really getting is a single user license. Meaning it's intended to only be install once on a single PC. There are no guarantees that you will be able to install on multiple PCs or transfer the license. There is no reason for the company to expect you to need to install the game more than once. The obvious retort to this is "What if my PC crashes?". Well that's really not the game company's problem.
Now most companies understand this and allow for additional installs, but the key word is that they "allow" it, it's by now means guaranteed. Even Spore allows for 3 such instances and even more liberal use of the license. Beyond that they still will allow for additional installs in some cases.

Just imagine when Batman The Dark Night comes out on DVD, or any other piece of multimedia you've been waiting for months to released, and you only limited to 3 viewings. It's absolute CRAP! Why even spend the money? Sure it gets old but its always nice to revisit, especially if you have fond memories of a certain title, and when you come back and need to call the company who will keep you on hold and end up treating you like a criminal to use it again, it becomes way to much of a mundane hassle. At least I know where EA stands and they will never see another dollar from my pocket again. Lets hope this is a lesson to other gaming software companies.

No, single user license more specifically means single machine. Just like with Windows. You can install it on 1 PC with as many seperate users using that PC at different times. Otherwise what you are saying is that ONLY the person who bought that particular copy can use it. In that case you couldn't let a friend play a game licensed to you on your PC but you could install it on his as long as only you play it. Which way seems more practical?

At one time the phrase which went with a single user license was "like a book" (That term was at one time present in many EULA's!, you could install it on as many machines as you wanted, and any one was allowed to use it so long as only one copy was being used per license at any time! Which at the time was held to make perfect sense, striking a fair balance between fair use, customer value and the companies income.

Its worth noting that this was back in the days when a company was considered advanced for owning a single computer instead of a type writer... and yes I did get my typing qualifications on a type writer (I had actually completely forgotten that I had those...)

You can't make a license between a company and a machine. It's a user license, for a single user, where a user is a person. You can install it 20 times if you want, so long as only one copy of it is being used at any one time. If more than 1 copy is being used simultaneously then there must be more than 1 person using it, which is a breach of your license agreement. For example, from EA's EULA agreement: "However, you may use only one copy of the software on
a single computer at any given time. ". The word is use, not install.

Well you need to connect to the internet every week or so to keep the game working. So why not just scrap the install limit and just connect the game to a central server and only allow one copy of that CD key to run at any given time... Just like steam but more primitive.

In fact just put everything on steam and be done with it, install caps suck, more so when you try to install the game 5 years after you last played it.

Well if we keep playing the reductionist game we'll go all the way down to a license being permission to install the game 1 single time on 1 machine. Both practically and legally, this is not how it works. Nowhere in EA's terms of service does it state that the license may only be used once, or that the game may only be installed once. The only rule mentioned is that each license permits you to use one copy of the game at a time.

As you said, there are different types of licenses out there. But I've yet to run into a license for a single player game that limits you to a single install, or a single machine at a time.

Anyway, this whole bit is a pretty trivial side-arguement to the main issue. If DRM were successful in preventing piracy I'd be more quick to embrace it, but it's been a total failure and will continue to fail. And all the while it's eating away at what we as paying customers are allowed to do with the product we've bought. And all the while people will tell us "Hey look, it's not so bad.", then it gets worse, "It's not so bad, you can still live with it.", then it gets worse...

and my arg for that is: if you don't like it (either drm OR the elua) then don't buy it OR PIRATE IT!

if ppl quit buying then they get the message (as only wallet-voting can give) and will change.

if you pirate it (and thus break the law) then you encourage them to find some way to combat it, which currently is poor DRM.

EDIT: above was @ copasetic

Right, so what's the problem when I say the license agreement is tied to a user, not a PC?

Then not only are they targetting the wrong market with this DRM, they're doing it 20 years too late. That's a much bigger problem on consoles, where playing a pirated version of a game isn't just a simple matter of downloading it. PC games come with natural DRM in the form of online content, which is linked to a user rather than a computer or an install. So even if you lend the game to a friend he won't be able to play online without taking your account, which prevents you from playing online. As Spore shows even single player games can benefit from an online component. And best of all this DRM works without frustrating and annoying your customers.

And it might be worth noting that Spore's DRM has earned it the privelege of being the most pirated game ever. It's working, is it?

I didn't buy it, or pirate it. Which is a shame, I was looking forward to it. Though my disappointment was made a little easier by the fact that it's been dumbed down so much.