Demos: Magic Fingers
Yes, it's about the Spore DRM. Enjoy. I guess Eleven Names is dead. I can't really do anything halfway, so I'll still be posting things here, even if I'm the only one. The song is by a metal/thrash band called Cursed. Listen with your headphones up and a maniacal grin on your face.
What do you do when you're a gigantic multinational corporation and you've got a hugely anticipated game you've sunk tens of millions into getting pirated weeks before the release date?
If you're Electronic Arts (EA) and that game is Spore, you throw a new kind of copy-protection on the retail release.
Perhaps by now, one of your computer savvy friends has told you the gripe: If you buy Spore, the copy-protection (known as SecureRom) the disc only allows three installations. Buy it from the online store, you still only have three installations. If you use an illegal file-sharing network to acquire that same game, you have as many installations as you want.
Seem silly to you? It seems silly to a lot of people as well, who are upset, and reasonably, given that they are paying for a product that is fundamentally crippled from what they can download for free. SecureRom is also a bit of a pejorative in the PC gaming community, since the Mass Effect controversy, where the game required you to be on the internet once every 10 days so it could phone home to make sure the game isn't pirated, and that's being polite and not mentioning that installing that game (or Bioshock) might give EA administrative access to your computer. EA, however, has said that they are going to use SecureRom in the forseeable future to protect their games, which suffice to say, concerns me.
Let me say this explicitly: If you choose to purchase Spore, you are getting a product that may endanger your computer, and from one perspective is a $50 rental. If you don't pay for Spore, and find it online, you get an un-crippled version of the game and it is less likely you'll get viruses from the game. Whether you'll get viruses from the programs you need to run the game without a disc is another matter entirely. Most of this, though, is obvious.
What's not obvious is that EA doesn't have anywhere else to go on the issue. What are you going to tell your investors who can grow reasonably nervous about their continued involvement with an industry that takes millions of dollars in loses from piracy? That the best way to protect your multi-million dollar baby is to put less strong anti-piracy measures on the disc? You think swallowing a negative profit margin is tough, try telling an executive that the best way to curb illegal acquisition of the game is to just to throw a CD-key (easily crackable) on the retail copy.
The official stance from EA is that if you want multiple accounts, you'll need to buy multiple copies of the game. If you've forgotten your email or lost access to the password, you are out of luck, and are now out another $50. This seems draconian. In fairness, it will probably take a couple weeks of customers calling EA's customer service saying that they need more installs, and the company heads will probably get the message and remove the three install limit.
Until then, though, is the issue. If I am going to be remotely honest, my advice is to buy a copy of Spore, then download it on your favorite filesharing service. Even typing that sentence seems absurd, but if you want the game you paid for, and you want it to work on terms that are reasonable, that's one of the only honest options I can come up with. To quote a good friend of mine, you can expect other commentators to be far less merciful.
Yes, SecreRom a) frightens me that much, but also b) restricts the content on the disc that you paid for. I'm sympathetic to the gigantic corporation trying to protect its investment, but at this point, rampant piracy has already succeeded, so restricting the enthusiastic customers helps no one.
EA, sadly, is in a bind. They don't have the quazi-moral authority that a Blizzard or Valve does, and they have significantly higher operating costs and a much larger group of developers to corral. They have to take a strong anti-piracy stance, and if that means using an overzealous alaskan wolf as a drug sniffing dog, so be it.
They, however, ought to prepare for when their wolf ruins their customers baggage.
What do you do when you're a gigantic multinational corporation and you've got a hugely anticipated game you've sunk tens of millions into getting pirated weeks before the release date?
If you're Electronic Arts (EA) and that game is Spore, you throw a new kind of copy-protection on the retail release.
Perhaps by now, one of your computer savvy friends has told you the gripe: If you buy Spore, the copy-protection (known as SecureRom) the disc only allows three installations. Buy it from the online store, you still only have three installations. If you use an illegal file-sharing network to acquire that same game, you have as many installations as you want.
Seem silly to you? It seems silly to a lot of people as well, who are upset, and reasonably, given that they are paying for a product that is fundamentally crippled from what they can download for free. SecureRom is also a bit of a pejorative in the PC gaming community, since the Mass Effect controversy, where the game required you to be on the internet once every 10 days so it could phone home to make sure the game isn't pirated, and that's being polite and not mentioning that installing that game (or Bioshock) might give EA administrative access to your computer. EA, however, has said that they are going to use SecureRom in the forseeable future to protect their games, which suffice to say, concerns me.
Let me say this explicitly: If you choose to purchase Spore, you are getting a product that may endanger your computer, and from one perspective is a $50 rental. If you don't pay for Spore, and find it online, you get an un-crippled version of the game and it is less likely you'll get viruses from the game. Whether you'll get viruses from the programs you need to run the game without a disc is another matter entirely. Most of this, though, is obvious.
What's not obvious is that EA doesn't have anywhere else to go on the issue. What are you going to tell your investors who can grow reasonably nervous about their continued involvement with an industry that takes millions of dollars in loses from piracy? That the best way to protect your multi-million dollar baby is to put less strong anti-piracy measures on the disc? You think swallowing a negative profit margin is tough, try telling an executive that the best way to curb illegal acquisition of the game is to just to throw a CD-key (easily crackable) on the retail copy.
The official stance from EA is that if you want multiple accounts, you'll need to buy multiple copies of the game. If you've forgotten your email or lost access to the password, you are out of luck, and are now out another $50. This seems draconian. In fairness, it will probably take a couple weeks of customers calling EA's customer service saying that they need more installs, and the company heads will probably get the message and remove the three install limit.
Until then, though, is the issue. If I am going to be remotely honest, my advice is to buy a copy of Spore, then download it on your favorite filesharing service. Even typing that sentence seems absurd, but if you want the game you paid for, and you want it to work on terms that are reasonable, that's one of the only honest options I can come up with. To quote a good friend of mine, you can expect other commentators to be far less merciful.
Yes, SecreRom a) frightens me that much, but also b) restricts the content on the disc that you paid for. I'm sympathetic to the gigantic corporation trying to protect its investment, but at this point, rampant piracy has already succeeded, so restricting the enthusiastic customers helps no one.
EA, sadly, is in a bind. They don't have the quazi-moral authority that a Blizzard or Valve does, and they have significantly higher operating costs and a much larger group of developers to corral. They have to take a strong anti-piracy stance, and if that means using an overzealous alaskan wolf as a drug sniffing dog, so be it.
They, however, ought to prepare for when their wolf ruins their customers baggage.
Labels: demos, video games
posted by James Thomas à Becket | 2:16 PM
2 Comments:
You might want to read this:
http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=42663
It's a pretty fascinating take on what EA is so afraid of. That said, they've done everything wrong with the Spore DRM, and it appears to be actively sabotaging the game's sales, as frustrated users bomb Amazon and other review sites with 1 star ratings, scaring off other consumers.
My personal gripe with Spore is that I shelled out $50 for a product that is deliberately incomplete. In the Sporepedia (a tab that shows you everything you and your buddies have made), there's a tab for "Flora," which are not customizable at the moment. EA deliberately left a part of the game out, to be added in a subsequent expansion pack (a la The Sims 2), but made sure to leave a placeholder there so everyone could get excited about the privilege of paying EA more money in the near future.
That is, if they haven't used up their installs yet.
I agree regarding Flora. Selling a disc that has single player material on it only unlockable after you pay a certain fee is absolutely ridiculous.
Installs are less of a problem than they were, but it's still not what it used to be, which is infinity plus one with no bullshit.
And if you've been keeping up with C&C Tiberium, it sounds like that project got canceled because most of the managers were snorting cocaine and not doing their work. Really.
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