Copy protection woes

[Narkis]

Remember Mass Effect and Spore? Their copy protection scheme was just announced. And every EA game is gonna use this after those two lead the way.
http://kotaku.com/387846/mass-effect-copy-protection-an-opportunity-to-use-the-adjective-draconian

Rant version, for those who don't want to read the article: Online activation when you install it. Online activation every 10 days after that. The game stops working if you fail in any of those for any reason (downed server, for example), or if you go for more than 10 consecutive days without activation. If you don't have internet access on your PC, you're out of luck completely.
Not mentioned in the above article, and buried in the massive threads in the bioware forums: There is also a limit of 3 installations total. You lose one of them if you uninstall/reinstall it, one if you install it in any other PC, and also one if you "significantly change your hardware"(Their words). If you run out, you'll have to contact EA customer support to get 3 more.
Naturally, EA says legitimate customers will not be inconvienced, their servers will run for ever with no problems, and they are never going to drop support for the game.

I, for one, welcome our new copy protected overlords.

[Oregano]

That sounds really harsh, good job I bought mine for Xbox 360; hang on what if you don't have the internet to read that article?:smalleek: you'll have no way of finding out about the online registration.

[warty goblin]

Yeah, I've seen this all across the web, usually attached to much whining. While I get that this is a little annoying, it seems to me that all of this is being blown way out of porportion. Connecting to the internet every ten days is hardly asking the moon of you, particularly with a game like Spore which basically works by getting lots of content from the central server anyways. In fact for Spore this seems quite reasonable, since the central servers also provide a great deal of the game's content and bandwidth is hardly free, it doesn't seem particularly onerous to be required to actually confirm you bought the game in order to access this. This just means that you have to keep your gaming PC hooked up to the internet sporadically, which means it's zero problem to anybody who ever plays a multiplayer game or checks their e-mail or just about anything.

Do I wish companies would abandon restrictive DRM like this? Yes. On the other hand I think gamers as a whole need to stop bitching about this so much like the company is the only one responsible, and start condemning piracy a bit more. I realize that no DRM basically ever has actually stopped piracy, but it seems fairly evident to me that if piracy was not such a problem companies wouldn't spend the money on liscensing tech and hosting servers and customer support and all that. Piracy, in short, causes DRM like this, even though DRM is a fairly ineffectual response to the problem- its the only response that most companies can make. Want to stop DRM? Stop pirating games, stop letting it slide whenever somebody else talks about doing it, if you find out you are playing a pirated game at a LAN or somebody's house, refuse to play it.

I have seen a lot of responses across the internet on this issue saying that you should just crack the game due to the DRM. This is quite honestly one of the stupidest suggestions I've ever heard, and to my mind has a lot to do with the current state of the industry, companies use DRM because of piracy, piracy is if anything more rampent than ever before, as is restrictive DRM, hence if piracy actually caused the removal of DRM like this, there wouldn't be any. By doing this all you are telling companies is that they need more potent DRM, not less, and the whole problem gets worse. It's a positive feedback loop, and the only way to kill it is to stop feeding it. Not buying the game doesn't work either, since the low sales will be blamed on piracy and even more restrictive DRM will be introduced (I am of course not arguing that you should go out and buy games that don't interest you, but rather that you should buy the games that do interest you, regardless of DRM.) If you honestly dislike DRM like this, to me this is the only reasonable and responsible action is to stop letting other gamers off the hook on the piracy issue.

[Hoggy]

Connecting to the internet every 10 days?

Erm... some of us go on holiday... :smalltongue:

[InaVegt]

I am so going to ask my cousin if this is legal over here.

If it is not, I will rally Dutch gamers into a joint effort to sue EA.

[Driderman]

What a horrible way to handle copy-protection.
Scrubbed.

[Cespenar]

Piracy existed throughout the history in many media, and it is a known "evil" (if it is anyway), but "measures" like this are what disturbs me the most.

I know I speak in a very generalized manner, but this is the case in many similar situations.

[Eldritch_Ent]

Connecting to the internet every 10 days?

Erm... some of us go on holiday... :smalltongue:

Well, can't you just reconnect to the internet and reactivate your game if you leave it running longer? It really depends on how easy it is to "confirm" your account.

Either way, I don't really see this kind of DRM being bad. It'll probably be rather tough to get around for pirateers...

[Mooch]

I was planning on getting mass effect but now if I do it will not be purchased, I dont need random programs going online to findout if they are good copies or not.

Yes piracy is the a problem but most people will still buy the game and people that are going to pirate are going to do it anyway, there is only a small number of people that decide between buying it and pirating it

[Zweanslord]

I especially like this part on the provided link:


Spore is similarly planned to take advantage of the SecuROM copy protection system, one that we're sure is going to eliminate every illegitimate copy of the game from appearing on torrent trackers for at least 48 hours. Take that, piracy! RIP! Owned! Etc!

I read about it too, but on another blog: Twenty Sided (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/), at the article BioWare and EA: Dumbass Effect (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1645).

In his article, he even gives a link to a thread on the forums of Mass Effect about online activation where already on the first page people are saying they will not buy the game because of it.

Warty goblin, I agree that it certainly causes a negative feedback loop. People put games on the internet, the sellers put pirate protection on games, which is not that effective, then puts on stricter until it is a nuisance for, you know, the people who bought the game, which in turn leads to more pirating, which thus requires more pirate protection, etc. The only bad thing about pirate protection is that it does not actually protect against pirates, it just makes the bar for pirating higher. In the sense that less people can pirate it. Unfortunately, with enough people around due to the internet, only one or a few need to crack the game and distribute it. And the chance of somebody cracking it when there can easily be more people trying to crack a game than there were people who made that pirate protection..

And any pirate protection that gives you less sales due to being so annoying kind of seems to completely defeat its purpose, does it not? After all, there are people who do not like such annoying pirate protection and refuse to buy a game where you have to ask permission to use a game you bought. Then there are people who might not have internet either (or slow dial-up). And this kind of annoying pirate protection propagates a bad reputation, which makes you lose sales as well. And might even make people consider the pirated version who would never have considered it otherwise.

What I especially dislike in a case where you have to activate online, is the thought that if the game becomes old, the publisher might stop supporting it or worse, the publisher might die out. That means that if you re-install the game or try to play it again, tada, you can not use it anymore. Ever. Legally at least.

For a publisher, they could just look at alternatives as well. On Twenty Sided, there was a good article (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1558) about that actually.

And as has been said, there is only a small group that is leaning between pirating or buying. But by using such annoying pirate protection, pirating will be encourage and certainly not stopped.

[Egneil]

Yes the negative feedback loop is horrible, and I see a quick fix plan that makes both sides happy.

1: hire a team of people search the internet and find any pirated version and where its at
2: ask the server to remove it
2.a: if not done, take it of the server or make the server pay(thru lawsuits)
3: try to find the people who are pirating the game
3.a: make them pay

now what this does is removes the problem so the industry can lower copy protection to less annoying levels without losing sales

[Scintillatus]

What a joke. Bioshock was forced to remove their copy-protection before people would play the game, they think that this is going to stop pirates and encourage purchases?

Repeated delays, and now this absurd "protection". I've cancelled my pre-order on Amazon; I refuse to buy any game with DRM as bad as this. I'll wait until they recant their position and apologise the month afterwards.

[BrainFreeze]

The protection will do nothing but inconvience the people that buy the game legaly. Inside a month someone will hex edit the files to have it point to 127.0.0.1 for authentication and develop a client side program to provide said authentication.

[Icewalker]

Eh, that just sounds like a minor annoyance. Doesn't seem like that much of a big deal unless you lack internet.

[The Rose Dragon]

If you do lack internet, you have bigger problems. Like, how do you connect to GitP without paying a king's ransom to cybercafes?

[SolkaTruesilver]

Do I wish companies would abandon restrictive DRM like this? Yes. On the other hand I think gamers as a whole need to stop bitching about this so much like the company is the only one responsible, and start condemning piracy a bit more. I realize that no DRM basically ever has actually stopped piracy, but it seems fairly evident to me that if piracy was not such a problem companies wouldn't spend the money on liscensing tech and hosting servers and customer support and all that.

Warty Goblin, have you read this post? Atari post (http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=637984)

Don'T need to click on it, here is what it says:


Hi everyone,

My name is Keehwan Her and I am the Atari producer for Mysteries of Westgate (MoW) among other D&D products. Most of you know that the release of Mysteries of Westgate has been delayed because of ongoing development of a new security system. Near the end of MoW’s development last year, we realized that the traditional protection of the .exe file would not work with it so we scrambled to find a reliable commercial method that would do the job. At the time, there was no solution that met our requirements. That is why, since the end of 2007, Atari has been working hard to develop a new security system that can be used not just for MoW but for all Atari products that need protection for data files without using the traditional route of wrapping the .exe file. Unfortunately, developing this system has taken longer than we anticipated and MoW’s release has suffered as a result, because it is the first product that will use this new system.

Atari has been working closely with Obsidian and Ossian to try to integrate the new system with NWN2 and MoW specifically. Although we wanted the security modifications to go out with Update 1.12, it simply was not ready in time so we unfortunately had no choice but to push it into Update 1.13.

I realize that many of you are anxious to get your hands on Mysteries of Westgate, and I know from firsthand experience that it is a fantastic adventure. MoW has been ready to ship for a while now and we are close to finalizing the new security system that will ensure that it has its proper day in the sun. In the meantime, we are working hard to keep cool information about the game coming.

There you see a game published who willingly decided to wait AFTER the christmas season to publish their game because they wanted the latest copy-protection device.

Say what you want about gamers who are whiners, I say game publishers (except Stardock) are dumbs. They are simply hurting their sales with those fancy game protection systems.

[Edan]

I never liked EA. Now, I have another reason not to.

Not that stopping piracy and cheating is a bad thing, it just sometimes hurts honest players more than it stops the dishonest. I am curious to see how this plays out over the next year or so.

[Demented]

There are plenty of easy-to-find statistics for business software piracy. Finding statistics for entertainment software piracy is significantly more difficult. Sometimes I wonder if lack of sales is being blamed on piracy, when it should be blamed on Football Manager 2008 (http://www.chart-track.co.uk/index.jsp?c=p/software/uk/latest/index_test.jsp&ct=110022)...


Yes the negative feedback loop is horrible, and I see a quick fix plan that makes both sides happy.

1: hire a team of people search the internet and find any pirated version and where its at
2: ask the server to remove it
2.a: if not done, take it of the server or make the server pay(thru lawsuits)
3: try to find the people who are pirating the game
3.a: make them pay

That sounds like the playbook of the RIAA.
Who's happy there? :smallyuk:

[Leper_Kahn]

Wait, wait, wait...

What if I don't play the game for 10 days? What if I go on vacation!? :smallfurious:

EDIT: Someone already said this >.< I should have guessed.

What's funny is think of something similar on a political perspective. A candidate's web site that only allows you to look at it if you make more than $50,000 a year. Class warfare anyone?

Now imagine a game where not only do you have to pay to get it, you have to pay to have internet to play the single player version. Class warfare anyone?

Also,


If you do lack internet, you have bigger problems. Like, how do you connect to GitP without paying a king's ransom to cybercafes?

Well... Maybe I use the library?

[Icewalker]

The impression I got is that if you don't update every 10 days you can't play until you do. Right? So leaving wouldn't be an issue, you'd just re-update when you get back.

[SolkaTruesilver]

What bothers me most isn't the stupid 10-day renewal. What bothers me is the 3-time installation limit!!!

[Swordguy]

More specifically, what happens 5 years from now when EA shuts down their access servers? Whoops - that game you bought is now useless.

What they're assuming is that every single person who buys their product is a potential thief. I refuse to be treated in such a manner. Therefore, I will not buy their product in the future (and have composed and sent an actual, physical letter to EA to that effect). I suggest that, instead of being upset and saddened on a random internet forum, you do something similar. LET THEM KNOW, with a real piece of paper. Common business wisdom is that one received letter represents up to 100 customers who'll take the same action as described in the letter. Let them feel it in the only places they care about - their pocketbooks.

@Icewalker: Incorrect. You must reconfirm your access every 10(ish) days or your copy is assumed to be pirated. Therefore, you'll have to phone EA Customer Service (and there is no phone # on their website) to have your account reactivated. If you're gone for 10 days? Give 'em a call, because your account will be inactivated.

[Tirian]

Eh, that just sounds like a minor annoyance. Doesn't seem like that much of a big deal unless you lack internet.

Tell that to the subscribers of MSN Music, who bought DRM music trusting that it would allow them lifetime access. Actually, turns out that the access is only until MSN turns off their servers and tries to get everyone to subscribe to Zune. Now, I don't know how long EA will wait before bricking their software, but I am confident that it is a decision that will be reached by the same empty suits that decided that it was a good idea to punish the legitimate owners of a game in ways that the pirates will not be punished.

I don't think I've bought a PC game since Black and White 2 -- having moved from a Win 98 machine up to a Vista machine without an nVidia card on it, I just don't feel like gambling that I can run new software. I'm relieved that I've got shelves full of outstanding games made back in the days when gamemakers realized that a detailed manual and a cloth map was a good way to REWARD people who paid you for the game.

[Demented]

What bothers me is the 3-time installation limit!!!

Hah! They probably stole that trick from Windows Vista's playbook. Microsoft should sue them.
That is, unless Microsoft stole that trick from yet somebody else...


As for GitP, you can always buy the books.
Unless you want to read the actual forums, in which case, if you don't have internet, you won't know what you're missing anyways. (Which is spam, spam and more spam, incidentally.)

[Destro_Yersul]

I'm still going to buy Spore. I've been waiting far too long for it to not buy it. Still, this is going to be a huge inconvenience. Sometimes my wireless router stops working for no reason, and I'd have to wait to do the activation thing. Though maybe someone could write a program to automate the process...

At any rate, watcha wanna bet EA stops thinking this is great after the millionth call to their support center about account activation?

[[Insert Neat Username Here]]

The protection will do nothing but inconvience the people that buy the game legaly. Inside a month someone will hex edit the files to have it point to 127.0.0.1 for authentication and develop a client side program to provide said authentication.

Indeed. Why do video game designers never realize this? I wouldn't be surprised if somebody manages this within 2 days of the release. And whoever it is, although he'll be a criminal, will likely be praised even by those who legitimately buy their copies.

[Erloas]

I think Bioshock was a very good demonstration of how well this system doesn't work. It was less than a week before a lot of people that bought the game legitimately were having issues.

For casual computer users it probably isn't a big deal, but gamers are a different situation. Most gamers upgrade more often, they are also much more likely to wipe and re-install Windows much more often. I know last time I was setting up a computer I had to call and get Microsoft to re-activate my copy of Windows because I had it installed for all of 2-3 days before I decided to change my RAID setup and had to re-install. There is also a very good chance of people having a desktop and a laptop and they should be able to install and play any game on both systems without having to do go through a lot of extra steps.
As it is, the last games I've looked for no-cd cracks and various other piracy sort of things where all games I owned but couldn't get to work legitimately, usually from a lost case (with the CD-key).


While I do agree that piracy is an issue, I don't think it is nearly as big of an issue as publishers try to make it out to be. Most games simply aren't worth the $60 they are charging for them now, they are either mediocre or pathetically short or both. Most of the piracy I've seen isn't from people who really want a game, it is from people that don't believe the game is worth what it costs, so if you remove the piracy option they simply don't play the game, it doesn't force them to go buy it. I know that is the biggest factor of why I haven't played many of the new games, they just don't seem to be worth the money, I usually pick them up when they get to $20 though.

It is much the same as the movie industry, they can't understand why their numbers have been dropping so much lately. It doesn't seem to occure to them that its because their product is really not that appealing anymore, but they will blame it on piracy too.

Publishers also think consoles are going to be the holy grail of anti piracy, but given what most consoles can do now its only a matter of desire before they start getting pirated more too. I remember there being methods of copying games even on the PS2.

DRM is similiar to any other sort of barrier though. If you put it there people will go out of their way to get past it, not because they want whats on the other side so much as to show that they can get around it. I know I got a free movie download as a promotion from some site that had DRM and even though it made no difference to me if it was there or not I went out of my way to remove it simply because I could. Every case of the RIAA makes me less willing to buy CDs and want to pirate music more, though I don't because I don't really care for any of the music being made now anyway and I wouldn't listen to it even if it was free.


Its really very basic reverse psychology, there is no better way to get someone to do something then to tell them they can't do it.

[bluish_wolf]

I'd like to point out that most independently published games don't have copy protection. They also cost half as much, are just as enjoyable, and you don't need a $3,000 computer to have them run properly.

[DanielX]

This could very well tip me towards not buying Spore, which is a shame. I've been looking forward to the game for years, but this crosses a line for me (its for one of the same reasons I am reluctant to buy Windows Vista or Office 2007...).

While requiring repeated authentication/registration before downloading custom content is sensible, requiring that it be done to play a non-MMO* game in the first place is not - what if you don't have internet access for a given period of time, but wish to play the game anyway? As pointed out, it makes it pathetically easy for companies to make the software useless. Also limiting the number of installs is insane. There are any number of legitimate reasons to install software an unspecific number of times - such as backup copies, hard disk problems, or a new computer.

As of late, I have been increasingly pulled into the "Free/Libre/Open Source Software" camp, even though I believe companies do have the right to close up their product. Its just that companies are choosing to be incredibly stupid about it - especially given DRM and licensing restrictions. Professional pirates generally know how to get around restrictions, while they tend to annoy the hell out of casual users.

*Massive Multiplayer Online games seem to be a reasonable exception - as the game itself is online.

[Crispy Dave]

the internet sign up is absurd. I have alot of friends who have a nice computer but aren't hooked up to internet because their parents don't want them to. So is that reason for them to miss out on a great multilayer game? NO! They should get the same treatment as they've always gotten. Also wile im on the subject i see nothing wrong with copying a game over temporarily for a lan party. Why should someone miss a game because they didn't buy a particular game? They shouldent!

[Pearl]

Why should someone miss a game because they didn't buy a particular game? They shouldent!

err...

Why shouldn't someone miss out on owning a car because they didn't buy it?

[Crispy Dave]

err...

Why shouldn't someone miss out on owning a car because they didn't buy it?

i ment in the middle of a lan party because who wants to sit out on a game during thier own birthday party *grumble stupid company of heros pertection

[TheOOB]

A game company has strictly limited time and resources to make copy protection, and pirates have virtually unlimited time and resources to break copy protection. A scheme like this doesn't stop pirates, it just makes them more determined if anything else.

So yes, all EA will manage to do is make legitimate customers mad.

[Elidyr]

While I do agree that piracy is an issue, I don't think it is nearly as big of an issue as publishers try to make it out to be. Most games simply aren't worth the $60 they are charging for them now, they are either mediocre or pathetically short or both. Most of the piracy I've seen isn't from people who really want a game, it is from people that don't believe the game is worth what it costs, so if you remove the piracy option they simply don't play the game, it doesn't force them to go buy it. I know that is the biggest factor of why I haven't played many of the new games, they just don't seem to be worth the money, I usually pick them up when they get to $20 though.

Pretty much sums it up. I've been trying to remember 5 games I've played in the past few years I enjoyed and having some serious trouble remembering any, even the mediocre ones I actually finished. And even then most of them are plagued by serious bugs, unintuitive controls and horrendous screw-ups. Or they are just boring half the time, have no replayability and last about 5-10 hours. Most of my game experience in the past few years had me deleting the game in matter of minutes after trying it. Think the last game I've enjoyed was Rainbows six: Las Vegas and Vampire: Bloodlines, and the latter had no support and so many bugs it would be a crime to support the developer.

The game developers/publishers should ask themselves why people pirate their games in the first place. Maybe they should stop making short, bad/mediocre games with no support and without the horrible gamespy servers for multiplayer.

Just take a look at Blizzard games. They sell in the millions. I would guess it's because of their free and easy to use battle.net servers that prolonge the game's life by several years (at least that's why I buy them). That, and they dont put all their time into making graphic effects that only supercomputers can run (yes Crysis, I'm looking at you).

[poleboy]

Paranoid bastards. Piracy is a fact of life, much like cancer. Deal with it and find another way to make the money you lose on piracy instead of making life more difficult for the people that actually pay for the products. :smallyuk:

[Drascin]

The internet subscribing is annoying as hell, yeah, especially since when playing I tend to disconnect the internet to make sure no updating programs and such are running in the background and eating processing power away, but, as mentioned before, what's going to have me most likely NOT buying it will be the installation limit. Those irritate the hell out of me every time they appear. I bought your software, I would hardly think that wanting to be able to use it as I see fit is an outlandish claim! Especially given my tendencies to wipe discs every couple of months or so, this is horribly, horribly annoying.

Also, there's the whole issue of pirating not being so horribly horribly wallet-destroying, at least for good games. I mean, I'm not going to try to say I'm without sin here, I have had pirated software, like I assume everyone here has had at on point or another, but I still have a lot of original stuff. I could, if I so desired, pirate every single game on DS, because I have a flashcart to be able to try Japanese games - yet, oh surprise, I have quite a number of original games. Because if a game is good, people will buy it, even if just to support you. Gamers are like that - if they consider you can make good games, they want you to keep existing so that you can give them more games. To get gamers to buy your stuff, you don't put annoying copy protections that make them feel affronted and cause you to get enough bad publicity to make Sony's PS3 campaign a piece of genius in marketing. You create nice multiplayer servers that require activation, bonus content, and such... in short, you don't make them need to register - you make them want it so badly that even the least generous of them will be willing to shell out the cash. And that's pretty simple - most of us gamers have the restraint of five-year olds when it comes to shiny stuff about our liked games :smalltongue:.

But anyway, yeah, bad move on EA's part. This is not going to sit well with most people I know. On a quick estimate, just from people I know, Mass Effect just lost about 6 customers.

[Various]

The protection will do nothing but inconvience the people that buy the game legaly. Inside a month someone will hex edit the files to have it point to 127.0.0.1 for authentication and develop a client side program to provide said authentication.

This.


What they're assuming is that every single person who buys their product is a potential thief. I refuse to be treated in such a manner.

And this.

All they're doing is making me find other sources of entertainment. I have to admit, it is amusing watching the major corporations of this country slowly strangle them selves with their ever increasingly mind-boggling incompetence.

[InaVegt]

The protection will do nothing but inconvience the people that buy the game legaly. Inside a month someone will hex edit the files to have it point to 127.0.0.1 for authentication and develop a client side program to provide said authentication.

I'd wager it be disassembled, rather. Hex editing is much more work to do the same thing as you can do while working in assembly.

[psycojester]

So yes, all EA will manage to do is make legitimate customers mad.

Correct me if i'm wrong but i think this is EAs soul motivation. Any time they actually a sell a game is just a happy coincidence for them

[Archonic Energy]

@Icewalker: Incorrect. You must reconfirm your access every 10(ish) days or your copy is assumed to be pirated. Therefore, you'll have to phone EA Customer Service (and there is no phone # on their website) to have your account reactivated. If you're gone for 10 days? Give 'em a call, because your account will be inactivated.

Incorrect.


Q: What happens if I install and activate MEPC with an internet connection, but then do not have an internet connection after 10 days? Can I still play MEPC?

A: No. After 10 days the system needs to re-authenticate via the internet. If you do not have an internet connection you will not be able to play until you are reconnected to the internet and able to re-authenticate.

Q: What happens if I play, then go away for 2 or 3 weeks? Would the game load, re-authorize and carry on, or would i need to contact EA Support for whatever is necessary?

A: The game would work just like the first time you played it. The number of days you are away doesn't matter

now stop scaremongering! :smallmad:
Frankly i can't wait for Mass Effect, and i respect any measures taken by Bioware to protect their IP.

[Dallas-Dakota]

I am so going to ask my cousin if this is legal over here.

If it is not, I will rally Dutch gamers into a joint effort to sue EA.

And I will be right at your side. We will siege their headquarters! I can bake cookies for thousands. And they will be honey cookies, which never spoil! We will besiege them!

Oh wait, you said sue...

[Holammer]

I myself am not interested in Mass Effect, but I was actually looking forward to getting Spore. Now I'll invest my cold hard cash elsewhere now because I'm one of those mean bastards that will hold a grudge of Hatfield-McCoy proportions if I'm ever slighted the slightest. Excessive copy protections is just that. They install crap into your system which hides itself from view and does god knows what, and now they want to do a "ET call home" routine at set intervals.

Sorry, I won't have any more of that crap. They've had the actual paying customers suffer since the manual protection and code wheels on the Amiga. The guys that pirate will chill and wait for the protections to be ripped a new one and then play it. Sure the customers won't have to search for the third word on the 14'th line on the 115'th page of the manual any longer, but their very concept of libre is being mercilessly trampled upon instead. Which makes it even worse.

[Thiel]

My biggest problem with the RDM is the fact that no-one seems to know exactly what information it uses to determine if the computer is indeed the right one, and EA isn't telling. Are we talking serial-numbers are they installing some snarky little piece of software somewhere on it without your knowledge?

[Crispy Dave]

you know the funny thing is is that this uber copy-protection is coming form the same people who are planning a long line of free games

[The Orange Zergling]

now stop scaremongering! :smallmad:

Wait, so if we go away for 2-3 weeks without playing, it doesn't matter? So the annual authentication thingy has, in essence, no effect? I'm confused.

[[Insert Neat Username Here]]

the internet sign up is absurd. I have alot of friends who have a nice computer but aren't hooked up to internet because their parents don't want them to. So is that reason for them to miss out on a great multilayer game? NO! They should get the same treatment as they've always gotten. Also wile im on the subject i see nothing wrong with copying a game over temporarily for a lan party. Why should someone miss a game because they didn't buy a particular game? They shouldent!

It's this sort of person who's hurt most.

Spore, though, wouldn't have worked for them anyway because it requires an Internet connection.

[warty goblin]

Wait, so if we go away for 2-3 weeks without playing, it doesn't matter? So the annual authentication thingy has, in essence, no effect? I'm confused.

Here's my understanding, based on the reading I've done.
1) You install and register the game.
2) Five days later, the game tries to re-affirm its registration.
3) If this does not suceed it keeps trying until ten days have passed since it was last re-affirmed.
4) After this point the game will not work unless you re-affirm its registration
5) However, the game keeps trying to re-affirm itself (apparently it has deep emotional issues), so if you start the game after not playing it or being disconnected from the internet for two weeks it'll try to affirm the registration. If it suceeds you can play as if nothing had happened, but if not, you still can't play.

Thus as long as the game has been affirmed withing the last ten days it'll run fine, but if not, it won't. As soon as the game can re-affirm itself however, you're back on track to galaxy-saving.

[Zweanslord]

Actually, Insert Neat Username Here, that is not true. Spore can be played without the internet easily. Whenever you chose to play without internet, you just do not have access to all the creatures/plants/objects created by others that are accessed through the internet. You do only have access to those which are provided with the disc of the game, but since Spore is supposed to ship with quite a bit of them anyway, you can just play the game offline. While it certainly gives the game more options to select from all kinds of creatures/plants/objects/etc when connected, it is not necessary to be connected. Sure, if you are connected, the check-up can be done anyway, but it still is one big problem when you do not have internet connection at all or for an extended time.

[The Orange Zergling]

Here's my understanding, based on the reading I've done.
1) You install and register the game.
2) Five days later, the game tries to re-affirm its registration.
3) If this does not suceed it keeps trying until ten days have passed since it was last re-affirmed.
4) After this point the game will not work unless you re-affirm its registration
5) However, the game keeps trying to re-affirm itself (apparently it has deep emotional issues), so if you start the game after not playing it or being disconnected from the internet for two weeks it'll try to affirm the registration. If it suceeds you can play as if nothing had happened, but if not, you still can't play.

Thus as long as the game has been affirmed withing the last ten days it'll run fine, but if not, it won't. As soon as the game can re-affirm itself however, you're back on track to galaxy-saving.

Oh, so you don't need to actually start the game up to affirm it, just a working internet connection? Phew...

[[Insert Neat Username Here]]

Actually, Insert Neat Username Here, that is not true. Spore can be played without the internet easily. Whenever you chose to play without internet, you just do not have access to all the creatures/plants/objects created by others that are accessed through the internet. You do only have access to those which are provided with the disc of the game, but since Spore is supposed to ship with quite a bit of them anyway, you can just play the game offline. While it certainly gives the game more options to select from all kinds of creatures/plants/objects/etc when connected, it is not necessary to be connected. Sure, if you are connected, the check-up can be done anyway, but it still is one big problem when you do not have internet connection at all or for an extended time.

Oh.

Well, now you sure can't.

[warty goblin]

Oh, so you don't need to actually start the game up to affirm it, just a working internet connection? Phew...
I think you need to start the game, but I'm honestly not clear on that point. Honestly I'd prefer that you did need to start the game to initiate the check, since otherwise I'll end up with another frustrating little widget running in the background and eating my precious processor power.

[bluish_wolf]

err...

Why shouldn't someone miss out on owning a car because they didn't buy it?

Yet, as soon as one person owns the car, anyone who wants to come along for the ride doesn't have to buy their own car to do so. You just get in.

[DeathQuaker]

I agree that the biggest worries are

1) what if EA's servers break, and we can't play because of a problem not on their end? (And someone said they may rethink their policy after the umpteenth help call because authentication isn't working when someone has a legit copy of the game. I think they're right.)

2) What happens in the future when the publishing company dies (likely due to lack of sales because people are pissed off about copy protection), or at least stops supporting the servers?

It's something worth thinking about. I don't think publishers realize that a lot of gamers hold onto their games and like to play them years later. I just installed Fallout 2 a couple weeks ago, and it's actually kind of sad when I get a message saying, "Log onto Interplay and register your game!" Fortunately, the game is old enough that registration or any sort of Internet connection isn't required, but I still feel like going, "Silly software. Interplay's server went away a loooong time ago. I can't register the game if I wanted to."

3) The three install limit is also ridiculous--especially when usually the first thing tech support--especially EA tech support, if judging by their support for the Sims 2--tells you is to uninstall and reinstall your game if you're having problems. I can easily see someone reaching the limit just trying to get their legitimately purchased copy of the game to work.

Sounds like enough of a pain in the butt to me that I probably won't buy the games. As much as I'd love to play both Mass Effect and Spore, I have no desire to deal with the hassles this probably proposes. Perhaps if pirates do crack the protection, I'll engage in the first software piracy I've ever committed.

And yes, writing a well worded, courteous but firm letter about why one is upset about these measures is a very good idea. (Resolves to look up EA's mailing address.)

[Winterwind]

Oh, so you don't need to actually start the game up to affirm it, just a working internet connection? Phew...As I understand it, you have to start it, but even if you haven't played it for more than ten days it will still attempt to re-affirm it, and if it manages to, you won't even notice.

Considering this is not Blizzard we are talking about here though, I wonder how long they will keep up their servers doing that. Not to mention they likely will not issue a patch that eliminates the need to re-affirm when they take them off-line after a few years.
Still, this only-three-installs thingie is much more worrying.

Hmm. And here Spore might have been the first game, next to StarCraft II, that I would have bought after all these years. Guess I'll rethink that... (and those aren't idle words - given how rarely I buy games at all, a protection such as that is more than enough to push a game out off my to-buy list)

[Demented]

3) The three install limit is also ridiculous--especially when usually the first thing tech support--especially EA tech support, if judging by their support for the Sims 2--tells you is to uninstall and reinstall your game if you're having problems. I can easily see someone reaching the limit just trying to get their legitimately purchased copy of the game to work.

Their tech support will probably give you another 3 installs every time you have to reinstall once. So at some point some poor user is going to end up with a game that doesn't work for him, but the ability to install it 50 times.

[warty goblin]

As I understand it, you have to start it, but even if you haven't played it for more than ten days it will still attempt to re-affirm it, and if it manages to, you won't even notice.

Considering this is not Blizzard we are talking about here though, I wonder how long they will keep up their servers doing that. Not to mention they likely will not issue a patch that eliminates the need to re-affirm when they take them off-line after a few years.
Still, this only-three-installs thingie is much more worrying.

Hmm. And here Spore might have been the first game, next to StarCraft II, that I would have bought after all these years. Guess I'll rethink that... (and those aren't idle words - given how rarely I buy games at all, a protection such as that is more than enough to push a game out off my to-buy list)

It says on their forum's copy protection/system requirements FAQ thread that if EA shut down the servers, Bioware would address the problem. Details were not given however. Here's the link, it's in the FAQ, which is the third post down:
http://masseffect.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=628724&forum=125

I can only assume a similar policy for Spore, but I really have no information at this point unfortunately.

[poleboy]

I just thought of something. Does a similar system exist in the 360 version of Mass Effect? If not, that seems blatantly unfair, seeing as how any system can be cracked easily.
Just because a PC user is x% more likely to use a cracked game than an Xbox user that doesn't mean the PC user should have to deal with weird crap installing itself on his computer, leeching system resources and giving him **** about wanting to play a game he paid for. But then again, I've been highly suspicious of Bioware since they started making Xbox games... :smallconfused:

[Scintillatus]

No, it doesn't, and this attitude towards PC gamers has had many people asking why on earth they bother to upgrade and play any more. Console exclusives are plentiful, PC exclusives are not, and more and more often we get treated like second-class citizens. It's an extraordinarily bad situation when the next best choice is another DRM system, namely VALVe's Steam.

I could endure the DRM myself, I have a broadband connection. However, there are people out there who do not have a regular connection or a connection at all. They will be advertised to by the company or by friends, there will be no "This game requires an internet connection" warning on the box, and there will be no refund for them - because PC gamers just copy the image.

Even for those that don't, we'll be playing a premium rate just to get our game running again after the third install, or because of defective software, or we'll have more hidden nonsense inside our systems. Again. So yeah, I'm going to wait until they capitulate - which they will - and remove the copy-protection. Even games as good as Spore, or Bioshock, or Mass Effect, are not going to change my utter loathing for this insane DRM.

I am so close to buying an XBox 360 and just not upgrading my computer again, because it seems overwhelmingly pointless to continue shelling out more money for ports and "exclusives" that bring no new gameplay to the system.

[warty goblin]

No, it doesn't, and this attitude towards PC gamers has had many people asking why on earth they bother to upgrade and play any more. Console exclusives are plentiful, PC exclusives are not, and more and more often we get treated like second-class citizens. It's an extraordinarily bad situation when the next best choice is another DRM system, namely VALVe's Steam.

I could endure the DRM myself, I have a broadband connection. However, there are people out there who do not have a regular connection or a connection at all. They will be advertised to by the company or by friends, there will be no "This game requires an internet connection" warning on the box, and there will be no refund for them - because PC gamers just copy the image.

Even for those that don't, we'll be playing a premium rate just to get our game running again after the third install, or because of defective software, or we'll have more hidden nonsense inside our systems. Again. So yeah, I'm going to wait until they capitulate - which they will - and remove the copy-protection. Even games as good as Spore, or Bioshock, or Mass Effect, are not going to change my utter loathing for this insane DRM.

I am so close to buying an XBox 360 and just not upgrading my computer again, because it seems overwhelmingly pointless to continue shelling out more money for ports and "exclusives" that bring no new gameplay to the system.

According to the official forums it will actually say *requires internet connection* on the box to play in the system requirements. And really, if any PC gamer is stupid enough not to check system requirements before buying a game, my sympathy for them is extremely limited.

[Om]

I was actually shocked enough by this announcement to make a rare foray into the BioWare forums. My post is below. Really this has ruined my day


-----

I have long been eagerly awaiting Mass Effect for the PC and have been almost counting down the days until release. I splashed out on a laptop upgrade that I can ill afford so as to be able to fully enjoy the game. Understand then that I am *gutted* to hear that I will not be able to play the game

The internet constraint alone is enough to make it *impossible* for me to play (I use a laptop because I'm rarely at home with an internet connection) but the draconian security system (3 installs?!) probably would have put me off in any case. Obviously data protection is a reality in this day and age but this is just clunky and invasive when compared to the likes of Valve's Steam. (I only had to be online during the installation of HL2)

Again, I'm devastated that I'll not be able to play another BioWare game. I've been a big fan since the original BG and this has hit me harder than a decision by a game developer should have. I honestly never thought Bioware would pull a stunt like this. C'est la vie

[NEO|Phyte]

So, BioWare listens to the internets, and has dropped the every 10 days web activation thingy from Mass Effect. (http://kotaku.com/5008452/bioware-backs-down-from-draconian-mass-effect-authentication)

Here's hoping EA notices and drops it from Spore too.

[Om]

So, BioWare listens to the internets, and has dropped the every 10 days web activation thingy from Mass Effect. (http://kotaku.com/5008452/bioware-backs-down-from-draconian-mass-effect-authentication)Its the limited number of installs that I worry about. How many times have people on this forum reinstalled BGII or Planescape? I'd wager that for most its many more than three

[Cainen]

I've formatted and moved computers several times - it's in the double digits.

Three is not enough. It never will be, especially considering how easy it is to hose a Windows installation.

[Thiel]

Well at least that's something. I still won't buy it though, not until they remove the limited installs.


Q: What happens when I’ve reached the maximum # of computers for my game and I need more, say due to theft of computer, computer crashes, etc?

A: EA customer service is on hand to supply any additional authorizations that are warranted. This will be done on a case-by-case basis by contacting customer support.
Emphasis mine.
How do they determine if you are indeed the legal owner?

[Roderick_BR]

Yeah... not everyone can get online every 10 days. Many people don'teven have internet connection. Heck, some people, in the poorer countries doesn't even have PHONE LINES sometimes. It's true.
And if my "3 instalations" run out? I call them? How do I do an international call again? "Alô? Troquei de computador e meu jogo não quer instalar. O que eu faço?" <- It's your problem to understant that :smalltongue:

While we know WotC won't sent their spy ninjas to see if we are not homebrewing, the gaming companies are getting close :smallyuk:

[NEO|Phyte]

Its the limited number of installs that I worry about. How many times have people on this forum reinstalled BGII or Planescape? I'd wager that for most its many more than three

Apparently uninstalling the game 'phones home' to refund an activation. Its not a limited number of installs period as much as a limited number of concurrent installations. (Note: No clue if this is actually true, I heard it on the internet) Not sure how it'll end up working out in reality, but in theory, it sounds like a sort of good idea, especially with not needing the disk in the drive. That said, not bothering with DRM at all would also be a good idea, as they wouldn't be spending n dollars on something that gets cracked within 3 days.

Also, Spore ditched the 10-day plan as well (http://kotaku.com/5008454/spore-removes-10+day-reauthentication).

[Erloas]

Well that was fast. It didn't even take them a full week to realise this was going to cause more problems then it solved.

[Scintillatus]

Still not buying until the Bioshock-style 3-installs-and-then-premium-line **** goes. I'm not sitting on the phone for half an hour because I had to reformat. :B

[Zarrexaij]

And here I was thinking the copy protection on DVDs and CDs were pretty fascist.

That's insulting to us non-pirating people so much. What a way of limiting your audience who would normally buy the game if not for the fact it's protected by something completely totalitarian.

I'm glad Bioware dropped it for pc Mass Effect, however that still leaves the asinine install limit. Apparently they don't think real gamers wipe their drives, multi-boot, own more than one PC, or, you know, actually might have to install it a few times.

[Triaxx]

I still won't buy it because I still won't be able to play it. Why? I don't have internet on my gaming computer. There are three reasons for this:

1-I have dial-up.

2-My gaming computer is 64-bit, and I don't have a modem that will work with it, and my dial-up internet.

3-This also means I don't have to have an Anti-Virus, or Firewall to clog my computer and slow it down.

Thus, I can't even install the game. Lovely. Bioware explains that the security has moved from the physical medium to the online. Did anyone ask for this? I know I didn't. I don't object to having the CD in the drive, because while I'm playing that's what my entire computer is dedicated to, is playing the game. If I want to listen to music, I have an MP3 player.

[warty goblin]

1-I have dial-up.


Woe is you. May the gods of internet bless your browsing with the copious gift of bandwidth.

I just read the new policies, and I must say that in general they strike me as quite reasonable, particularly the Spore one. Also I spent half an hour digging though the Bioware forums and figured out that my computer in fact would run Mass Effect, so I'll have something to do this summer at least.

[Erloas]

I do see a use for, and player acceptance of this sort of DRM if they used it in a rental situation. Rent the game and they send you a CD like Blockbuster Online, Gamefly or Netflix does (the CDs themselves probably cost a fraction of the price of the stamp used to send it), you install the game and can play it for a week for $5-8 just like a console rental (or use a form of Digital Distribution), it authenticates the game online and you can play it until your rental period is up, at which point you can uninstall the game, re-authenticate and pay for another rental period or just leave the game on your system to re-rent at a later time. If you rent it enough times to pay for the game then the activation system goes away and its the same as purchasing it in the first place. It would give people a chance to play the game without having to spend $60 to see if they even like the game, and being a rental the online activation is more expected. People will pirate a game to save $60 to see if they like it or not, but for $5-8 its worth paying to not have to deal with all the cracks and such. Developers still make money off the game even if it isn't necessarily a lot from some players.
Its also good for the players because it encourages companies to make games that have more replay value and take longer to beat. I see a lot of console game reviews that say, "its a good game but just rent it because you'll beat it in a weekend anyway" and the more games get away from that sort of thing the more likely people are to pay for it.

And just to be clear, I don't think this sort of DRM is a good solution to piracy and shouldn't be used for normal purchases of a game.

[Fri]

I don't have an internet connection handy. So I guess bye bye spore...

[Destro_Yersul]

Excellent. No barrier to me buying Spore now. Honestly, the three install thing doesn't bother me. The only game I remember installing more than once is Simcity, and that's due to getting a new computer.

Now to start my evil plans to take over the galaxy with multi-limbed scorpion hybrids....

[Hermit]

Essentially the limited install thing is only a problem if your harddrive crashes. If you're voluntarily reformatting just uninstall first and you are refunded a credit. Its still an annoying system, granted, but at least its not quite as bad.

[Proven_Paradox]

Well, I'm primarily a console gamer, so this won't affect me so much. Still, I do boot up a few PC games once in a while.

I wouldn't buy an EA game because I think their business practices to be bad for the industry as a whole, asinine copyright protection aside. This has not affected my decision on whether or not to buy those game in the least. All the same, this kind of idea could spread, and I fear the affects it might have on the few PC games that I actually enjoy.

The check-every-ten-days policy? I could actually see that being okay for games that by their nature must be played online (such as MMOs, as someone mentioned earlier in the thread) as long as:

- It isn't taxing on the system.
- It happens visibly. I hate the "starting system" screen sort of thing that hides what your machine is trying to do.
- It can be canceled if you want to skip it and do it later. Won't be as much of an issue if the first point holds, but still.

My major problem here is the install limit. Once I've purchased the game, I should be able to install it wherever I damned well please. LAN parties were brought up--that's a major issue for me, as I've attended LAN parties featuring games I do not own several times (under oath that I would uninstall afterwards so the original owners would not have to fight for their valid CD key). The 3 installation limit makes that impossible, which really is a shame.

[factotum]

Om, they've revoked the "re-verify every 10 days" clause now...you just need to verify on installing the game, just like Steam.

[SolkaTruesilver]

I still won't buy it, because of the 3-installation limits. I am the kind of person who re-install it's games every 2 year, which means the lifespan of Spore will be not satisfactory for me.

And I find such procedures insulting

[Tirian]

Oh well, to me they got rid of the wrong bit. I'm not scared by the Brave New World scenario that all games are now online games, even if the only online portion is verifying that you have a legal license (and perhaps saving your game state so that it would be unpleasant to bypass).

Honestly, the suits would have an easier time if that's all they had to do. I'm a little surprised to do some poking around and see that the Borland copyright has fallen by the wayside. It held that you can install your software concurrently on multiple machines as long as it wasn't being run on multiple machines at the same time. It is often compared to a book: you can read it at home or you can read it at work, but if you want to read it at work while your wife is reading it at home then you need to buy a second copy.

It has always seemed very mature to me, and has only improved now that users can theoretically be bound by more than the honor code. Best of all, it puts EA in the business of selling licenses instead of DVDs, so they don't care if pirates mass-produce the media. They're actually doing your work for you at that point. The downside is that you would need to develop some sort of eternal license server system and perhaps some sort of industry-wide virtual "keyring" of license keys that you can store on a thumb drive or something, but those problems seem like they should be surmountable.

[Triaxx]

I'm hoping I'll be able to get WiMax or satellite soon. I live too far out for cable internet.

I don't mind the option of online, but only if I've picked up the download. If I have the CD, I want that to be my physical confirmation.

[BRC]

If you are reading this thread, than this (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/) is relevant to your intrests

[Thexare Blademoon]

And here I was thinking the copy protection on DVDs and CDs were pretty fascist.

That's insulting to us non-pirating people so much. What a way of limiting your audience who would normally buy the game if not for the fact it's protected by something completely totalitarian.

It's insulting to us - er, those - pirates, too, if they think it'll actually stop us- dammit, I mean them! :smallamused:

Seriously though, I'm not interested in modern PC gaming for this reason just as much as, if not more than, the fact that my computer's unable to handle it. As long as DRM remains this absurd, I'll be happy with my Master of Orion 2, Tiberian Sun, and Freelancer.

[TheLogman]

I'm kinda ticked about the 3-install rule. I mean, ya, my computer is too nooby to actually run either of the games, but I've installed games like Portal and TF2 in hopes to get them running somewhere like 20 times! What if I had to call a number, and sit on the phone for like 20 minutes every 3 tries? I'd go insane!

FYI, neither game works yet, someday, someday.

[EvilElitest]

wait i was going to get mass effect for the Xbox, does this mean i have to go online every 10 days? Why? I don't like the oneline Xbox
from
EE

[Flickerdart]

If you are reading this thread, than this (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/) is relevant to your intrests
It's even better if you can spot the hidden symbolism with the eagle-like eyes you would need in order to do so and deep understanding of history to get the reference.

Also, EE, the 360 Mass Effect is exempt from this. Because apparently 360 piracy doesn't exist, according to EA.

[EvilElitest]

Ah i just read that, i was replying to the first page. That is a relief. Mass effect would most likely be better for the computer anyways
from
EE

[warty goblin]

I'm kinda ticked about the 3-install rule. I mean, ya, my computer is too nooby to actually run either of the games, but I've installed games like Portal and TF2 in hopes to get them running somewhere like 20 times! What if I had to call a number, and sit on the phone for like 20 minutes every 3 tries? I'd go insane!

FYI, neither game works yet, someday, someday.

The rule isn't three installs, it's installs on three 'different' computers. I can play musical installation all I want on the same computer, and aside from having to re-activate online every time, there's no hitch, since it uses the same activation as the first time I installed it on that computer.

If however I wanted to install it on four different computers, that is where I would encounter a problem. Seems a pretty reasonable policy to me. A way to refund activations would be nice, but whatever.

[Khanderas]

I was not that intrested in this game to begin with. Sure sounded like a quriky little editor, but I doubted it would keep my intrest more then a fleeting testrun to make a zergling or a few things like that. Seemed to be just a clunkier way to make a model editor.
I would problebly not have tried it anyway, but this thing did nothing to improve my willingness to buy it.

This one will be cracked like everything else eventually and in the end only those who play it legit will be (mildly) inconvenienced. Unless your comp is screwy and you gotta reinstall it a few times and then you are left crying (if I read the limited number of reinstalls right).

[JadedDM]

I love the fact that EA's anti-piracy methods are only likely to INCREASE piracy.

[poleboy]

Well, I'll probably be getting ME now then... mostly because I'm jealous of my X-box owning friends, but also because it looks like it was made to handle better (control-wise) on a PC. The limited installs are indeed annoying, but I assume there's a way around it. If not, they'll be lynched by angry gamers and I'm pretty sure they know that by now.

Besides, I'll probably be tired of it the 4th time I have to install it anyway. It looks good, but it's no BG2 or Torment I think.