EA getting sued over spore DRM

[VirusType2]

Maybe being constantly logged in at an online server

this is why I quit buying games.

If not, maybe some form of unique physical key, in the game box.

Not going to happen. Cuts into profits/adds to cost. They don't even want to press .20 DVD discs anymore and print manuals. they will be more than happy to send you the shit over the internet.

Or EA technicians frequently visiting your house to check your games.

The piracy problem will never be gone forever, as long as data is arranged in 0's and 1's.

The best thing they can do is act reputable while continuously investing in new and better solutions.

They don't want to invest the money into it.

If piracy is such a huge money loss for them, then why not invest in anti-piracy that actually works. See, that's the thing, it must not be such a money loss, 90% of these people weren't going to buy the game in the first place.


Maybe the game needs to be 'booby trapped' to delete itself, or parts of itself, if you try to crack it, reverse engineer it, or just tamper with it at all.

 

[Paulaner]

Every Anti-piracy measure out today does absolutely nothing to stop piracy, and only pushes more people to pirate it. This isnt speculation, its fact.

The story is well known: DRM is not intended to stop piracy, but to stop people sharing games with friends, or reselling them. Counting the cash, the thing is obviously working. This doesn't mean that this behaviour doesn't piss us, but "us" is not so many people. By EA point of view, I think that a little upset community (hard core gamers that know about SecuROM and care about activation limits) is acceptable.
I know at least three friends of mine that bought Mass Effect because "it was cool". The game had activation limits (I explained them this tech thing), so every guy had to buy a copy. They installed the game, they played the game, they really enjoyed it (ME rocks!) and now they are three EA happy customers.
This is the scheme, in EA greedy minds.

 

[Tagaziel]

People, don't feed the troll.

Alterego is here only to troll and cause ruckus.

 

[Paulaner]

Alterego is here only to troll and cause ruckus.

I don't agree with Alterego point of view, but his last post was well formed and expressed his feelings in a correct way. Doesn't seem a troll to me.

 

[stemot]

2. SecuROM doesn't do anything wrong, people are paranoid.
I admit that it failed at stopping piracy, but it is ridiculous that paranoid people start to blame that system for EVERY DAMN BUG AND ERROR that their computer made, since they installed SecuROM.

Actually, yes it does. It installs at Ring 0 level without every informing the consumer during the EULA or manual and packaging, as as you should know, anything at Ring 0 has full access to your programs, which indeed could cause crashes on someones system.

3. wanted to cause a damage to EA. Probably their complaints are not even true.
Look at any Spore related site, or thread, and you don't see players complaining about a greatly increased number of PC system failures.

Check out any Spore tech support forum and see how wrong you are.

 

[Alterego-X]

People, don't feed the troll.

Alterego is here only to troll and cause ruckus.

This is not true. Maybe my opinion is different from everyone else, (except EA), maybe it is a bit extreme, but I'm not just the devils advocate, I actually believe what I said.


About piracy: It CAN be stopped. On consoles, it is harder to run cracked games. (afaik xbox 360 needs to get physically manipulated, and PS 3 piracy doesn't even exist yet. ) There are also multiplayer games that won't ever let you log in to the official server.


Also, I don't think that we should make claims such as "Spore would be more successful without DRM", or "DRM makes less people buy the game"
As PaoloM said, those people who don't care about cracking, can be stopped even by traditional copy protection. (although this is also a bad example, because he was talking about the latest securom, that is not really against mass piracy).

BTW do you remember Settler 3, when pigs were produced instead of soldiers, so you couldn't play with it? Or XIII, that, at a point said "buy the game to walk further"?

Although probably there was an updated crack somewhere, I'm sure these tricks forced some people to buy the games.

 

[VirusType2]

BTW do you remember Settler 3, when pigs were produced instead of soldiers, so you couldn't play with it? Or XIII, that, at a point said "buy the game to walk further"?

Although probably there was an updated crack somewhere, I'm sure these tricks forced some people to buy the games.

After all that holy shit, you are a ****ing pirate.

:upstare:

About piracy: It CAN be stopped.

really? Because it's been going on for what, like 50 years without a hitch? Maybe you should reveal your brilliant solution now. Captain.

 

[Alterego-X]

After all that holy shit, you are a ****ing pirate.

I only heard about it, I didn't even play with that version of Settlers, and bought XIII not pirated it.

 

[VirusType2]

Where did you hear about that?

Where would you hear about something like this if you weren't involved in this sort of thing?

 

[Kyorisu]

About piracy: It CAN be stopped.

No it's impossible, see my previous post. End of discussion.

About piracy: It CAN be stopped. On consoles, it is harder to run cracked games. (afaik xbox 360 needs to get physically manipulated, and PS 3 piracy doesn't even exist yet. ) There are also multiplayer games that won't ever let you log in to the official server.

Modchips are cheap and easily installed by a professional repairmen. Nobody buys a PS3 to play games and lastly you're thinking of modchip detection in the 360s firmware. A perfect modchip is transparent to the console and thus you can play online just fine with an illegal copy. PS3 games will be pirated soon enough once the cost of Blu-Ray plumets and bandwidth becomes cheaper.

 

[Uriel]

I like Valve's approach to piracy with Steam. But who would pirate a Valve game?

Anywho, I hope EA gets their balls sued off.

 

[Jintor]

My friend made a comment along the lines of "The main thing stopping me pirating Far Cry 2 is its size."

Valve defeats pirates through the power of quality! I never pirate (NOT THAT I PIRATE) games that I feel are quality, such as Psychonauts, most Valve Games, most GTAs, and in the future Red Alert 3 (Yes, even with its retarded copy-protection). The main reason I am confident of RA3's quality is I'm in the beta and it is sweet to the point where I will go out and buy this game. I don't make money, so I rarely spend money - so the main defence to piracy is, in my eyes, quality.

I appreciate that not everybody wants to give their money to the big corporations, but if it's a quality game you really should.

Securom sucks balls.

Piracy cannot be stopped, but it CAN be harnessed, possibly with some sort of halter.

BTW do you remember Settler 3, when pigs were produced instead of soldiers, so you couldn't play with it? Or XIII, that, at a point said "buy the game to walk further"?

Personally my favourite form of copy protection was the 'fade' system, where about 5 hours (or less) into a pirated game the game's physics would begin to break down and crazy shit would start happening.

 

[Stigmata]

I love that copy protection too. There needs to be an easier and more widespread way for anti-piracy to be embedded into the game itself, rather than a disc check method that messes with your computer under the hood and criminalises those who buy the game legitimately.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

If anything, DRM promotes piracy.

 

[Paulaner]

Personally my favourite form of copy protection was the 'fade' system, where about 5 hours (or less) into a pirated game the game's physics would begin to break down and crazy shit would start happening.

Oh yes, nothing is better than making fun of pirates. That's my favourite copy protection too: behave as the copy protection has been removed, but make the game unplayable with little, subtle glitches. Of course, when the game is *really* cracked the trick will not work anymore, but this will at least soil the torrents with fakes for a while.

 

[Jintor]

And the other major barrier to pirating is when torrents are filled with porn or fakes.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

cured by comments.

 

[Stigmata]

And the other major barrier to pirating is when torrents are filled with porn

Barrier? I think you're searching for the term "treasure".

 

[Jintor]

Added humour because that amount is tiny nowadays

 

[Kyorisu]

Oh yes, nothing is better than making fun of pirates. That's my favourite copy protection too: behave as the copy protection has been removed, but make the game unplayable with little, subtle glitches. Of course, when the game is *really* cracked the trick will not work anymore, but this will at least soil the torrents with fakes for a while.

Whereby the pirated game is more entertaining than the legitamate game.

 

[Jintor]

I doubt it. It' would be more fustrating than anything else.

 

[Stigmata]

Unless the game was bad in a very specific way that made poor physics and esoteric glitches into fun things.

 

[VirusType2]

fun things?

what if there were glitchy and erratic physics boobs, then it would be awesome.

 

[Kyorisu]

fun things?

what if there were glitchy and erratic physics boobs, then it would be awesome.

Throw in the ability to throw soccer balls at the boobies and you have a hit game. LD2 has it in spades.

http://gaming.wikia.com/wiki/Love_Death_2:_Realtime_Lovers

 

[Alterego-X]

Where did you hear about that?

Where would you hear about something like this if you weren't involved in this sort of thing?

Yesterday, in another forum thread about piracy?

No it's impossible, see my previous post. End of discussion.

Modchips are cheap and easily installed by a professional repairmen. Nobody buys a PS3 to play games and lastly you're thinking of modchip detection in the 360s firmware. A perfect modchip is transparent to the console and thus you can play online just fine with an illegal copy. PS3 games will be pirated soon enough once the cost of Blu-Ray plumets and bandwidth becomes cheaper.

The highlighted parts are more than enough to stop mainstream consumers, and generally normal people from pirating games.
Maybe there are certain fanatical pirates who are ready to accept these inconveniences, but at least unlike the current PC DRM, it makes things harder for the pirates, and easier for the consumers.



(BTW, afaik a modchipped x360 might lose its guarantee, so if you get RROD, or any other error, you fail permanently. )

 

[Kyorisu]

Who's a normal person? I know 40+yo women who have gotten their consoles chipped for their children. Unless you can back up your statements with statistics I'm going to ignore you. Normal people are getting their consoles chipped and it's so damned easy to do. Look in the paper or online for console repairs and give a few places a ring. A lot of kids around here use xpunked.com

(BTW, afaik a modchipped x360 might lose its guarantee, so if you get RROD, or any other error, you fail permanently. )

Failure rates are much lower with later models and your warranty will run out eventually anyway.

Oh and btw my VPN in Japan is limited to 500GB per day with unlimited uploads. If I so desired I could easily grab a couple of GBs in a few minutes over Share. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_(P2P)

 

[Jintor]

The highlighted parts are more than enough to stop mainstream consumers, and generally normal people from pirating games.

I would believe you, but from own eye evidence... no.

 

[Paulaner]

The highlighted parts are more than enough to stop mainstream consumers, and generally normal people from pirating games.

There is some truth here. The people I know is generally tech unsavvy and is scared about letting someone tampering with their expensive console. Downloading files from torrents is another planet. This is my personal experience: none of the people I know has a modded console.

 

[Kyorisu]

Scared about letting certified electricians fiddle with their electronics haha. Are people afraid of giving their cars to mechanics? A lot of places will let you stay and watch the mod process.

 

[Paulaner]

Scared about letting certified electricians fiddle with their electronics haha. Are people afraid of giving their cars to mechanics? A lot of places will let you stay and watch the mod process.

You are right. I am just reporting my experience.

 

[Jintor]

Really? I'm more likely to trust someone else to do my electrical stuff for me. I know plenty of people who have chipped consoles.

 

[Alterego-X]

When I said "normal people", I didn't mean that anyone who has a chipped console is "abnormal", maybe I should have used the term "average".

We, the hardcore gamers/geeks DO NOT represent the average console buyer, so our personal experiences and our friends piracy ratio might not be general.

(Also, the opposite of "hardcore" is not necessarily the stereotypical "dumb wii casual", it might be anyone who doesn't read gaming forums on a daily basis, arguing about the effects of PC gaming piracy )

 

[Naph]

For those thinking steam is a solution, it isn't.

If you get VAC banned for hacking in CS:S, your entire steam account is ripped and thrown in the trash. So this means, all your online activated games from non-valve distributors are gone also.

You can have over $1000 account thrown out by some mistake made by your child.

 

[Kyorisu]

If you don't post hard figures you're argument is based off your own personal experiences just like mine. You can't win mate.

For those thinking steam is a solution, it isn't.

If you get VAC banned for hacking in CS:S, your entire steam account is ripped and thrown in the trash. So this means, all your online activated games from non-valve distributors are gone also.

You can have over $1000 account thrown out by some mistake made by your child.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Monitor you kids, kthnxbye. Besides you're utterly wrong. Vac banning blocks you from playing on VAC protected servers, the rest of your games will work just fine. So I've read anyway. i.e. you can play on non vac servers and the like, non vac games are unaffected.

We, the hardcore gamers/geeks DO NOT represent the average console buyer, so our personal experiences and our friends piracy ratio might not be general.

People want to save a buck, simple really. Console piracy is mainstream, end of discussion. Why you're bothering to argue it isn't utterly confuses me.

 

[Naph]

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Monitor you kids, kthnxbye.

Nah the little bastard payed for it all. I'm still currently laughing at his face right now.

 

[Laivasse]

Console piracy is indeed mainstream and was one of the reason the original PS lasted so long. People would pick up cheap modded Playstations from their local dodgy hi-fi guy and have a bunch of bootlegged games chucked in. Most of the people I know who have owned a console have at one point owned a modded console, plus I recall all the best indie game shops in London having prominently placed signs advertising their modchipping services. Granted that much of this was motivated by circumventing regional restrictions, but it shows how the anti-piracy measures involved are unsound and easily beaten. Reality just does not square with the idea that console piracy, or at least efforts to circumvent console DRM restrictions, aren't mainstream.

 

[VirusType2]

Sorry, got bored of the discussion, but I want to say one more thing.


Any new system (like a new console) is going to take a while for piracy to get a hold, but eventually nothing is safe.

One word, 'EMULATOR'. Look it up if you have to.


Like we said, you can't stop piracy, not as long as data is 1's and 0's and something is desirable enough to warrant going through the trouble.

Data is data, no matter what. Cartridges weren't safe. Arcade machine motherboards weren't safe. Nothing is.