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EA Loosens Spore, Mass Effect DRM
An anonymous reader writes "In response to recent criticism, EA has decided to eliminate the periodic validation of Mass Effect and Spore. 'Specifically, EA's plan to dial in to game owner's computers every ten days to check whether they were running a legitimate version of their software has been scrapped, ShackNews reports. EA had planned to use the validation method for upcoming titles Mass Effect and Spore. EA now says that validation will now only occur when a user attempts to download new content for either game. Chief among the voices in opposition to this measure were members of the armed forces, who pointed out that they could not rely on having an internet connection every ten days.'"
1939/45... Troops freeze through the Battle of the Bulge, across Russia.
2008... Access to certain videogames sometimes limited in certain situations for a few days until net access can be resecured.
I know "Won't anybody think of the troops!" is second only to "Won't anybody think of the children!" and can thus never be questioned unless you're a terrorist as well as a paedophile.. but there comes a point where the rallying cry is used for such ludicrously trivial things that it just devalues everyone involved.
EA now says that validation will now only occur when a user attempts to download new content for either game. Spore is built on downloadable content. Throughout the game, the creatures you encounter, the worlds you visit, the buildings you see--they are all player-created objects and will all be downloaded in the background while the game is running. Spore is a game that only works well with downloadable content, and if I have to enter a validation code every time the game decides to download a creature or a planet, I'm not sure the promising gameplay will be worth the hassle.
DRM has no right to exist, and anyone who implements it should be severely punished. DRM should be resisted by any and all means necessary. We deserve a DRM free future, but we will have to fight for it. Do everything you can to end DRM today.
I don't know about everyone else, but protection like this makes me MUCH less likely to buy a game.
I was more worried I would have to boycott Spore. Checking in when I DL content is ok cause then I am connected, but if the game is going to stop working due to extended lack of access to a connection, well... fuck em.
"Doctor, it's not the voices I hear in MY head, but the voices I hear in YOUR head that really frighten me."
You don't like their policies or practices then don't fucking buy it. Thats the loudest thing you can say.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I think that the real reason is because military personnel are non-trivial consumers of entertainment products. When you have a bunch of young people, with a good deal of free money on their hands (if you are deployed in a combat zone you get more pay, and generally have few expenses since everything is handled), and a situation that sucks, well that's a good target for entertainment goods. I know when one of my ex roommates graduated and was getting ready to go off he got a nice laptop and plenty of games and movies. The guys who do Red vs Blue said Iraq was one of the top countries ordering their DVDs. Wasn't Iraqis ordering, it was troops.
Thus it would be dumb for EA to shut out a large market. Especially since both of these games have strong single player components, and thus are of interest when you aren't going to have net access.
It isn't being used as a rallying cry, it is that the soldiers were honestly concerned they wouldn't be able to get their game on.
I was worried I'd have to pirate it.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
A wise decision would be to forgo the DRM altogether, and apply the savings to reducing the retail price of the games. I guarantee that will have a far greater effect on sales than any DRM scheme ever would.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
I'm not sure I undestand why you're less likely to buy it after the changes. There's no regularily set phone-home-and-authenticate functionality so after the intial install an online registration you never have to bother validating your copy of the game if you don't want to get new patches or play online (both of which require you to have an internet connection in order to accomplish.) so I fail to see what the fuss is about.
I suppose it sucks if you don't have internet access (but then how are you posting to Slashdot?) to begin with, but considering they dropped the overly silly requirement of having the CD/DVD in the drive while playing the game, they've more than made concessions. I'll also mention that this allows you to easily install and enjoy the game on multiple systems since you don't have to haul the stupid CD/DVD around.
Either I've completely misunderstood you or I can't even comprehend what you're objections to the new scheme that they've developed are.
No, more like reacting to bad publicity. Sort of like what our elected officials do. Float a trial balloon and then act according to the poll results.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
- Announce heavy-handed DRM
- "Listen" to backlash from fans
- Announce less heavy-handed DRM
- Pat yourself on the back when the fans lavish praise on you, knowing you still got your foot in the door anyway
Sudden outbreak of common sense, my foot!
One of the things about being god awful bad at something is you can improve a lot and still stink.
The DRM still only allows three total installs for the lifetime of the game (although you can call EA tech support and ask for more, no guarantee though). I have many games that have existed on more than three of my personal computers. Just glancing at my shelf I see 1830, Star Fleet Command, Transport Tycoon, Starcraft, Rome Total War and the list goes on. I don't want to have to beg tech support every time I upgrade my game machine, many of these companies don't even exist anymore.
The fact of the matter is that DRM that limits the total number of times you can install the game is unacceptable. They may have fixed other problems with the DRM, but this issue remains.
Actually, you know, that's probably exactly how the execs over at EA think.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
Now if one of the machines crashes, I am thinking about my Gaming (win XP) Desktop here, it has become unstable and needs a reload soon
Everyone who buys Wild Hunt will receive 16 specially prepared DLCs absolutely for free, regardless of platform.
I don't know what the GP does for a living, but I'm active duty Navy in the submarine force. We go underwater in a nice enclosed space for months at a time, away and largely out of contact with our families (I'm married), something you might consider a bit on the arduous side compared to most civilian employment.
I also know a lot of people from other service branches, from various backgrounds with varying perspectives on the war. Of course most of those soliders would "rather be home with their families" as opposed to dealing with a hostile combat environment every day. That said, those same soldiers are proud to be serving their nation (the "government" you speak of in your post), and have a job where they voluntarily agreed to accept and execute whatever orders are deemed necessary by those in command. That includes the Commander in Chief.
Just some perspective from a Sailor.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
"Obeying orders" is never a valid excuse for doing something unethical or illegal. It doesn't relieve the wrongdoer of responsibility.
I'm not the OP and FWIW: I'm a mathematician and I worked in my last two years for a company that produces prostheses. My work for the next couple of years will be used to predict eruptions and reduce their threat. Also, this has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the message."I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart" (Linus van Pelt)
That said, the three install BS is the dealbreaker for me. Hell, I reinstall Windows from a prisitne disc image at least once a year on my gaming rig if not more. Have they never heard of Windows rot? And after watching folks get burned first with MLB.com DRM and then MSN Musicstore DRM I'm leary of any kind of copy protection that phones home, but to find out I would only get three installs of a game I PAID FOR? Without even bothering to see whether I was installing to the same machine or not? Sorry,but you can keep your broken games EA. luckily they don't own every game house on the planet,at least not yet. Those titles might look nice and be fun,but I could not support any company who was royally screwing their customers with DRM that draconian. But that is my 02c,YMMV.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Either I've completely misunderstood you or I can't even comprehend what you're objections to the new scheme that they've developed are.
I think you misunderstood him.
He said "protection like this makes me MUCH less likely to buy a game", I believe "protection like" referred to the DRM malware itself. I believe his position is that the "new and improved" malware is absolutely no different than the the original malware that the company just got publicly spanked for.
The one and only change announced here is nothing more than an announcement that it won't phone home as much. That's it. It's still exactly the identical malware, the code is still just as hostile, it merely hides that hostility slightly better merely by trimming back the most obvious attacks on running on a ten-day-timer.
Among many other issues, if the company closes up shop or if their server gets hit by lightning or anything else, this malware still attacks your system. It is still actively hostile and it still actively prevents you from using the software you bought and it still wages an active war against any attempt to get your computer and your software working properly.
Yes, their motivation for it is an attempt to reduce piracy. However that does not change the fact that it is hostile code, does not change the fact that it is maleware.
I suppose it sucks if you don't have internet access (but then how are you posting to Slashdot?)
Just because I'm posting to Slashdot from this computer, and doing so today, does not mean that the computer I install it on to play is connected to the internet, or even that I will have any handy access to the internet at all at that time. Which is aside from the point that by computer shouldn't be "phone home" to them at all unless I ask it to, and that it is entirely illegitimate for the software to interfere with my usage of my computer and usage of the game I bought if their DRM server goes down or even I merely *don't* have my computer call them over the internet.
the overly silly requirement of having the CD/DVD in the drive while playing the game,
Right, MALWARE.
It's malware, in contrast to legitimate valuable software such as a CD emulator utilities. Such utilities are valuable for playing old games that assume data is on the CD for the mere reason that hard drives weren't big enough to fully install the game back then... and which as also legitimate and valuable for working around stupid DRM CD-check type malware.
And hypothetically, a equivalent legitimate valuable utility to enable me to install and run the game I bought even when I have no internet access, or to install and run the game I bought even if the company goes out of business or their DRM servers otherwise go offline, or even to do so when I do have access and merely decline to notify the company over the internet.
So while removing the ten-day timer is a "good thing", I'm still just as pissed off today as I was yesterday.
If one day story comes out that a company plans to actively add lead and mercury to the milk you buy, and the next day a story comes out that that the company has decided to stick with the lead but not add the mercury, is that supposed to be good news? Are we supposed to be happy about that? Are we supposed to say 'ok, I'm not pissed at them anymore"? Are be supposed to be GRATEFUL that they decided not to add the mercury?
No.
Either I am not skip the milk entirely...
or I will get the milk from some Good Samaritan who volunteers to do some work to filter the lead out. And if that Good Samaritan also happens to offer me that clean milk for free, well gee, that's a seriously tough call there...... I can pay for poisoned milk, or I can get nice clean milk for free.... oooooo that's a real toughie.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Complaining about Windows's stability is like complaining that Linux is hard to install and has poor hardware support. Get with the times.
I have tons of games that came from companies that are no longer around, or companies that have completely changed since those games came out. I've reinstalled my OS or upgraded my computer countless times since those games came out. They still work fine for me, and I don't have to jump through hoops every time I need to reinstall the software I paid money for.
I seriously doubt EA/Bioware will be quick to release a patch to fix this once the game is out. So, even though I fully intend to buy the game, I'm stuck with cheering for the pirates.
This "loosening" is just to make people accept, even praised, "online activation/harware tying", which is in my mind the worst kind of DRM for purchased content (though it is a perfect fit for renting).
By accepting this DRM, you agree to have you ability to play a single player offline game controlled by an online server. There is no such thing as a one time only activation, as each time the system detect your computer has changed (which can be triggered by simply using a different windows account with crappy DRM), it will ask for activation again, eating your previous activation credit.
Nothing guarantee the auth server will be there when you want to play. Even if it is there, nothing guarantee it will give you the right to play because of some "normal usage" rules implemented on it (and which can change over time). And don't expect too much competence and generosity from a consumer service, especially a few months after launch.
The software, music and video industries are full of horror histories about activation servers going down or being simply dumb and rigid.
The 10-day thing is required. Here's where it comes from.
BioShock released with an earlier version of this system; SecuROM with Product Activation. After outcry from people then, publisher 2K Games promised a "deactivation" tool (which isn't enough for me to rent their game, but I guess it was enough for some). The problem with this tool goes a little something like this:
Step 1: Install BioShock
Step 2: Activate BioShock. SecuROM server now thinks you have "n-1" activations left. Your game is activated, and BioShock will never phone home again.
Step 3: Ghost/clone your hard drive image.
Step 4: Deactivate BioShock. SecuROM server goes back up to "n" activations left. Your game is deactivated.
Step 5: Restore your harddrive from the image you created in step 3. Now your game is activated again, but the server doesn't know that, and still thinks you have "n" activations left.
This is obviously a bit of an onerous process to go through, but it isn't hard to imagine someone automating this process (or even just automating the important part; finding where the activation is stored on your drive, backing it up, and then restoring it after the deactivation process is finished updating the server).
I strongly suspect the "phone home every 10 days" was an attempt to "fix" this. If 30 different machines are all phoning home every few days with the same key, then you know people are using this (or a similar technique) to pirate the game, so you can ban the key and kill all those installs. Without the phone home part, this activation scheme is essentially worthless.
The CORRECT fix, of course, is to get rid of product activation, because it's stupid, invasive, and is pushing your formerly paying customers into circumventing your copy protection.