Slashdot Mirror
Mass Effect DRM Still Causing Issues
An anonymous reader writes "There was some discussion last month about the proposed DRM for Mass Effect and Spore that required the game to phone home every ten days. They backed down from that, but have left in that a user is only allowed 3 activations per license key. A license key is burned up when the O/S is reinstalled, when certain hardware is upgraded (EA refuses to disclose specifics of what), and possibly when a new user is set up in Windows. Only in its first month, some users are already locked out of their games from trying troubleshooting techniques to get the game running."
Thats what they get for buying it instead of pirating it. The cracked version(s) don't have any problems like this.
Protection like this certainly doesn't encourage paying for the game when the free version is better.
1984 was not supposed to be an instruction manual.
What's this? DRM causes massive amounts of consumer frustration while doing little to protect the rights of the property owner?
Huh.
a user is only allowed 3 activations per license key. A license key is burned up when the O/S is reinstalled, ...
;-P
If you own Windows Vista, then you'll have about 3 days to use your license
Table-ized A.I.
That's the downside from copy protection. If you make it too weak, it is easily cracked. If you make it to strong, you lock out legit users. Try to avoid 99,999% of that or you will get disgruntled customers and that's a big no-no for companies. Since Spore is a single-player game, a harsh copy protection will only tick off legit costumers. A free bit of advice, DON'T. It will cost you more than you will get from it.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
DRM keeps an honest man honest, and that's it.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
The pirated version works great.
Who the fuck would actually pay for a game? ahahahahahahaahaahahahahaa
Why the heck should I buy that crap? No game is good enough to make me jump hoops like a circus lion. Personally, I'd feel insulted. I get to cry, rant and rave, spend my time and money trying to find a solution to their copy protection problem, while I watch others play the cracked and downloaded copies.
Is that the message I should get out of this? Buy and cry, but copy and enjoy?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
www.gamecopyworld.com
Pirated versions.
They Just Work(tm).
What on Earth does O/S mean?
I've been playing the game just fine for the past week. I use a crack, though. I refuse to install SecuROM or be limited to three installations. Sure, you can contact EA and get it activated from them, but that's just ridiculous in this day and age.
Great game, though.
I warned people about the same BS with Bioshock. You don't want to pay $50 to just hire a game, because anything that stops you from using what you buy is hiring.
Well, I was looking forward to getting Spore when it came out - if this DRM remains though there's no chance that I'm going to buy it.
I legitimately own this game and use cracks on it anyway. I don't see why I should be inconvenienced more than the pirates.
I do this with all my games, mainly because I don't want to have to have the disk in the drive if there's no legitimate need for it.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
if 3 activations isn't enough for a particular user, it is possible to call EA and request more. A hassle, yeah, but better than not playing.
Yet another demonstration of stupid DRM problems and angry users. Just repeat after me: There is no perfect DRM, and then quit acting like there is.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
demand a refund! Teach fuck-ups a lesson.
Enlightenment is the elimination of that which is unnecessary.
I've liked some of Bioware's earlier releases, but I guess I'll just keep on waiting for Mass Effect, till they come to their senses.
Honestly, if Bioware never 'needed' DRM (outside of a license key) for earlier games such as the Baldur's Gate Series, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, etc, and made millions upon millions of dollars of revenue, why do they suddenly need such restrictive DRM? I guess it's to keep people like me from buying the game who probably otherwise would.
Publishers, pay attention: DRM doesn't generate more revenue, it costs you revenue. It's costly to develop and deploy, and to some extent, reduces your sales. I doubt a single person who would have pirated a non-DRM'ed version will actually pay because of the DRM, but it definitely goes the other way - some percentage, even if small, of potential customers who would have payed will be turned off by the DRM and will simply not purchase the game.
Also, DRM like this violates the Doctrine of First Sale - you know, that little concept that if you buy a book, recording, or copy of a computer program, you can let your friends read it, listen to it, libraries can lend it out, etc. Any DRM which prevents lawful re-use of a legally purchased copy should itself be illegal, but of course our corrupt congress which only cares about pandering to rich lobbyists don't care about flushing a century of copyright law down the toilet.
The same that I've sadly come to the conclusion about many times. Your best bet is to buy the game, stick the box on the shelf and then use the pirated version. I'm all for creators receiving compensation for their work because they work hard and pour themselves into their work, but at the same time I'm not going to let their (or more correctly their publisher's) paranoia about what might happen to their software deny me the goods/service I paid for. As the a sage bit of advice goes, the people who were going to steal your product were never going to be your customers and generally going to draconian lengths to stop them will make your actual customers steal your product because it's less hassle than the legitimate version. SecuROM in particular has been a grievous offender in this regard.
I'm not sure where they got the idea that treating their legitimate customers to a worse experience than the ones who steal their product was all that smart, but I'm pretty sure it was from the same think tank that told the RIAA that suing their customers would be good for business.
And who do you think, in the end, gets to pay for all those support calls?
Hint: It's doesn't come out of the bonus system of the company's principals.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
I still have old games I install from time to time, most notably the Baldur's Gate series.. They have survived tens, if not hundreds of OS (re)installations (including getting them running in WINE, virtual machines etc) and various computers I've had over the years. With a limit like this, I certainly wouldn't have bought it again, but probably pirated it.
Here's a shovel for you EA, and I'm not going to be the one to dig your grave.
These aren't "issues". They are "problems". These two words used to have different meanings, and I for one would like to keep it that way, but perhaps I'm in the minority.
Class. Action. Lawsuit.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
I really think this kind of bullshit violates the first sale doctrine. By and large the courts have never sympathized with the view that shrink-wrapped software is licensed and not bought; and this has been confirmed in some recent higher court rulings.
When you guy a game, you have bought it. The courts now *clearly* recognize this. (To wit the recent case involving auctions of Autodesk software on eBay in alleged violation of Autodesk licensing.) You definitively have the right to sell it. It seems that along with that right must come the right to use it yourself .
I wonder why Will Wright subjects us to this shit, or at the least, why he tolerates it. Why hasn't he gone the Sid Meier way and left his lame publisher? If EA wants guaranteed income, why not charge a reasonable subscription rate for online gameplay and content?
Meanwhile I don't see any way that EA will be made to stop this short of a boycott (not likely with Spore and Mass Effect) or legal intervention. EA already got the smackdown for its illegal employment practices; why not its illegal "licensing" practices?
There is already a pirate version of Mass Effect released for the PC once again proving that DRM doesn't work, so why are the publishers even bothering? This really confuses me. The added cost of the R&D for the DRM, it's licensing etc. just takes away from the much needed profits the games companies keep saying they badly need. All they do is inconvenience legitimate buyers and cut in to their margins.
--
Free Playstation 3, XBox 360 and Nintendo Wii
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
Ought to be enough for anybody :-)
I won't be buying any game with such a ridiculous limitation. 3 activations? Are they seriously suggesting that over the lifetime of the game's use by their customer it is unlikely that people would have to reinstall the game on a new machine (hardware failure, upgrade), or reinstall the OS on the same machine, more than 3 times?
I guess I won't be buying any more EA games. A pity. I have several older ones on the shelf that I still play from time to time. It's been nice knowing you, EA.
>That's the downside from copy protection. If you make it [...] it is easily cracked.
HTH. HAND.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
This is why I am totally fine with having played the game on 360. While I have a system that could run the game, I would rather it just work and I not have to fiddle with copy protection. Besides the fact that I got to play it last December, instead of waiting until June.
I picked this up from Target Sunday night after a buddy of mine told me that it was out for the PC. I came home and installed it...
I think it took 4 hours to decompress 9GB off of the DVD. I'm not sure, I ended up falling asleep before it completed.
So, Monday night, I came home from work to play it. What a pain in the ass.
a. needs new drivers, but
b. looks as good as BF 2142 (which worked on my older drivers and ran faster)
c. we're talkin' "high seas" choppy (12-16 fps) even on 800x600 with linear aliasing and no music.
d. OTOH BF2142 can run in 1600:900 widescreen at 60 fps.
Did I mention that it failed to load after (I kid you not) 10 minutes on the splash screen? Apparently, the SecuROM DRM blacklists SysInternal's Process Explorer. Yeah, major hacking tool. Whatever.
Ok, so, I upgraded drivers, turned off PE and rebooted (!), and fired it up again. Like I mentioned, choppy sound fx and graphics and crazy load times (we're talking no UI response for upwards of 10 minutes).
Eventually, I did get to "play" for about an hour or so before an uninterruptable cutsceen black-screened-of-death my computer. Why oh why aren't they using industry-standard works-forever Bink video? Or if they are, they've seriously misimplemented it.
It should go without saying that this game appears to have undergone the most lazy subcontracted porting job from the xbox to the PC.
Against my better judgement, I'm putting it on the shelf until they release a patch rather than returning it. (Mainly because I don't think Target accepts software returns...)
Bottom line: I got what I deserved for buying this game without doing any research beforehand. (Surely, this is 2008, and Big-Name games aren't released in a broken state, right? wrong.)
I can honestly say that the DRM is causing me to not buy this game. I was on the fence as to whether or not to get it, but this issue was enough to push me off the fence onto to the side of not purchasing it. If I had really wanted it, I would have bought it. But since I don't have a lot of extra time on my hands, and I don't want to waste money on a game I won't play much..... I'm just not going to put up with this - one less stress in my life. I don't get cracked software because I don't trust downloaded code running on my system. I don't feel like I can trust these people with access to my system with the software I purchase!
I understand that every company has the right to protect there products. What I hate is when they go as far to hurt paying customers. I have been burnt by EA before with Battlefield 2142 and Punkbuster. I will never by a EA game so long as there is any of this crapware on the disc. I donâ(TM)t condone piracy but I would be more than happy to just download a copy of a game that works. Since these games are released for windows© how many users are going to format there systems because of viruses? How many times are the paying customers going to upgrade there hardware to get better frame rates since it is a PC after all? My money is better spent buying blank cdâ(TM)s/dvdâ(TM)sâ¦. I guess I took to old saying âoeThe customer is always rightâ the wrong way⦠Just my opinion
When I was a lad, copy protection could cause your disk drive to go out of alignment.
Just asking, since I wouldn't know about such things.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I have boxes full of PC games, but I won't be buying any more if this continues.
These idiots need to stop treating their paying customers like pirates, real pirates don't have the CD. Moreover it violates "first sale" rights so it will get their asses sued real soon now (I hope). The pirates download torrents and publishers are forcing their own customers to go there. When your experience with acracked version of the game is better and less buggy that with the store purchase then the publishers are not doing their job and are screwing themselves as much as the customer. This restrictive move is abject stupidity!
My Comcast (Motorola) DVR threw constant HDCP warnings when turned on, despite the fact that I had nothing but an HDMI cable between the DVR and my TV set.
After the third consecutive week of being screwed out of watching South Park live (and paying over $150/month just for the television services) I returned the damn thing, and I now use Torrent to get ALL my TV content. When I find a decent ISP I'll be canceling the Comcast Internet too.
I was more than happy to pay for the service. But when their copy protection continuously fucked me over (despite other markets getting firmware updates to fix this known problem more than a year prior) I decided to stop rewarding bad behavior.
Not specifically related to this DRM or these games, but 6 or so years ago, my brother bought what he thought was a music CD from Tower, we take it outside, put it in the changer in the trunk, and it doesn't work. We take a closer look at the case and realize its not an audio CD but one of those with the built in computer player program that is 'supposed' to work in regular CD players too. We had no intention of making the files available for others to download (and never did), we weren't even planning to rip it for any particular reason. But, as it was, we ended up having to rip it anyways just to burn a clean copy of it to play in the car. The DRM didn't do what it was supposed to and caused the opposite effect. Good job.
I wonder what effect a pile of non obscene letters and email would have at Maxis. Would "the word" get down to EA?
This is hardly news for the fact that every time EA Games comes out with a new title they try some new-fangled DRM that eventually peaves off any devoted customers they may have had left.
.dlls are doing it!)
I have purchased several hundred dollars worth of EA Games titles over the past two years and every single time have had the following problems:
1.) Game won't install at all because of their implementation of DRM. Their Tech Support is baffled and insists I am in a small minority of users.
2.) Game installs but then just doesn't run because of some unknown issue with their implementation of the DRM. Again, Tech Support is baffled and insists I am in a small minority of users.
3.) Game runs but in the process installs a rootkit that prevents DVD movies from being played in my DVD-ROM drive or DVD-ROM games from competitors can no longer be run or installed on my computer (CDs and CD-ROMS are unaffected). As before, their Tech Support is baffled and insists this has never happened before (yet I can duplicate it and know precisely what RegKeys and hidden
In the end I came to 3 conclusions:
1.) Never buy from EA Games if I can ever help it.
2.) If I absolutely, positively cannot live without an EA Game title then pay them the money for the game but don't install their DRM infested software but install a cracked version instead.
3.) Preferably support those studios that don't use draconian methods of DRM so as to help them run EA Games out of business.
The users did purchase their games, but low, the game installer caused much discord. From its discord came much reinstalling. From the reinstalling came excess activations, and from the excess activations came denial. Among the users there was much unrest and gnashing of teeth.
And it came to pass that the users gathered together and announced their lamentations unto the manufacturer, but the manufacturer heard their lamentations not declaring "For ours is to profit and yours is to consume, for the criminal he doth consume, but from that that the criminal consumes he also copies, and allow others to consume from the results of my minions labor. How doeth it profit us for a criminal to copy, and how doeth I as the provider of my minions labor know that you, and those gathered with you are not a criminals? Nay, not only is it safer for me to lock in the results of my minions by allowing not but three activations, it profits me even more if those activations are squander on unclean install and hardware not fit for supporting our products."
Then the users hearing this from the manufacturer brought their lamentations unto Slashdot, for Slashdot has a voice which carriers farther than just the voices of the users alone, but the manufactures still heard their lamentations not.
In the months that followed there was much casting of stones, but the fortress of the manufacturer had high walls and the stones cleared them not. The users then declared "We will trap them within their stone walls, and we will purchase their products not, and in time, when they hunger, they will come forth from their walls and allow us unlimited activations, for they will have empty wallets."
In this plan there was much wisdom, but the bulk of the users had not the courage to uphold this plan, for they were already committed and could survive without their games not. Among the users was a multitude for which the plan fell upon deaf ears, and money continued to flow to the manufacturer as water flows down a river.
And it came to pass that a band of users gathered together and gave their lamentations unto the pharacies, and they stated unto the pharacies that for the loss of their wages they were entitled a class action.
The spies of the manufacturer were many, and the spy among the pharacies reported back to the manufacturer of the news of class action. It was then that the manufacturer relented, not of wisdom, or of kindness, but of cowardice, for the manufacturer loves his purse and the money which it contains and wanted to part with that the he has already obtained not, prefer instead to risk the reduction of that which comes in by way of bandit interception.
The users upon hearing this declared that it was good, and their activations were good until the end of days.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Is anyone REALLY that surprised?
Note to John Riccitiello and the meatheads at EA: Take a page from Brad Wardell and the folks at Stardock Entertainment - DRM doesn't work - his words were....
"Blaming piracy is easy. But it hides other underlying causes. When Sins (of the Solar Empire) popped up as the #1 best selling game at retail a couple weeks ago, a game that has no copy protect whatsoever, that should tell you that piracy is not the primary issue."
I love SotSE and it's about as hassle-free of a game as it gets. WHY does nobody else other then Wardell and his group get this?
For some reason EA didn't advertise the three install limit on the box. I imagine most people didn't know it was there until they hit it.
The first game I ever got with activation was Flight Simulator X; got it as a gift. If I'd actually bought it, I would've done my best to return it (although no one does returns on open box software anymore).
Now consumers are starting to be trained to be more cautious. Hopefully fewer people will buy Mass Effect.
Actually, it's kinda funny: you get the worst of both. I haven't seen _any_ copy protected game yet that didn't have a crack. _And_ you always end up inconveniencing some legitimate users, though the numbers and extent vary.
It doesn't even buy you time. The cracks are often out before the game actually hits the shelves. For all big name copy protections there are even standardized cracks that just need to be tweaked a bit to work with the latest title.
Even if, ad absurdum, you managed to buy some time, how much? A week? So who'd be forced to go legit by it? The pirates who are too stupid to google for a crack and/or too impatient to wait a couple of days? Is anyone who's already in a mind that only stupid people pay for what they could steal (a mentality that seems rather common among freeloaders, sad to say) going to go, "OMG, I'll have to do what I preached for years as stupid, because otherwise I have to skip playing it on the very day it's released?" I don't think so. And again, that's assuming that for a change it would not be cracked immediately. I wouldn't bet too much on it.
The best you can hope is to, well, gain nothing and not tick off too many or too much. That's it, really.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
NWN2's expansion is delayed because Atari wants the same type of limited reinstall protection on it.
They ensured I won't be buying it, or if I do, I'll be using the CD key and using a warez copy.
Sigh... Atari and EA just need to look at Steam for an example how to do things right, and make cash in the process.
"Laud" its "pratfalls"? What, praise its physical comedy?
Maybe you meant, "decry [its] pitfalls."
SIERRA TANGO FOXTROT UNIFORM
Erm... I hate to tell you this. The Stardock games all "have no copy protection" for the V1.0, but as soon as you install an update, it asks you for the key, and then it does product activation, much like BioShock and Mass Effect.
The Stardock product activation is much nicer than BioShock or ME; instead of a hard install limit, the install limit is rate based. In other words, you're only allowed [unspecified number] of installs per [unspecified time period]. There's also none of the "can't be running any debugging tools" nonsense that SecuROM comes with.
The "unspecified"s in there make me a bit uncomfortable, but it's a bit better than SecuROM.
-- for the pirated crack.
Brilliant.
Erm... Sid Meyer's production company is Firaxis games, which was acquired by publisher 2K Games in 2005. 2K Games is the same company which published BioShock.
There's a good chance you won't be seeing any un-DRMed games from Sid Meyer for a while, I think.
that software can be resold? If I buy a copy of spore, I expect to play it.
I think this is a problematic solution and indicative of the old way of thinking of software.
Do piracy solutions really make companies more money? After all, the honest person will not be able to play it, but the pirate will get around this eventually. Thus, piracy prevention just becomes annoying to those that have acquired the game legally.
"concerning the DoFS - That's why you don't actually *buy* software any more. You actually lease the right to use it."
If you follow that Wikipedia link in my earlier post, and read the section on case law, specifically the last paragraph about Vernor vs Autodesk, you'll see that at least one Federal Judge has made a ruling that calls "Bullshit" on that argument. That was a very recent ruling, though, so there is still the possibility that could be appealed, I think, but it's at least encouraging that the courts might be willing to overrule bogus licenses.
NWN2's first premium module, Mysteries of Westgate, is delayed because Atari wants a new DRM scheme on it. NWN2's second expansion, Storm of Zehir, according to Obsidian, will likely have the same copy protection as Mask of the Betrayer.
Don't get me wrong -- PC gaming is alive and well (for the moment), but with evil corporate tactics like this, how much longer can it last before the gaming community yields to a console-only lifestyle just to escape the hassle? Not to mention at least with console games, you can trade them for cash/more games/etc pretty conveniently with stores like Gamestop - but this is definitely not true with pc games (*especially with DRM in effect -- locked out software is worthless*). I think the answer to saving PC gaming will ultimately be FOSS. Although, I'd be interested in knowing if are there any FOSS games that can actually compete with the graphics and quality of commercial products like Mass Effect...I haven't seen any (I know, I know: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence).
When you really look at DRM as a whole, the only ones who actually get stuck with "playing by the rules" are the ones living in constant fear of life-destroying debt and the loss of their freedom at the hands of a multi-billion dollar corporation. Unfortunately, unless you risk severe penalties to learn how to side step all the tricks and gimmicks these companies use to catch and litigate against those who "experiment with the dark side" (or those who suggest they might be "considering" it), exactly how does one safely rebel against a system where the real "bad guys" hold all the cards (money, lobbyists, politicians, lawyers, law enforcement, DMCA-like laws, etc...) in a country like the United States, where government was once supposed to protect us from such no-win situations?
8==8 Bones 8==8
Try returning a game to get your money back if the DRM won't work. You can't return it because they assume you are a pirate.
I used to try buying the games I like...no more....no more...
Thanks for the heads-up. I guess I won't be buying these games, unless they are released on Steam.
Spore is the ONLY game I am taking this crap for, and that is only because of how long I have been waiting for this game. Although I WILL pirate the bastard as soon as I get any flack about using up my limits or locks me out of the game. I was going to get bioshock from steam but, when I heard this DRM junk is on it I held off. I just do not see why EA does not follow steam's example. It is superior in every way to the horrible, horrible EA model. I will not buy any more EA crap that has this DRM on it.
So true... people still hack the software to make it work, but those trying to follow the straight and narrow get nothing but grief. How is this a good thing?
DRM is not about getting people who were not paying for something to pay for it.
It's about getting people who were paying for something to pay for it twice.
For example, I downloaded a couple ring tones for my phone. Phone died. I replaced the phone with EXACTLY THE SAME MODEL, but even though I was able to back up and restore all my contacts and other information, the ring tones did not transfer because there's some weird DRM on them.
So now if I want my ringtones back, I have to buy them AGAIN, and apparently every time I replace my phone. How stupid is that?
paintball
because the companies that provide the product refuse to treat their customers like anything but common thieves.
I think this has more to do with shareholders than it does actual profit motives. The executives of a company MUST use DRM because they see the drop-off of their revenue due to piracy. It doesn't work, just like airline security doesn't work. But it does make people (investors) feel safer. Even if they are not safer.
I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. - Hunter S. Thompson
...it wouldn't be so bad. But you can't. If you buy the game and the DRM won't let you play it, you can't get your money back.
I used to pay for my games...after getting burned a few times and having to find cracks...I'm wondering if I should just download the games from now on.
Saves time and effort.
Maybe I'll mail the company a few bucks.
Blar.
This is how I have been treating games for a while now. My PC can make prettier graphics than the 360, but I enjoy the experience so much more. Not fiddling with installation and being able to carry the games over to a friend's house without hassle is very nice compared to being stuck, hunched over a computer, looking for cracks, updates, etc.
Previous people have said this, but I will reitterate it, the only people being really effected by this are the paying customers. The people who hack games always find some way around this either through bypassing the check completely or through generated serial keys once they crack the algorithm. If you have enough people hacking the game you could potentially have people with generated keys registering authentic keys. So a person just coming from a store could potentially get a game that is already dead off the shelve. I forsee a great many customer complaints over this soon to come. People who hate EA could also potentially activate serial after serial in an attempt to completely block this product.
I am probably one of the most vocal anti-Microsoft people on Slashdot, but even I have to object to just a Broken Windows icon, with no rotten Apple to accompany it. If you are going to blame Microsoft for supporting DRM, blame Apple as well. In the case of this article, the company to blame is neither as far as I can tell. And please lets not have some idiot come forward and say it is because the game only runs on Windows. That would be stupidity beyond the pale.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I wonder if corporations, Game studious and even organizations like the RIAA read this stories and above all, its reactions, had they read the way people reacted to Bioshocks copy protection, they would have gained even more revenue. People on other countries (3rd world countries mostly)that cant be sued by these companies, for copying the game and giving it to an entire circle of friends, downloading them from Torrent sites or Edonkey networks dont care about what the legal problems, so making it harder for them to own a game will simply hurt their sales worldwide too. These companies should be investing the money they spend on DRM, on knowing their customers.
I sense a wave of people cracking their purchased software rolling. Mass Effect indeed.
Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.
Most high end rigs can run a vm. VM's can do directx now. YER FUCT!
"I wonder why Will Wright subjects us to this shit, or at the least, why he tolerates it. "
Didn't EA make a purchase that gives them control of Bioware. It didn't take long to start dragging it under.
My solution is simple. Just don't buy EA games and that includes Bioware even though in that past most of my game purchases have been Bioware. Luckily I can still play those games I purchase in the past 10 years, before crap like this started being shoved down our throats. I can install those games and play them again without calling up and begging if they will let me install my game just one more time...
Count me as a thoroughly disgusted Ex-Bioware customer.
Ender77 price on his beliefs is exactly 1 game.
Well done.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Sorry, I thought Will was a Mass Effect, thus Bioware guy, given the subject. Disregard the above comment as I now realize he is the Spore guy.
Keep complaining. Let me start out by saying I am no way an advocate for DRM, but these game companies need to do something. If you guys expect to have PC games 10 years from now they need to make sure their intellectual property isn't being stolen. At least with console games they have some sense of security. Of course their games are being stolen by a few people on the consoles too, modders. There are far less people with mod chips than there are with DVD-R's
On the whole, it's a pretty disgusting press technique EA's gotten away with here.
EA: Mass Effect and Spore will have invasive DRM that re-checks with a central server every 10 days!
Bad press happens
EA: We learned our lesson. Mass Effect and Spore won't use that invasive system we were thinking of using. We decided we had to listen to our customers, so we decided we'd use this less invasive method (which is still invasive, and is the same system used on Bioshock)
Good press happens, despite the fact that EA has just said it would use the same protection system as Bioshock, which got bad press for... having an invasive protection system that locked legitimate consumers out of their own games.
This is called the foot in the door technique, and at least up to this article, EA pulled it off masterfully.
I know I could buy it for a console and not have to put up with the DRM hassle buy I refuse to give them one red cent simply out of my strong stance against what they are enforcing. VOTE with your WALLET. Don't fund their DRM bandwagon.
WHY the hell prominent software houses like Bioware allow themselves to be bought out by big buck companies ? It has been repeatedly seen that such big companies like Ea, Vivendi, Sony turn whatever they buy into shit. how did the founders of bioware stomach selling their beloved company to those goons ?
Read radical news here
It's funny, just a few days ago my Mass Effect started acting up, and I was close to the end already, so I went looking for a crack... god, there are tons of fake ones out there, or half-working ones that don't let you save (demo executable?).
I eventually found a home-made (vs warez-released) crack, by some guy name Gniarf on some random forum, that works 100%. I don't know who Gniarf is or how he pulled it off, but if a random dude on a forum is able to crack the DRM in Mass Effect, it seems to me like EA wasted a shitload of money on that DRM for absolutely nothing.
What did EA gain from the DRM ? A bunch of frustrated customers who got clobbered by the 10-day activation, as many had predicted. Would it have sold less copies without DRM ? Doubtful, seeing how quickly the fix was produced. It's not even a race anymore, the cracks come out so fast, I wonder why the game houses even pretend to put up a fight. Dead horse much ?
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Does anybody know if games have used a usb hardware key before? I would imagine they would much harder to crack than software keys, then again someone would find a way to emulate the hardware and we're back to square one.
mass effect wasnt available in stores here after launch. i knew that it was going to take long, so i decided to 'acquire' it from other sources. acquire it, i did too. the acquisition just ended at the exact day i have casually went to the local mall and found that they have brought mass effect and selling. there's the already 'acquired', 'proper' mass effect sitting at home, there is the $30 buck one at the store. what did i do ?
i bought it from the store and used it. why ?
because i knew it was worth it. i knew it wasnt just a silly rehash of some stupid previous game that was built with some 3D toon/action design programs and sh@tty gameplay to shove to the masses for more cash. i respected bioware logo and what they did before. thats why i bought it. no i wont hide my enthusiasm and respect behind smug nerdy comments, ill outright express them, and then give you a heavy slap on the face.
now there's this crap. so if i upgrade my motherboard, for getting more bang with the next gen cards that are going to be launched this month, im going to have use up an 'activation' key, one out of 3 limited ones ? or go through hassles with the company to acquire other ones ?
no sir. i wont do such a thing. the day your game gives me problems, will be the day i get a 'fix' for your game regardless of how much did i respect the logo of bioware in the past, and be done away with the hassles youre shoving up my butt. i say 'in the past', because that day will also be the day in which my respect for your name will have phenomenonally lessened. i wont give a damn - if you have chosen to sell yourselves to a greedy buck co like Ea, and go along with their sh@t, you have to face its consequences too.
Read radical news here
... by calling EA's technical support line. Of course, if you actually get through to someone compatent enough to help you you deserve a medal. And a refund for the phone call (no, it's not free...)
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
THIS is the same company that treats its own employess like garbage.
They had to SUE EA to get their overtime and proper paycheques.
Do you think they give a damn about customers?
PAYING CUSTOMERS!
Let me see.....NO.
EA has not changed in any way.
They are as cold as any corporation out there.
One more thing. Anything with SecureRom, is a
rental game. You can play it. But in the near
future its a dead game. It won't work at all.
If I pay 50 or 80 bucks for a game, it better
work for a LONG time.
If EA charged 20 bucks for a rental game, with
this secureROM on it, I might buy it.
EA is not to be trusted. But hey,
if you want to trust this DRM garbage, go ahead.
Your loss, not mine.
Not because people are unwilling to pay for the games they play though. It's because of paranoia from companies that make the games. It's more important to them to stop people who didn't pay from playing than it is to allow people who did pay to play. They will kill their own business with this kind of attitude. People will get fed up with dealing with their products and quit buying them.
Take a look at Intentional Softwares intentional programming. Started by Microsoft veteran Charles Simonyi, they're trying to revamp the software development model.
Their' goal is to make Domain experts and their expertise become an involved part of the software development process.
Intentional programming itself has some interesting thoughts on how todays languages and software development model do not capture in a clearly understandable and maintainable way, what the original intent of the programmer was. Much of this knowledge is lost past the development cycle of the app for people who inherit this legacy code or choose to re-use part of it.
They have an ambitious project and it's certainly interesting to see what comes out of this.
The software publishers that are using this DRM have to know it does nothing to prevent piracy. I suspect the idea is it prevents resale of games. I certainly would think twice about buying a used copy of Mass Effect on eBay, knowing that it could only have one install left.
... its drm isnt.
Read radical news here
The game patches for d2d games are typically specific to the d2d packaging. If you have a downloaded d2d game and it needs a patch, you have to wait for the d2d version. (Usually it's not too far behind.) But the full downloads are typically at the latest patch.
... d2d works in VMware VMs.
I've never heard of a mod for Civ 4 that didn't work with the d2d version. Certainly, the SDK works just fine. I used BetterAI with Civ 4: Warlords for ages. But, I dunno, it's possible I guess.
As far as DRM goes, d2d sucks less.
And
Perhaps if enough 'average Joes' get bit by DRM they will demand it to be gone.
Until its mandated by law to 'protect the children from terrorism', we can still speak with our pocketbooks.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It's called "don't buy at all". The last offline PC game I bought was Quake 4, which I happen to run in Linux (since Linux users get happy-fun SMP compiled in, runs great) and it never needed the CD or any kind of DRM. I've been considering Stardock's games, but I'm just bad at that kind of stuff, no matter how much I like them. My console games are technically DRMed (in the "you need one of the consoles to run it" sense) but of the 80+ I bought in the last year, only 7 were bought new, and the rest were used games I paid no more than $20 for, most of them no more than $10, and the publishers saw none of it.
If they want to think that my low level of new game buying (and nonexistant level of PC game buying) is that I'm pirating games, they can think that all they want. If they make DRM for new console games as bad as they do for PC games, I have no real problem with stopping spending any money at all on consoles too. I don't have to buy any other console to get myself more video games than I can exhaust for decades.
I'm going to buck the Slashdot trend and look at it from the developers mindset.
I make a great product that I would like to sell and whos return will make my living. My issue is in examining the market and how my game is being received.
Take for example Call of Duty 4: I just looked up on isohunt.com for the torrent of Call of Duty 4 and found that there were currently *4000* (I rounded up from 3917) people involved in downloading it illegally. Note that this is *several* months after the game has been released and the total number of copies that have been illegally downloaded is probably in the vicinity of one hundred, if not a thousand times the current.
However, I will base it off of current numbers.
4000 * $50 = $200,000 = Four full time employees salaries. Those four thousand have cost the market an awful lot of money.
And that's only today, several months after it originally hit file sharing networks.
So yes, I damn well want people to pay for my software and unlike a console which has a *software AND Hardware DRM scheme as well* I have to build my own DRM.
Blockbuster games deserve every sale they get. While Bioshock and Mass Effect's DRM schemes are certainly frustrating in that too much re-installation results in an unplayable game, I ask that the users of Slashdot come up with an alternative that:
1. Prevents the playing of game by people who have not purchased it.
2. Has a protection scheme that is as transparent to the user as possible.
3. Works.
This is by no means a simple answer and I sure as hell wouldn't want to sell a game for the PC that could easily be cracked.
This is my livelihood we're talking about.
I would think that two Steam accounts is all you'd need -- one per person, not one per game.
If there are two people playing, at least if you expect them to play simultaneously, then you really should have two accounts anyway.
(Understand that I'm assuming there are more than two games. My account, for example, has a bunch. It's not my intention to split hairs.)
Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.
Tell people "Don't buy EA games, they put viruses on your computer and stop working if you use the CD too many times". It got the point across much better than "DRM" when Sony was putting trojans on their audio CDs.
concepts like this are so amazingly daft.. if you buy a knife and fork and they work fine for a while until suddenly the fork cant penetrate a potatoe because it detects it has been used for 3 beef dinners..would people tolerate it? I think not..
If I buy a product I want the right to use it.. FOR EVER.. if I in 50 years wanna install the game on my precious antique Intel machine in a world ruled by AMD.. suddenly you cant cos omg you have upgraded it 3 times.. Ofcourse I think online activation is just as lame once the servers have gone down..
If I reinstalled the exact same image (with SP1 already there in the partition courtesy of HP) and it died again two more days, I'd be SOL in less than a week with Mass Effect.
Just that thought alone makes me not wish to purchase it, since this laptop apparently doesn't like Vista and Xp is using hacked stuff in order to get hardware to work properly, and with no guarantee of stability the chances of having to reinstall until I can create a stable configuration are pretty high. They just lost a sale.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I bought Mass Effect for the PC. Fool that I am.
I won't make the mistake again. I too got caught out by having that hacker tool from bleeding Microsoft, Process Explorer running. After a half hour wasted I figured it out and got the game going.
Games that require the original CD to play annoy the crap out of me. I have big hard drives, I can store a damn image on one for years and install and play the game when I feel like, even if I do misplace the CD. But not with these DRM pieces of crap.
Games that will only install 'x' number of times annoy me. What if I dual boot with Vista and with XP? Oh, there's two of my three installs gone right there. And if I swap out hardware to see what runs better? Too bad so sad.
Games that need online activation annoy me. If I want to haul that game out for a laugh five years from now will those activation servers still be online? Pfft, right.
So EA, enjoy the money for Mass Effect, I'm hoisting the Jolly Roger from now on with your products, and a cheery FU from me.
The kicker is that after a couple of hours of play my impression is the game isn't much fun anyway. I find it more annoying to play than fun and I hate a third person view I can't change to a first person view. Maybe some folks like that but I don't. So the lesson is to try the pirate version before even thinking of buying the game and if you really really feel the maker deserves money after that, buy the game and stick it on a shelf and keep playing the hassle-free pirate version.
The biggest problem overall of DRM schemes is that they rely on TODAY'S technology. Already some older DRMed games from the early 2Ks are basically unrunnable on newer computers because of the DRM (cracked copies run...). Imagine as that progresses into the future.
Some games have already been inducted as cultural heritage to be preserved. How can you preserve something that is illegal to do so? How can we go back in our 40s to relive our favorite games from our 20s? Emulation's currently possible because things were fairly standard and straight-forward. But DRM complicates things immensely and is one of those things that isn't likely to be included as a primary feature. And then there's online activation/decrypting which assumes that the company will still exist in some recognizable form after all these years (even 5 years is tough in this industry) and that these servers still exist.
I can't think of any real trust busters since Teddy and Taft, and they were conservatives. No, the current system works like this: give people incentive to make a lot of money while doing as little as possible and investing as little as possible. Wealth condenses and freezes at the top. When it cracks and falls back down to earth everyone shits kittens and instead of , I don't know, investing in infrastructure and skills, they fire, trim, and lobby their money back. It's basically like there are a bunch of real life gold farmers running things and fucking it up for the rest of us.
All I hear is that running cracked copies run fine, anyone thats been pirating for years, knows this is not that case. Yes I've dealt with DRM, I've worn out disks, and had to sand them down to keep playing. It's annoying as hell, but so is having more crashes, or other technical issues with running a cracked .exe, or other software that disables various parts of your computer to run the game cracked.
Or if your running into a bug, and there is a patch out that fixes it, you have to wait untill the new crack comes out to get past that bug.
Also there's the chance of a fake, half working, or infected crack taking your time too.
Please don't give people a false sense of piracy, yes some of the stuff is straight forward, however it's not 100%.
And ultimately, if you and others don't buy a good game, because of it's bad DRM, that game may not come back for a expansion or sequel. Then that game company will go out of business, and then a bad game with bad DRM might just take it's place. It might not even be the developers idea, just the publishers, but it's the developers that lose they job they love doing (hopefully), and you might lose more of the quality games that make your free time that much more fun.
how does secure-rom know you installed the software after a re-format? internet logging?
But let me get some points across to the remainder of them:
1. I need more than just pretty graphics effects to get me to even consider upgrading my gaming PC for your game.
2. I am not paying £35 for a game that can be completed in 6 hours.
3. I am not stupid. An expansion to a £35 game that took me 6 hours to complete initially is really just the other half of the full game I should have got when I spend that kind of money.
4. These days, before I buy anything to do with entertaining myself, I read reviews and other people's opinions. I use adblockers, switch the TV over during adverts and don't look at them in magazines. So your hype and marketing won't work on me, I buy stuff because I know it's worth the money before I do it.
5. I am not paying for any game that does allow me to install, deinstall and reinstall as many times as I like. (Bioshock, what's that then?)
6. If your game has an option for network play, then I expect to be able to buy one copy of the game and invite some friends over for a LAN game or two without them having to bring over copies of the same game also. If you're providing the game server then, yes, it's reasonable to expect everyone who connects to it to have their own copy of the game.
Please remember that the reason I play a game is that it is fun. This means that I can pick out one of many of the games I've purchased over the past 20 years or so, maybe pick up a mod or some new maps for it on the Internet, play it and have some fun.
So just because you've bought out a new game, it does not mean I will stop having fun until I buy it.
And finally, just remember one thing. I am the guy with the money and if you want that money then you "dance for me, monkey boy!" Because I can just as easily go have some fun taking my £35 and buying a couple of DVDs, a few CDs, a board game or maybe a handful of books and just downloading a free game like Alien Arena or Nexuiz from the Internet.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
isn't really all that offline.
You still need to connect periodically to validate. Please don't continue the incorrect meme that it has an offline mode.
I'm not buying any steam game.
So? We live in a capitalist world, so vote with your money, go to the competition, choose the better product - get a pirate copy today, it's more user-friendly.
Let the market solve things, right?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
What kind of machinery do they want us to play on if we can`t upgrade hw-components, and/or the os? Well, how about a console? That`s where they want us, folks.
reinstalled? How often is that, really? I'm chief tech support for my family and the last time I reinstalled Windows was 1996, something like 45 computer-years ago. I have honestly had more occasions to wipe Linux systems (twice since '96), although that was because of botched userland software installs early enough in the life of the PC that wiping would be faster than figuring how to revert every change made during the install.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
I thus whole-heartedly recommend the third movement of PDQ Bach's Pervertimento for bagpipes, bicycle bell and balloon supported by a nice string quartet (on disk 2 of http://www.schickele.com/shoppe/pdqrec/dreaded.htm).
P.S. Yes, I do own the CDs as well.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
I've been forced to cracking games I've legally purchased just to get around their DRM lockouts.
And in buying the game, you voted with your wallet for copy protection. If a game or other software uses copy protection and I know about it, I vote against it. Viral marketing and word of mouth support all die with the purchase not made.
I don't pirate it. I just don't use it. There are alternatives.
The truth shall set you free!
I think this new wave a copy protection has another, more sinister purpose: to stop the selling of used video games. Too many games are play once and never again, so you go to sell it used. EA wants to sell the units as much as possible at full price. The selling of used games lowers the price and when a buyer buys a used copy instead of a shiny new one, EA sees that it as "losing a sale."
For myself, after I read about BioShock's copy protection, though it looked like a good game, I decided to not buy it as long as it hands a phone home protection, and now ditto for Mass Effect and if this is the case for all PC EA games, then I will never buy a game for the PC from EA.
At least with Steam you can install the game in whatever machine you have and there are not any issues (just the very long download part). Though, once you buy a Steam game you can never sell it used (unless you sell your Stream account, a Steam account for each Steam game? why not, eh?)
Ironically, with console games you can freely sell/buy used games without this phoning home BS.
Viral marketing and word of mouth support all die with the purchase not made.
... there are more people willing to buy a game, and thus, in effect, have their vote counted then there are people who, by pirating the game, don't.
Sorta. In reality, there are most likely more legitimate legel-gamers than pirate-gamers. While those that pirate the games take a bite out of profit, if the pirates outnumbered the legal folks then the gaming industry would have gone away a long time ago.
(Look at the early Mac game market (I don't mean the early, early Apple market when games were aplenty as it had a large market share among home PCs): It was strong for its size until pirating took a big enough chunk out of it and producers moved on.)
My point is that word of mouth and viral marketing works; Games get sold. The people with the "skillz" to pirate the games are going by word-of-mouth: Fellow pirates say the game is good and make it available through newsgroups, IRC, whatever. Those who purchase games hear about/see them in commercials and things like G4 (when it bothers to show game-related shows). The legit folks don't care about DRM because they're going to play the games with the disks in, with the callbacks (if they even know what those are) and with whatever DRM methods come up next. So in effect voting does occur with the wallets
Bark less. Wag more.
I stopped pirating games a while back - I wanted to support the companies and quite honestly it just wasn't worth the effort of making sure they worked and weren't infected. My income is way beyond it being an issue of money.
BUT - all this DRM crap - I will not have something I paid for mucking with my system, nor will I buy it and then crack it. I will not support game companies with this crap. I guess it's time to point my newsreader to something besides porn again.
Thank you EA, for once again turning me into a pirate.
It really annoys me, because I often download cracked games to try, if I'm not sure whether I'll want to buy it. Two reasons for this, firstly demos are crap these days & I bought a couple of games on the strength of the demo which I was bored with shortly after, and secondly game reviews are completely worthless these days.
If I'm still enjoying the game after playing half of it, then it gets ordered from Amazon - otherwise it gets uninstalled. These games I'll not even download as there's no way I'm supporting this DRM on games with my money.
"A license key is burned up when the O/S is reinstalled, when certain hardware is upgraded (EA refuses to disclose specifics of what), " Why is this the trend now with companies? Whether it's Comcast not listing what their 'unlimited' bandwidth cap is per month or EA not letting people know what could cause a reactivation...how can these companies get away with not disclosing this stuff if it's going to diretly affect the customers. This is like Nissan selling a car but saying it's going to turn off after a certain amount of miles but then not telling you what the number is. They need to at least be up front and honest about this...especially if they are going to make it a hassle to reactivate after the 3rd time.
this is so new for me ... i wonder if i can do it ...
..
... shit ...... SHIT .... SHIITTTTTTTTTTT !!!!!!!! OH YEAAA !! THANK YOU LORD !!!
sh.
oh boy. its tough.
shigddd
* ok get a hold on yourself *
sh.....it
Read radical news here
I'm really bothered by how EA bungled this PC release so much. Honestly, Mass Effect was awesome on the Xbox 360. There were some glaring issues but from all accounts it seems most were fixed for the PC release. But of course, in between the 360 and PC releases, EA comes along and injects their Mass Stupidity. This seems like a game that would play just as great on the PC as it did on the Xbox, but how can you even compare when you can't even play the game?
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
The legit folks don't care about DRM because they're going to play the games with the disks in
If it was that easy you wouldn't see the forums of every developer who uses a nasty DRM scheme filled with complaints about false positives.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
They did a bad job all around. They had hundreds of problems with the Nvidia 8800GT graphics cards. Its not like its an obscure little used card either. The game only runs for me on 1280x960 and I do not have a widescreen monitor. Also, it has to be in windowed mode with dynamic shadows off, or the game will crash randomly. It took hours to find these particular settings, all for a game that does not meet expectations. In the preview videos, Bioware indicated Mass Effect would have cool tactical battles and an advanced dialogue system over older Bioware games, but this was a huge lie. The enemies will mob you at first chance, and controlling your allies is like controlling concrete pillars. The dialogue is the same as other bioware games, just with less options, and sometimes no options. They just give the appearance of 3 different answers, but he says the same thing either way. Also, not a single decision you make has a significant impact on the story. Very disappointed user.
there are more people willing to buy a game, and thus, in effect, have their vote counted then there are people who, by pirating the game, don't.
The number that is hard for the bean counters to measure, is not the pirates that don't pirate the game due to DRM, it's the folks who quit buying PC games simply because they often don't work and are not returnable or repairable in warranty.
I am in this group. I don't buy PC games anymore. The game should be playable. Too many are simply trying to get the game to run. I've played that game too many times. I don't need yet another game who's function is to see if you can run it and what software upgrades, hardware upgrades, changes to permissions, downgrades, etc is required to just launch the game. Loading stuff for local LAN play that won't because it doesn't have free access to the internet is broken.
Even hardware has caught the control freak bug. The early Microsoft Optical Mouse driver displayed an error dialog because it couldn't find my Internet connection. WTF??? this was on a new home built box on the coffee table for assembly. There was no internet connection fo the initial startup and configuration.
This phone home function wasn't mentioned in the documentation. The fix was giving away the brand new mouse and using a Logitech Optical instead. To this day, I don't buy MS mice.
Many console players are console players simply because a console and matching software work, unlike PC and PC games. Consoles is the fix for DRM encumbered PC games. Without consoles, many game developers would have no market. Games that don't load and play get the same treatment as that MS mouse. The wide spread use of DRM has pretty much wiped out PC games except flash games. They still load and play with no hastles.
The truth shall set you free!
Perhaps you missed this announcement?
I ordered Spore yesterday on Amazon about an hour before seeing this.
I let my mind simmer on the issue overnight.
I just cancelled my order, and included the URL to this story in my reason for cancellation.
We shall see if EA earns enough respect for me to re-place it, but I'm not hopeful.
i am a soviet space shuttle
This DRM on games will only serve to kill off gaming on PC's once and for all. This means consoles are the only way to game now. Of course when that shift is complete they'll decide to "install" the games on the console hard disk just like a PC AND require us to still have the disc in the console AND it also will have a 1 install limit which ensures repeat sales for as long as they publish the game.
One, it makes it easy to tell when its MY phone ringing and not someone else's phone.
Two, it makes it easy to tell when certain people are calling me without even having to get the phone out/to the phone to look.
paintball
The number of times I acquire ring tones a day/week/year is pretty close to zero. I buy 2-3 ring tones for a phone. That's it. It's not worth the hassle getting the music on the phone from another source to save five bucks once every 2 years.
paintball
(Understand that I'm assuming there are more than two games. My account, for example, has a bunch. It's not my intention to split hairs.)
And that's the problem. Even if my wife and I each had separate accounts there is still overlap on the titles we play. If we had 30 games between us, and my wife is playing a game, then that would still block me out of half the titles we own.
It actually seems the only practical solution is one game per steam account, which is a royal hassle, but it ensures that each steam game is always available, regardless of what is going on with our other steam games. And secondly, if I want to lend or give away a game I can just hand over that steam account for that game to the recipient.
Supports cd checking, at least for whatever they use in Civ4.
I don't understand. If you each have one Steam account, each of you should be able to play one game at a time -- and if you're both playing the same game, since you're on different accounts, it doesn't matter any more than it matters that I and a friend 2000 miles away are both playing TFC.
The accounts aren't tied to a computer or an IP address, they're tied to an account name and password. If your account owns a copy of CS, and your account owns a copy of CS, there's no reason on God's green Earth why you shouldn't both be able to play them simultaneously. Nor why you shouldn't be able to play Portal while she's playing DM. The two accounts are completely independent.
I don't understand how this translates into needing one Steam account per game; you just need one per person. Just like it works for everybody else.
Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.
OK, I just re-read and re-thought this. It sounds like you want to own ONE COPY of each game between you. And moreover you're complaining that this disallows you both from playing the same game simultaneously? Yes?
I understand you want to save money but Valve has a right to limit your play to the number of copies you've paid for.
If that's not what you meant, I apologize. But Valve isn't likely to want to spend a lot of resources trying to support this rather unusual edge case: two accounts, one shared game. So, yeah, it might work that you want to have one Steam account per game. But it seems like a lot of hassle to save a few dollars for a game you both like enough that you're fighting over resources.
OTOH they're pretty easy-going about other limitations (and this actually relates back to the original subject). For example, I recently visited my GF's house, installed Steam on her computer, copied over my files, signed into my account, and was up and running in short order. As long as she doesn't decide to try to play at her house while I'm playing at home (she won't) there shouldn't be a problem. No nonsense and no hassle, it Just Worked.
Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.
You seem to assume that both persons will buy their own copy of the game. We are talking about the situation you borrow a game from another person in the household.
With a CD game you can do that as long as you don't play simultaneously (since the CD is usually necessary for playing the game).
With Steam you will need to not only borrow the other person's game, but also borrow the other person's account. If only one PC can be logged in to the account at any time, this would block the other persons from playing other games under that account. (But apparantly this has changed so two PCs can now be logged in to the same account simultaneously.)
OK, I just re-read and re-thought this. It sounds like you want to own ONE COPY of each game between you. And moreover you're complaining that this disallows you both from playing the same game simultaneously? Yes?
No.
Suppose I buy myself a copy of Unreal Tournament and Lost Planet(*). And someone else in my family wants to play Lost Planet while I'm playing UT, they should be able to do so.
I agree that if I want to play Lost Planet at the same time as someone else playing Lost Planet that its not really unreasonable for me to have two copies. But if I have a 'bunch' of steam games on my account, and I'm playing one of them, I expect other people to be allowed to play the other games without restriction. But if someone else logs in to a different game, It sounds like I'll be kicked off the one I'm playing.
(*I don't know if these are on steam, just assume any titles I mention are.)
But Valve isn't likely to want to spend a lot of resources trying to support this rather unusual edge case: two accounts, one shared game.
... Nor why you shouldn't be able to play Portal while she's playing DM. The two accounts are completely independent.
But what if *I* own Portal and DM, and SHE DOESN'T. If I'm playing portal she can't play DM? That doesn't seem right!
Steam is like like buying 10 books and while I read any one of them, nobody can read the other 9. Sure nobody can read the one I'm reading; I don't have a problem with that. But if I'm reading 20000 Leagues under the See my wife can't read my copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray?
A separate steam account for my wife and I doesn't accomplish anything, because I own both 20000 Leagues and Dorian Gray. Sure she can read her copy of Moby Dick while I read 20000 Leagues, and if she happens to own a copy of 20000 Leagues she can read her copy of that too. But she can't read Dorian Gray... To use your words: There's no reason on God's green Earth she should have to buy her own copy of Dorian Gray to read simply because I'm reading 20000 Leagues.
I don't understand how this translates into needing one Steam account per game; you just need one per person. Just like it works for everybody else.
Its the only way I can ensure anyone can read Dorian Gray or any other book while I'm reading one of my MANY other books.
Otherwise, if I'm reading anything, EVERYTHING else I own is blocked.
My wife and I own hundreds of books, at any given moment, the only one I can't read is the one in her hands. (And if I wanted it that badly I could buy a 2nd copy). But the rest are on the shelf available. With 'steam', if she's reading any of her books, ALL of her books are off limits... and if she happens to be reading one of 'mine', then ALL my books are off limits.
How is that acceptable?
(And really, 'mine' and 'hers' don't even apply to most of our books. They are simply 'ours'.)
I see what you're saying now, and apologize for my confusion earlier.
Basically you want to lend your games as easily as lending CDs. You can't do that because on the Steam platform they have to be tied to an account. Meantime, Valve is trying to minimize so-called piracy, and maximize their profits, by requiring you to tie into an account.
As long as you're not trying to pass games around it's a pretty decent platform. But I can see that it's annoying for your situation.
Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.
You seem to assume that both persons will buy their own copy of the game. We are talking about the situation you borrow a game from another person in the household.
Precisely. Although, in a normal family, the sense of the word 'borrow' is already pretty alien in a lot of circumstances. I mean, I bought a Wii and a bunch of games for the family. Practically and probably legally they belong to my wife and I jointly. And in any case there is NO WAY she'd ever think of playing one of our Wii titles as 'borrowing it from me'.
(But apparantly this has changed so two PCs can now be logged in to the same account simultaneously.)
This is what I'm trying to sort out. Is that actually true? I hear people saying that when you do it it kicks the other user into offline mode, or that its only tolerated if you are behind the same ip address, etc. To me it sounds more like just glitches in the steam enforcement system, not an actual relaxation of the terms.
The EULA itself is extremely restrictive and appears to not even allow a husband and wife to access the same account. Nevermind access different games at the same time.
I must respectfully disagree with you to some degree on this point.
I keep my phone on vibrate, but when I use my headset while driving (wired - it's too easy to listen in on Bluetooth headsets), the ringtone plays in the headset. I have certain ringtones for certain people, so it gives me the hands-free eyes-on-the-road version of caller-ID.
I will agree with not wanting to be subjected to other people's taste in music.
I find it quite amusing, given what I just typed, that the CAPTCHA is "identify".
Basically you want to lend your games as easily as lending CDs.
More or less. But I don't consider my wife playing a game I've bought to be a case of 'lending'.
You can't do that because on the Steam platform they have to be tied to an account. Meantime, Valve is trying to minimize so-called piracy, and maximize their profits, by requiring you to tie into an account.
That's not an inherent limitation of what they've done. Its an implementation detail that has been solved in many other situations.
There is no technical reason why I couldn't add my wife's steam account as 'household' to my steam account and when she logs in she'd have access to all her games and then whichever games I had permitted for her. And steam could enforce that only one copy of any game may run at once. There could be some limit like 10 for the number of 'household' you were permitted per steam account.
And it could enforce a web so that each 'cluster' of households doesn't exceed 5. (This would prevent me from putting 5 random friends as household, and them putting 5 random friends of theirs as household etc etc...for example --- it would enforce that a household is 'isolated' not a web spanning the planet. And it could put a 48 hour waiting period between adding/removing/changing household members to prevent it from being 'gamed' effectively.
Or it could support game transfers from one account to another. That alone would resolve pretty much all the problems I have. If there is conflict between two household members, just shuffle things around.
The point is, there are all kinds of **solutions**.
If steam wanted solutions.
As has come up in this thread, I can just put each game into its own account when I buy it, and this works around all the issues. Everyone can play any game, and I can even lend them out easily or give them away when I've finished with them. All I give up is the convenience of using a single account but that seems a pretty small price to pay if you ask me.
So suggest it to them. If they perceive the value as greater than the cost of implementing it, they'll do it. If not, they won't.
In either case, if nobody suggests it, they'll probably never think of it or may not realize that anybody wants it.
Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.
If you have read that in the EULA, I can't understand that you can't see the problem which is discussed here.