Spore DRM - Page 2

Oh for sh*t's sake....

News just broke that Red Alert 3 will also have SecuROM. Fantastic. I should have expected as much since it's an EA title, but still, I was holding out hope...

the only thing that seems to be coming out of this debate is the overriding impression that:
Steam>Every other form of DRM ever concieved for singleplayer games

Let me just fix that statement for you:

"If they could guarantee they would get away with it, and a copy of the money would magically regenrate in the bank, and they hurt no one they would not have hurt by being hobos, then actually, I think 80% of people would"

Huh? I'm not sure what you're writing about here. What indepedent game creator are you referring to? I'm confused, please help me clear this one up.

ah damn, youve just wrecked my day, im really looking forward to Red alert 3 but if its got securom then i wont be buying it.... and yes i have had really bad experiances with securom (it locked both my dvd drives i couldnt remove dvds or read them)

if you pirate the game because of the DRM then you are SUPPORTING the case FOR DRM...instead support the case AGAINST DRM by not buying it or pirating it.

Pirating has been an issue for ages, and DRM's have been annoying for just as long. This new wave of DRM coming out is just completely intrusive to a point that many will rather just not buy the products. With the state of the PC industry, I really think it's a mistake to continue to push intrusive DRM down our throats.

The problem is that average joe consumer is unaware of the issue. He just finds it out way down the line if at all. Let's face it most regular computer users rarely reinstall Windows, and I know a lot of people that keep their computers for at least 3 years. In three years time, most people have moved on to a different game. It really just impacts the people that are the most vocal: hardcore gamers that upgrade their own computers, or mess around with Windows enough to have to reinstall every so often.

I must admit that people are doing a good job of spamming the users reviews of sites such as Newegg. Hopefully this will scare off the average joe, and maybe it will affect EA's bottom line enough that they will reconsider their tactic. Until then they will continue to create more intrusive and severe DRM's until they finally slow down pirates.

To me though it is only a matter of time until developers stop developing for the PC altogether. If they can't recuperate their investment, well then it's not worth it. People that say "I will teach them, I will pirate it" are really just doing a diservice to the rest of us. If you want to protest don't buy. Consoles are cheaper and harder to pirate, it amazes me that there is still a PC market at all sometimes.

RobWright I seriously am hoping you're joking about Red Alert 3 having DRM. That's not funny, you know, considering I'm most likely going to buy the game when it comes out.

extreme epic epicness
http://www.amazon.com/Spore-Pc/dp/ [...] Promotions

1750 1 star reviews and climbing

pirates wont pay for the game anyway but when you use bad drm, you loose customers who would have otherwise paid so you hurt your self with lost legit customers who may turn to piracy to get a DRM free version

game company owners don't understand English, the only language they understand is money

and in that language +$= Yes and $<=0= No

ea doesn't have a large scale call center so you can face extremely long hold times and will often have to deal with workers who wont listen you and wont give you another activation, causing you to call again and wasting another hour on hold in hopes of getting a competent worker on the phone

it is extra hassles that the legit customers have to go through that the pirates never notice due to their copies not having the horrid DRM

while i understand developers needs for protecting their software, there has to be a limit

would you shop at a store that required you to strip naked at the front door in order to prevent people from stealing, then when leaving, you have to get x-rayed and probed in order to make sure you didn't steal, or would you go to the store thats right next to it that only has a rfid security scanner near the front door

activation of any kind is bad
if the company decided it doesn't want to pay for those activation servers anymore then you wont be able to activate your games, your game can stop working at any time

it is annoying enough to have to call microsoft in order to activate windows

we want to keep the number of places needing to be called down to a minimum

also if your not in the US, it is very expensive to call EA support especially when you get stuck on hold

+ the process of proving to them that you are not a thief which they assume you are and treat you as such and provide compassion one would give to a thief

DRM sucks and ea is too smug to see that

the trend of having bad reviews and poor game sales and developers crying out piracy for the reason why their sales were so lonw, is very common now

it happened with many games in the past.

thousands vowed to not buy a game unless the DRM was removed.

the developers didn't listen,

then when the game sells poorly they cry piracy for the reason

thats like having someone tell you the city is being evacuated, if you don't come with me, I will leave and wont come back for you, then a news crew finds you 3 days later on the roof of your house trying to escape a flood and you blame you being stuck there on rescue workers only interested in saving them self any nor the people here

in every game that has ever sold poorly, the gaming community has told the company why their game will sell poorly and what to do to fix it but the game companies never listen to the community and when no one buys their crap, they blame it on piracy (well if the gaming company had listened and removed tones down the DRM then their game sales wouldn't have been so poor)

Securom also slows your pc down

if you use the autoruns program to look at your startup you will see that securom will add up to 5 system level drivers in your startup

after installing a drmed game, the amount of memory windows uses at start up goes from 73MB to 105MB and after manually removing the securom crap, it goes back down to 73MB
but then the game wont launch with out using a fixed .exe file
(at startup I only have 10 running processes (11 with task manager opened ))

DRM reduces performance

gamers hate having any needless loss of performance no matter how large or small

DRM is a needless slowdown thats of no benefit to the user, it only serves to degrade their gaming experience

Digital IP is no different than a physical object. According to the Supreme Court, there is no difference. Especially if it tied to a physical object, cd, dvd, flash stick, etc. Digital IP is the same thing. The only thing is, if you sell it, you give up any ecopies you have. Then it is classified as a copyright violation.

good grief.... Yes you are. I gave you a link to the actual blog instead of the links from the several tech sites I saw this posted on. That was the polite thing to do.

I hate piracy too.... but piracy as you have defined it is black and white... while the truth is not that clear. You have several reasons why people pirate software. 1) they cannot afford it... so they pirate it. (not saying that is right... just a fact) 2) they crack it and pirate it because someone said they couldnt. (there are a surprising number of people like this) 3) People got burned on the sony rootkit and really do not want to get burned again. (majority of people). 4) You cannot get a refund once you open the box. Regardless if your computer can run it or not. (this one really burns my ass.) Companies are less ethical than the pirates. They use the excuse of piracy when a game sells poorly when it was actually stupid business decision to use DRM that screw people's computers. The only way that is worse, is sue your customers for buying your game. Only a small percentage actually pirate to get something for free. I never said that you could not hate piracy and DRM too. However the impression I get from you on Second Take is not any better than the companies that wants to make a dollar at all costs and the pirate that wants to get something for free. I feel if you like the game, then buy it. But without the DRM. EA has been doing this for more than 25 years. Back in the commodore 64 days, if you loaded a EA game, it could damage your very expensive floppy drive. That was the main reason people pirated back then. They HAD to remove it so protect their hardware. Well, I feel they are back to their old tricks.

I personally love the cd key way of combating piracy like how Unreal Tournament was packaged. You did not need the cd in the drive any more with a patch they released (yea... blizzard did that with starcraft and diablo2 also). In order to play online, you had to have an unique key. I am fine with that. I feel it was effective... and unobtrusive.

To summarize... I dont condone piracy. However I dont condone companies that think they can do whatever they want for the all mighty dollar, soul be damned. I just wish we could have a real conversation on why there is piracy, instead of treating everyone like a pirate. IMO, if I am going to be treated like one, hell I might as well earn the title. But that is just me.

My take on things? I pay for my software I dont pirate (although I did extensively back in the 8bit days of yore).

I HATE DRM that is in anyway intrusive or negative for the legal customer, doubly so if its completely ineffective due to being cracked. As far as I can see a company prepared to hassle their paying customers for an absolutely minimal reduction in piracy is not deserving of any kind of "goodwill".

All these topics on DRM are a "GOOD THING" in my opinion, more fuel for the fire. The more heat the more attention people pay to the issue. Eventually popular opinion will resolve the issue.

I believe that negative publicity leading to either companies seeing the error of their ways or losing earnings and backing down voluntarily as the most likely scenario. A second also likely option of legal changes which bring down the worst of the obtrusive DRM coming about due to continued mass outrage.

I believe the galvanisation of public reaction is likely to occur sooner than a technically perfect DRM system.

There is NO power in the world as strong as mass public perception. No government or corporation can stand against a large act of dissent. Anyone ever seen the build up to the fall of the Berlin wall?

A big enough company can shake off a few firebrands effortlessly they can put up with thousands boycotting, BUT they cant stand up to a groundswell of negative public opinion. The more the issues talked about the higher the awareness, the higher the emotions involved until either the company sees the writing on the wall or stares defeat in the face. Its started happening already these companies can feel the heat, Look at the way rootkit was dropped or the way EA themselves cut out the continual reactivation thing. They KNOW they can only push so far.

The thing is here you are dealing with humans and EGO's Its very easy for a corporate high flyer to look at sales figures for a year or so of drm activism and say well plenty are still buying, its not hurting us its all hot air. Its just a vocal minority

Of course SOE thought it was a vocal minority protesting when they rode rough shod over their customers with SWG and made huge sweeping and unpopular changes because they felt it was a good idea, in the process they lost the vast majority of their customers, NOW they talk to their customers, pay attention to what the customers say and frankly cater to their wishes! They called it wrong! and paid the price, it does happen. They have since said as much directly and changed their actions accordingly. They will never get back what they lost. They paid their price for ignoring forum venting

Some of these guys have very thick skins, whilst they see some supporting DRM in the forums they hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest. If someone else agrees with your position youve got to be right. right? The wiser heads in the gaming industry can see that bad DRM is not going to pay off long term. But some people will only learn the hard way. Some of the current stuff may well be "posturing" as well, and experimentation, how far can we push them before they say "no".

I'm not arguing about the law and I personally agree that consumers should be able to resell products they legitimately purchased. But if you can't see where right of first purchase and piracy intersect in the world of digital IP, well I'm not going to waste any more keystrokes pointing out something so obvious.
If a game has overly intrusive DRM I just won't buy it. But I don't expect game companies to make games with resale value for me in mind. While I fret to go along with your "Digital IP is no different than a physical object" statement I will humor it enough to say that many physical products are intended for one time or single owner use. How does the "doctrine of first sale" apply to toilet paper or a tooth brush? Both become almost completely worthless for resale once removed from their packaging. If you could find somebody to buy either item used it's perfectly within your rights to sell them. But there's a clear difference between having the right to sell something and being guaranteed that it will have any value.

If you are going to pirate it, at least buy the game first. You don't have to install it and deal with the DRM. Once you buy it, I think you are morally right to use a pirated copy to play with if the DRM sucks. The law might be different so I would use care in admitting to it.

My store bought copy of COD4 would not run on my system and tech support could not get it running so after 5 weeks I had to get a crack to play a game that I owned. Insane.

Rob: I don't think the question should be how much is piracy costing developers but how much is DRM costing developers. I'm not buying Spore only because of it's DRM. I did not buy BioShock until they removed it. Although I bought BioShock, they still lost some $ as I paid $30 for it instead of the $50 I would have on release.

IF DRM was transparent to the user and never failed, I would not mind. Companies have a right to a return on their IP, but not at the expense of paying customers.

Vote with your money, guys. If you have to chose between two games, please buy the one with the least DRM. Stardock and Steam come to mind.

Hi Rob,

I think this guy is talking about the Stardock CEO who said that they were not using DRM so that they would not piss off their paying customers. Here is the article.

http://news.bigdownload.com/2008/0 [...] d-wardell/

It's a good read. It's gets better when you factor in that they had 15 million $ in sales from Sins without DRM!

I don't think so... The idea of business is to fill a need for a profit.

So a good business should sell bug free not DRM'd software to its customers and make money. As a gamer, I want the game, not the DRM and I am willing to pay for the game.

Yes, their are many businesses that go too far and take more for their product then it's worth (Microsoft with its monopoly on OS's comes to mind or Nvidia's high end graphics cards before ATI got its act together) but that's greed and not business. Intel did not dramatically raise prices when AMD dropped the ball last year... the Q6600 might go down to history as one of the best buys ever and that was during a time when ATI had nothing to compete with. Yes, Intel is not perfect, the insane prices of their QX line comes to mind but they're still a good example. So is Stardock with no DRM on any of their games or THQ (the guys who did Supreme Commander) who have announced no DRM on Demigod.

Oh, but I believe it IS as stark as black and white. The fact that most don't see this is the reason this thread even exists and the discussion continues elsewhere. There is NO justification for "piracy"

Coming from a longtime UT fan that preordered each game after playing the original Unreal... I agree that it is unobtrusive. Only after their initial sales tapered off did they release a patch that removed the CD check. It checked the CD usually for the first 6 months or so in order (I assume) to keep sales up. Once sales taper off the piracy binge is usually no longer an issue.

BUT... looking at Epic's response with the craptacular sales of UT3 (relating the monumental size of illegit copies running online from cracks/piracy) it is only further proving that piracy is increasing and "simple" CD checks and key requirements are not enough. Not making any allowances for if a particular game sucks or not, just using the example you mentioned.

I echo Rob's take that DRM sucks but pirates suck just as bad for causing the need for DRM...

Based on reading everyone's thoughts in this thread, the context of this discussion is that "piracy" is getting a copy of a game w/o purchasing it legally from the original owner. (i.e. from a game shop or a digital distribution site sanctioned by the developer/publisher)

In this context, copying something you already purchased is not in that definition. That is another discussion for another time. DRM as laid out by companies like EA is focused on keeping sales from tanking due to pirates illegally obtaining copies. A secondary aspect is to prevent "legit" copying, but that is not the primary goal based on what I read here.

so, for what I said in my previous post, with this definition of piracy: it IS black and white and there is NO justification to do it.

clear up my stand any?

Improving product quality and service is a great way for any industry to gain new customers or keep old ones. What strikes me as bizzare is the idea that it is also the best way to combat piracy. Why should any industry cater to those who are already stealling from them? Obviously any improvent is good either way but to make certain improvents "only for legit customers" would require some sort of a protection scheme anyways.

^We are in agreement that pirating without purchasing is stealing, and pirating after purchasing is OK. So, I suppose it is black and white in that respect. I was introducing the grey area, that the lesser of the 2 evils may be to pirate without buying, since paying for the product encourages DRM. While pirating may justify the stand on increasing DRM, it also shows that DRM is not an effective method to reduce piracy.

The even better option in my opinion, would be to wait for a non-DRM copy to buy, since that shows the publisher that this is the type of product we want to purchase... and of course, doesn't involve stealing.

The reason why Steam is supported by the community, is because it acts as a service to legit customers as much as a piracy reduction tool to devs. While steam makes tweaking a game more difficult at times, it streamlines things like updates, and even checks things like file corruption. Its improving too, Valve plans on adding new features like the ability to put save games online. While Steam is controlling, it tries to give its customers superior service.

Edit: When discussing piracy, I think its important to remember that many pirates don't equate piracy as stealing in the same way that they would look at stealing from a store, bank, or neighbor. They will use all sorts of rationalizations, like "Its OK, since I wasn't going to buy it anyway." "The product wasn't easily available in my area." "What's the point in buying, when the product isn't supported anyway." and in this case "I hate DRM, I have no choice." If I was marketing a game, I'd try to give as many incentives as possible to purchase my software, while eliminating as many pirate rationalizations as possible. DRM only works against sales.

Your right, its a little strange to think this way... but there's a bottom line that pirates are also potential customers. Lost sales. Without great product quality and service, the same audience that would willingly give you money are the same people who see no moral objection in stealing from you.

As far as the protection scheme needed for the "legit content"... it doesn't have to be anything that intrusive (and actually, needs not to be, since intrusive protection would hurt sales). Stardock's Impulse seems like a good example.

Edit: Good point on Steam and similar services' longterm availability.... I had a coworker install Homeworld last night, a 10 year old game, so its possible Steam-like services will be a problem when support is eventually dropped.

There's no guarantee that only company will always be around regardless of current success. When AMD released their 64Bit and X2 CPUs who would have thought they'd be in the mess they are in today? And their better off than a lot of other companies that once ruled their respective market. The fact is that with Steam all of your eggs are in one basket. Even if Steam has better long term viability compared to other game companies it's colapse would be inversly damaging.

While paying up or not is a black&white matter, invasion of privacy isn't. Not all DRM is being questioned here. Securom is.
If i install a game that has securom, and thus crashing my OS and making me lose data, EA should pay up. I earn pretty well per hour, and so should i bill EA for my downtime and repair costs ?

I should.

As i said in earlier piracy thread, Piracy is the competition in a market of exclusives. Like in voting, if you don't , like each candidates or do not agree, you file a unfilled vote. No voting holds no consequences if your angry with the system. So, pirating the game for the hell of it ( and the amazon comments ) are best way to fight it. Piracy is a much broad subject than just paying up or not.

If it is that crystal for you, i think you will never pass the speed limit, never smoked pot, never tried to evade taxes, cheat on exams, etc. Or your just too young to make such a strong statement. I guess the latter might be correct.

Steam system works pretty well. I might need to be online to play, or going offline mode, but i have yet to have problems with them. Yes, i do have a Steam account.

You said it your self. Pay up and BUY the product or NOT. This form DRM resembles beer, you never buy beer, you just rent it. LEGALLY falls under other categories. Don't be so black and white, or most of us will be suspicious that your are GW Bush still looking for weapons of Mass Distraction, armed with a TOms Hardware forums account.

The World isn't black and white. Business is more like a Boom Festival.

""""""""""""""""""what I am saying is that there is NEVER justification for not paying for a product when payment is required.

well """""""""""""

read up on the multitude of 3rd world countries where the piracy of food is highest

and there is a constant battle between the rich store and company others and the extremely poor people (food cost more in Africa than it does in the US when my family took a trip there, it was unexpected but food was very expensive

the reason for this is the food stores and companies have a monopoly over the land where food can be made

so theres almost no space for anyone to grow there own crops

so they take advantage of that and over charge for food, because it is something you just have to buy

(and you can notice this by the store owner having a house thats 5 times bigger than the average Americana home with a giant generator outside of the house and a crap ton of lights around the house in a neighborhood where everyone else is in a rundown shack or apartments that are falling apart ) (in the US, it is nearly impossible for the average store owner to own such a large house)

you will see "piracy" of food go on a lot over there, and the ones that don't take the food with out paying end up like this

I am not condoning piracy but the companies bring it on them self.

everyone has their own reason for pirating but the overall main reason is DRM

people hated it in the 80's and hate it even more now

the developers struck first with increasingly worst DRM and when people had to go through the trouble of removing the DRM, they just gave it out for free so no one would ever have to go through it.

it is not the wrong thing to do, it is nature

look at meerkats. they usually cant detect a snake sneaking around but if 1 of them sees it, they will sound out a warning call so no one else has to deal with the snake and they all can hopefully get to safety

if the meerkat followed DRM, it would just stay silent and run away and leave the snake to attack the rest of it's meerkat friends

same with DRM, it is the harassing snake, 1 person gets attacked by the DRM, but instead of leaving it to attack everyone else. that person sounds out a warning call for everyone else. (and since you cant use your voice on the internet and expect anything to happen. they use the voice of a computer in the form of a cracked version of the game)

it is like when your on a road and you see people put out a sign or something to warn that someone stole a manhole cover or something. they don't have to do it they just do it so no one else gets their car tire stuck in one

also know that if a store or company disrespects a it's customers, don't expect those customers to give that company their hard earned money, DRM = disrespect to paying customers

and if you have taken a history class then you will know that through out Americana history, the people have never taken crap from large companies or even the government

it is just a example

DRM is a major hassle for who ever buys the software. but out of kindness some people will bite the bullet and get the DRMed crap, but instead of weeping in a corner, they will remove the DRM and release the fix for others so others wont have to suffer like how the maker of the drm free version did