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Spore, Mass Effect DRM Phone Home For Single-Player Gaming
Tridus writes "The PC version of Mass Effect is going to require Internet access to play (despite being a single-player game), as its DRM system requires that it phone home every 10 days. Sadly, Spore will use the same system. This will do nothing to stop piracy of course, but it will do a heck of a good job of stopping EA's new arch-enemy: people playing their single player games offline." Is this better or worse than requiring a CD in the drive to play? Update: 05/07 17:17 GMT by T : According to a message from Technical Producer Derek French (may require a scroll-down) on the Bioware forums, there is indeed an internet connection required, but only for activation, not for all future play. Update: 05/08 04:10 GMT by T : Mea culpa. As reader David Houk points out, the 10-day window is in fact correct as initially described, so don't count on playing this on any machine without at least some Internet connectivity.
I hate how publishers have finally used technological measures to achieve what the courts won't grant them. This should be flat out explicitly illegal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
is competition good, or is duplication of effort bad?
I always buy my games (who needs to download multiple Gb files anyway, it's boring), but I hate these stupid copy protection schemes.
Most of the time I find someone posts a crack or workaround to gamecopyworld though, and they tend to work.
Not for freetards though, not one of them comes with a serial, you still have to buy the games.
I'll try Spore just as soon as the drm is bypassed, not before. I refuse to believe that I, as a legally purchasing game player, need to be watched by the content owner.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
Update, as I read farther into TFA:
"just to activate the first time, and every 10 days after"
Now it's saying something different!
Also:
Commenter: "Sure, I have an always-on net connection but what happens if I don't play for 11 days and the moment I want to play my connection is down? Are you saying I'm not going to be able to play my perfectly legitimate purchased copy of the game, even the retail version, until I get permission?"
BioShock rep: "That is correct. And I would suggest that you contact EA Support the moment this happens (once you get your internet back) to report the issue. If there are people having problems with the system as designed, then Support needs to hear about it so they can help us evaluate it for the next game title."
dont forget air/sea travel, airports, bus stations, cabins, e-mail-less vacations.
I need my games most when I CAN'T get to the network...
As a Netflix user, I can affirm that you do not know what you are talking about. Netflix's instant view capabilities are an added bonus to an already nice system. They don't even charge extra for it. The whole point of Netflix is that you are renting movies, so no one thinks they are "buying" a movie when they watch it instantly. You don't even pay per view, you pay a monthly fee, and that fee can be really low if you want to mainly watch the instant view movies. I don't know of a better way to legally watch movies cheaply. If Netflix suddenly goes down, all you lose is the last few days of that month's subscription.
Now, this system in TFA that is being described is a Bad Thing, because when those servers go down I can't play the game I paid $50.00 for. This is the first thing I've heard that makes me second guess buying Spore as soon as it comes out. Then again, I play plenty of Steam games, so I guess I'm not really that worried.
Clovis
^ Clovis, look! It's that guy you are!