Look, if we drop the whole "righteous/thief" thing, and look at it purely from a business perspective, it makes no sense putting these copy protections on games.

You have to pay for the licence to use most copy protection systems, so that's added expense.

Those systems, no matter what they are trying to do, are based on *code*. This code has to be incorporated into your product and as such is vulnerable (just like your product) to decoding, reverse engineering etc. and thus can, without exception, be located and removed/changed. Online copy protection systems can be fooled by virtual servers, by "neutering" the code so that the program thinks its dialling home when in fact it is talking to itself, so to speak.
And so on.

If you think copy protection amounts to anything, I challenge you to go and find me a popular PC title which has not been cracked.

So from a business perspective, no, it makes no sense on using these security measures, especially because many of them degrade legitimate customer experience.

I am glad I hate RPGs, as the only one I ever did like was Fable. So no Mass Effect for me, don't really care.

Spore will be EPIC, it could have DRM that would require me to sacrifice my first born child, and I'd still get it.

Nice to see you will only have to register once.

That's a rather simplistic view of it, and not entirely accurate. Sure, some people spout that pretzel logic that they're forced to pirate the game. But others just don't think this type of copy protection is acceptable for a single player game.

That aside, I wonder if that post in the link is telling the whole story. I notice it works exactly as the Mass Effect DRM, except this one for Spore doesn't mention limited activations. If it's implemented with no limits on activations, then I wouldn't have too much of a problem with it.

If I sounded frustrated, I apologize. I guess I was just a little cheesed off at those few I still see acting as if their indignation over any sort of copy protection being included on a game is somehow warranted.

ManSh00ter, I mostly agree with you, however, the analogue to real life would also apply here. All basic locks can be easily circumvented. Do most of us just leave our homes and cars unlocked though?

As for the activations Coelocanth, I can only speculate as you have. My guess would be as the number of people hitting some artificial activation limit and not being able to install the game increased, so drastically would the demand for the publisher/developer to remove such a restriction entirely. If the software is intelligent enough to add back an installation upon uninstallation as I've heard some are, I don't believe much of a problem would exist.

In summation, I agree with those that don't want to see the future of gaming integrated with flimsy copy protection that keeps zero thieves from using it while hampering thousands of legitimate customers. That's plain stupid. Developers wanting to do something smart to protect their intellectual property is still necessary however. Hopefully a system designed to include the positives and exclude the negatives of previous DRM schemes will be perfected.

In my case, it doesn't matter much. I checked the original article, and then canceled my reservations for both games. I don't really care if they changed their mind and switched to a less invasive copy protection scam - the fact that they even publicly considered it is inexcusable. The only influence I have is where I choose to spend my money. I *won't* be pirating the games - I won't be playing them at all.

I don't object to all copy protection - only invasive or poorly thought out schemes that basically attack paying customers while having no net effect on the pirate scum. If it's fairly transparent, and doesn't get in the way of my ability to use *MY* computer in any lawful way I choose, I'll generally tolerate it. In this case, the original DRM method seriously crosses the line. Since that seems to be the direction EA wants to go in, I will no longer be giving them my gaming money, in the same way that Vista was the catalyst for my choice to no longer support Microsoft. (When my current XP install is no longer viable, I'll most likely switch to some species of Linux for Internet use. I will *NEVER* use Vista.)

The difference is, the lock doesn't hurt you. However, say your car's lock included an "anti-theft feature" that occasionally (say, as often as several times a month) ate your car keys, but only if your car was locked. Would you leave your car locked as often after the first time you got stranded a couple hundred miles from home with no keys? Granted, the analogy isn't perfect, but its close enough.

Never locked yourself out of the house, eh?

You put it so perfectly.

Was definitly interested in Spore but because of this nonsense i will be yet another potential buyer lost because of this...


weird...thjis edit appeared after i wrote the second post but is only available for this one, so read the next post b4 this, atleast i didnt have to triple post but anyways,

i just wanted to add that in genreal as a consumer would u put support in a game comapny( or govt) that cares only for itselt and puts its effort into its enemies or a game company that do their best to appease you

sry, no edit

it seems to me there are 2 attitudes a comapny can have

1 - the comapny does what it can to please the customer
2- the company does what it can to punish everyone who isnt a customer

Stardock is #1 and is clearly successful and is a win win for both the buyer and supplier

EA is #2 and is clearly going to be losing many sales, and making it hard for the ppl who still buy it.

It is the buyers that have complete control over the market, not pirates, this is a textbook fact that is taught in schools and colleges around the world. So why does EA concentrate more on trying to hurt the pirates rather then making the best experience for their customers?

Who knows, maybe they are really that ignorant and stupid. I dont care how good a game is, this goes beyond a game. I simply wont support a company that focuses on its enemy rather than its customer.

Weird analogy just popped up, EA is like a totalitarian gov't that completely crushes any freedom to hold complete control, which is completely beneficiant to the gov't, at the expense of the ppl. Stardock is like the capitalistic gov;t most countries have today where power is in the ppls hands and the gov't bends to the needs and wants of the ppl. i dont know...tell me what u think.

Been monitoring this since the PC release: Mass Effect got released May 28th, the game was partially cracked (with a bug) later that day, and the full working crack was out by June 3rd. That's less than a week.

So much for EA's protection measures.

I'd honestly like to know why companies continue to use SecuROM with such poor security features apparently, Carbon. Any thoughts?

I mean, I could see if it was free, but they're obviously paying this other company for the equivalent of a locking system that's easily disabled. Seems like a great deal if you can get it. Design software that doesn't accomplish its only goal and rake in money from other companies who want to use it for some reason.

Who knows? Apparently, some of the SecuROM stuff was paired with other anti-countermeasure stuff like messing up the galaxy map but that too was easily fixed. I imagine it's some sort of company policy, having a contract with SecuROM to use their tech on any new releases. I can't imagine anyone at EA actually deciding to do things this way: it's more likely it was forced.

It's just another misguided attempt to do the impossible. People try to prevent all kinds of things from happening, they can't think logically and avoid wasting the effort. It's not really impossible either, just statistically improbable to the point where it might as well be impossible. They're sure that if they can just stop it, games will sell more copies. They've already been shown to be wrong in their estimations at every level, but there are countless self destructive practices and philosophies on this planet that have irrefutable proof of their folly and still have substantial support.

Thats driven by logic based on desires for badly conceptualised Bonus schemes that distort reality. The Corporate World is littered with such off the rail thinking, where personal enhancement is the driver, not Product / Company success. Corporate bonus schemes are a good thing to keep people focuced on what is important to a Company. Its the way the world turns round whether you agree with them or not. They do need to be kept in check, else a Company can lose direction.

Bonuses are a major element of the check and balance tasks of Non Executive Directors, and too often the latter dont fulfill their role in respect of these schemes. This silly DRM focus lately is a classic outcome of such badly managed schemes, where wishful thinking overtakes commonsense.

Regards
Zy