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."

Comments

Thats what they get

[cstdenis]

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.

Re:Thats what they get

[Reapman]

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? Reminds me of the DRM used a few years ago (still is?) where the game was faster cracked since it wasn't constantly scanning the CD drive verifying the disc was still in there.

Re:Thats what they get

[Anonymous Coward]

That is so true. In 2005 I purchased Civilization 4 from direct2drive.com. A few weeks ago I had the urge to play civilization, downloaded it from d2d and installed it. When I tried to activate it with my CDKEY it told me I was out of activations. It took about 36 hours, two emails and registering all over again with a 'support site' to get this resolved. I'll torrent my future games thank-you.

Re:Thats what they get

[Opportunist]

That's the problem with most if not all copy "prevention" (the quotes are necessary, since it prevents jack) mechanisms: Those who play by the rules get shafted while those that don't get rewarded.

The actual problem with DRM is that, unlike with ordinary goods where I have an additional value when I buy something rather than hoping it "falls off a truck". I get warrenty, I get a manual, I get support, I may get cheap(er) addons. It's exactly reverse with DRMed goods. You get more value out of "stealing" it.

Yes, convenience is a value in a good. Actually, convenience has become a good in and of itself. Valet parking is nothing but a convenience, still people pay for it. The reason why Windows is still more in use than Linux with private users is the convenience of its use and the software for it. Convenience is a big selling point. And just this important key point is actually better when I copy&crack software rather than buying it?

That's why DRM will fail with the masses. Not because of the privacy invasion or the "phoning home". People don't care about that. But they do care about the loss of convenience.

Re:Thats what they get

[cduffy]

Yup -- that's why I'll put up with Steam, but not with SecuROM: Steam is convenient; it reinstalls my games for me if I replace my hardware, prevents me from needing to keep track of physical media and CD keys and whatnot, and (ever since I've had it, at least -- I didn't get on the bandwagon at first release) Just Works; the only thing I worry about is whether I'll be able to fire up my old games and go for a trip down nostalgia lane 20 years from now when the good folks at Valve have gone on to other things.

SecuROM, on the other hand...

Re:Thats what they get

[Winckle]

Yep, I get that with Civ 4, which doesn't have cd keys for the game or the expansions, it has the old fashioned "disk in drive" copy protection.

5 minutes and 3 no CD exes later my game runs even better.

Re:Thats what they get

[Bert64]

Like many such schemes...
The radio in my car requires entering a code every time the battery is disconnected, as the legitimate owner of the car i have forgotten the code and gone to considerable expense to get it recoded...
The guy who recoded it didn't take very long, neither i suspect would a thief. So only the legitimate user gets inconvenienced, anyone who steals the radio will have a lot less problem with the "anti theft" mechanism than i have.
On the other hand, my radio is obsolete (1995), a nonstandard size, and riveted and bolted into the car so it's not likely to get stolen anyway.

Re:Thats what they get

[nmb3000]

Thats what they get for buying it instead of pirating it. The cracked version(s) don't have any problems like this.

I think it's worth pointing out that the two methods (purchasing and cracking) aren't mutually exclusive. When a company adopts draconian (or just plain stupid) licensing tactics, you can still purchase the software (for legal, moral, etc reasons) and then proceed to download a crack for your copy or just a cracked one via "the usual places". It's not ideal and not perfect, but at least you can run the software you paid for.

At my last job we had some software that required a hardware dongle attached to a license server. The problem was that the licensing software used some hacked-up bastardized version of NetBIOS which meant that only clients on the same subnet as the server could connect and authorize themselves. After weeks of haggling with the company and them refusing to fix their crappy licensing software ("It works for everyone else!") we just found a license crack online and applied it to all the client workstations.

Were we legal enough to survive an audit? I have no idea, but we we were fully licensed for all the clients connected and I think that's what mattered.

Re:Thats what they get

[joe_n_bloe]

Likewise I have had no problems with Direct2Drive. Perhaps surprisingly the DRM is from Macrovision, but Macrovision does actually take seriously the notion that DRM can be an enabling technology. No physical CD required? And good customer support (from the Trymedia backend)? Yup. And no activation hassles for multiple/reinstalls. It's surreal that Macrovision is now the "good guy" in the world of DRM.

DRM doesn't have to be evil. But of course it can be.

Re:Thats what they get

[Opportunist]

People will accept DRM and actually embrace it if it adds to their convenience. Of course, there's guys like me who won't touch it with a ten foot pole, no matter how convenient, but for the majority it can even be a selling point that you don't need to "prove" anything because all the proof is already there that you're a legitimate customer because it's in their files.

That's how DRM can work. When you use the M in the acronym as "management" and not as the "mangle" it's been used usually.

Re:Thats what they get

[TheRealMindChild]

What a load of horseshit. Let us say that life is fair and the world is perfect and everyone who wanted to use some piece of software actually paid for it. Greedy Corp X will still throw DRM at it because now they want you to pay for it for every machine you want to run it on... for every user that has an account on every machine you want to run it on... every three months for eternity.

DRM isn't REALLY about software piracy. I haven't known one person that has said "Hey! It is difficult to pirate this. I may as well just go buy it!". It is about squeezing the most money out of you that they possibly can for the least amount of product.

Re:Thats what they get

[Opportunist]

Now, I call DRM the biggest problem of the software industry, and at the same time I don't steal software and actually make my living by writing it. How does this work out?

Well, as pointed out above, not only by me, if DRM accomplished anything, it's that people who got dicked over by DRMcrippled software they bought start looking for a way around DRM, find out about cracks and then you lost a customer. And unfortunately, not only the companies using DRM to harrass their customers lose them, everyone does. Someone who has found cracked soft doesn't discriminate anymore between "good" companies that employ either no DRM or less invasive DRM, and "bad" companies who try to enforce something as ridiculous as the crap we're discussing here.

He just sees free soft and starts grabbing.

If DRM accomplishes anything, it drives more people towards cracked software. You can't get those that download&crack on principle to buy your stuff. For many, it's a sport to avoid buying software, and you won't get them to buy yours. DRM now drives the rest away from buying as well by pretty much sending them towards cracks to regain the convenience and ease of use they enjoy about software they bought.

Re:Thats what they get

[Mascot]

There will always be those that choose to pirate software (it's not stealing unless you pick a box off a shelf in a store), and there will always be those that choose to buy.

I pirated a lot when I was younger and without disposable income. This lost the game companies little to nothing since there was no money to be had from me either way. I now have buckets of disposable income, but do not buy games with this sort of DRM. If they don't want my money, they don't get it. There are plenty of games without DRM for me to give my money for.

The fact games with no DRM whatsoever still turn a good profit (Stardock's titles are a prime example), proves beyond any doubt that tossing away DRM does not equal zero return on investment.

Chicken or egg? Not an interesting question, in my opinion. There has been piracy since the birth of the games industry. This hasn't prevented them from becoming so large they are now on par with the movie industry.

DRM is now an industry in itself. If not a single person on the planet pirated, the DRM industry would still somehow manage to sell their crippleware to game companies. It's not like they don't already produce fictional losses to rival that of the **AA.

Re:Thats what they get

[vux984]

Steam is convenient; it reinstalls my games for me if I replace my hardware, prevents me from needing to keep track of physical media and CD keys and whatnot, and (ever since I've had it, at least -- I didn't get on the bandwagon at first release) Just Works; the only thing I worry about is whether I'll be able to fire up my old games and go for a trip down nostalgia lane 20 years from now when the good folks at Valve have gone on to other things.

I have a question about steam... how does it work if you have two computers (or more)? I mean if I buy Bejeweled, on my steam account, can my wife play it while I'm playing Civ?

I don't really object to being prevented from playing a given purchased game on two different computers at the same time... but being prevented letting my wife or kids play play ANY OTHER steam game is unacceptable... if that's how it works.

Currently I have 1 steam title (Portal) and I'm happy enough with the service but I'm hesitant to buy any more due to this fact.

Its also apparently impossible to give other people your games when you are finished with them. I've lent purchased games to my brothers on many occasions, and I've got games I've borrowed from them.

I realized this when I wanted to lend Portal to one of my brothers, and realized I couldn't because it was tied to my steam account... which isn't the end of the world, he's my brother and I trust him, and I could give him the userid/password for my steam account (in violation of the steam agreement of course)...

but that means, that while my brother is playing portal, I wouldn't be abe to play any of my steam games? Again I could live with not being able to play it while he was, but I wouldn't be able to play ANYTHING?

And worse... apparently they use some sort of ip tracking so if a steam account is accessed from widely different locations they'll ban the account -- so now if I 'lend' my brother my copy of portal, I'm locked out while he's using it and risk getting banned if we try to access the account at the same time. (as both my brothers live in different cities?)

Is this correct? Or have I misunderstood how steam works?

Re:Thats what they get

[vux984]

(it's not stealing unless you pick a box off a shelf in a store)

And its not piracy either. (Unless you take a ship at sea.)

What you evidently meant to say is that "There will always be those that choose to infringe copyrights."

If you are going to be pedantic about definitions then be pedantic about definitions ;)

Re:Thats what they get

[Opportunist]

So making life fair and the world perfect is illegal because it would outlaw corporations?

Re:Thats what they get

[MightyYar]

It's not really a chicken-and-egg problem... copyright is a man-made restriction that we know the origins of. The term "stealing" was applied to a certain subset of existing sharing of information. It was completely moral and natural one moment and then the next moment it was "stealing".

So the stealing (behavior) clearly came first, the stealing terminology is pretty new-fangled :)

I doubt that the pirates are the ones complaining about DRM - they are mostly unaffected. The people in this story are legit customers. I know that my complaints about DRM all revolve in trying to watch some Dora the Explorer episodes that I bought on iTunes on anything other than Apple hardware! Looking right now... yup... every season of Dora available in torrents for free, DRM free. A 30-second google away.

Re:Thats what they get

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"Then again, if people actually did what they were supposed to and actually supported the things they enjoy using instead of stealing them, DRM wouldn't be needed."

That's not really true. The restrictions aren't put in there because people will. Instead, they're put in there because people might. Reality isn't a factor in deciding to put copy restrictions into a software, so altering reality won't change the outcome. You should look at the movie industry's out-cry about the sale of vcrs many moons ago, it'll give you some insight into where I'm coming from.

Re:Thats what they get

[Richard_at_work]

If you are going to be pedantic about definitions, using piracy as a term for copyright infringement has been around for several hundred years - the english language is interesting like that, one word can have several meanings.

Re:Thats what they get

[Dachannien]

D2D's DRM isn't enabling jack. A DRM-free game could achieve all the same features you mentioned (same as with DRM-free audio tracks). The only thing the DRM does is mollify the content publishers.

That said, the sort of DRM that Direct2Drive and other similar services use is fairly unobtrusive when compared to SecuROM and its ilk.

Re:Thats what they get

[Sloppy]

Then again, if people actually did what they were supposed to and actually supported the things they enjoy using instead of stealing them, DRM wouldn't be needed.

And (as explained many times in this thread) if they don't do what they're supposed to, DRM doesn't help either, but it's likely to hurt.

Try to imagine the cases (confirmed customers, potential customers, pirates, non-users) where DRM has any effect better than not using DRM. You get the empty set. The best case scenario is that it makes no difference to the publisher's revenue. The typical case is that it reduces revenue.

There are only two situations where I'd advocate Company X implementing DRM: 1) I sell DRM schemes 2) I compete with Company X.

It's also the people who are guilty of stealing who are the loudest to laud DRM's pratfalls.

Such as RMS, for example? ;-) You just pulled that out of your ass.

I haven't started stealing yet, but I'm about to. I just moved and the girlfriend wants more-than-OTA TV and internet access, so I'm signing up for something pretty soon. If I can't find a way to interface Comcast or Qwest's TV services with MythTV, then I'm just going to get just IP and start "stealing" TV content. I'm willing to pay, but from all my research, it looks like neither of them are selling. If they dropped the encryption and proprietary interfaces, they could have more revenue; I'd subscribe to something. But their management is telling their potential customers and stockholders, "Fuck you, making money isn't our business."

Seriously, they're just throwing away money.

Re:Thats what they get

[Gnavpot]

I have a question about steam... how does it work if you have two computers (or more)? I mean if I buy Bejeweled, on my steam account, can my wife play it while I'm playing Civ?

Only one PC can be logged in to a Steam account at a time.

Most singleplayer games under Steam can be played in offline mode, which somewhat resolves this.

The safest way around the problem is probably creating one Steam account per game, but that also removes a lot of the convenience in Steam - and convenience is our reason for accepting their Digital Restrictions Management.

Re:Thats what they get

[Capitalist Piggy]

The radio in my car requires entering a code every time the battery is disconnected, as the legitimate owner of the car i have forgotten the code and gone to considerable expense to get it recoded... The guy who recoded it didn't take very long, neither i suspect would a thief.

Oh, it wouldn't take a thief long at all. Most people keep their car's manual in the glove box, which tends to have the radio's code stamped somewhere therein. If you are snatching a radio, might as well grab the manual while you are at it.

Mind you, I agree on the value. I've not seen too many factory stereos worth snatching. There's always that guy in a crack haze who will be happy to get $5 for it, though.

Re:Thats what they get

[damiangerous]

the only thing I worry about is whether I'll be able to fire up my old games and go for a trip down nostalgia lane 20 years from now when the good folks at Valve have gone on to other things.

You will. Steam runs in offline mode now, no reason it won't in the future. Just back up the games.

Re:Thats what they get

[NormalVisual]

But, because I am not blinded by the sheeple mentality I do actually see that there is a benefit to DRM if used properly, implemented properly...

Not to the purchaser, unless you want to say "without DRM, the content would not have been made available at all". Any digital file without DRM is inherently more flexible and useful than after it's applied, and to say that it's beneficial to the purchaser is twisting words around - DRM exists solely to benefit the content provider at the expense of the purchaser.

As regards the "sheeple" comment - just because someone doesn't agree with your opinion doesn't automatically make them incapable of critical thought. I read your opinion, I understand it, but I still disagree with it from the perspective of the buying public - that doesn't make me or anyone else deserving of that kind of ad hom.

Re:Thats what they get

[Goldberg's Pants]

I've used a variety of DRM'ed products over the years. One thing that concerns me is Spore, the direct download version, is using Digital River. Now I've had two VASTLY different experiences with them.

A couple of years ago I bought Worldwide Soccer Manager from them and the game was unstable as all hell, I couldn't install etc... Had tons of issues. All of which were fixed with a no-cd crack. The game was, in it's shipping state, damn near unusable.

Then I bought a couple of games recently through the service that merely used serial numbers and have been trouble free.

Now I am really excited about Spore, but using Digital River has me on the fence as to whether to buy it.

And apparently the Spore Creature Creator installs a Securom driver from what I've read. Yes, the free demo version of the editor.

Wish they'd just use Steam. I'd pre-order this second if they were using that. Steam is awesome for the publisher due to the protection it offers, and more awesome for the customers. Rather than muck about with finding disks, CD keys etc... I just choose which games to install and let it do it's thing.

Re:Thats what they get

[p0tat03]

I actually agree with CD check protection... It is a slight inconvenience for the user, but not so inconvenient that I would really mind. It also offers a reasonable protection against casual (i.e. not-so-computer-literate) piracy, which is really the best any copy protection scheme can ever hope for. Anything more extreme than CD checking/CD keys, IMHO, is overkill. You will never stop the hardcore pirates - if you've stopped little Johnny from simply burning a copy for his buddy, you've already extracted enough protection as you can expect.

Re:Thats what they get

[cduffy]

"My dream" already does occur, inasmuch as I regularly play 20-year-old games today. Yes, it involves virtualization (or, when said games were written to a bytecode-based virtual machine, newer VMs written to the same bytecode spec). No, it's not hard.

Need I also note that there already exist VMs capable of emulating present operating systems, and that there's going to be plenty of financial incentive for those to continue to exist in the future?

No, I'm not concerned at all about being able to play my games in 20 years... except for the DRM.

Re:Thats what they get

[ady1]

Nice theory.

One flaw, you can't bypass copyright protection without violating EULA (and DMCA in the US)

Regardless of how fuzzy and warm you feel, software makers (microsoft being a prime example) mention in their EULAs that if you bypass the protection, your right to use the software is revoked (no money returns) and if you keep using it, you are no different from a person who didn't pay for it in the first place (maybe ethically or morally you are) but not according to the law.

Re:Thats what they get

[Ardaen]

It depends on the CD protection. The protection scheme they are talking about doesn't just check the CD is there when you start the game, but rather checks constantly, or at least frequently. These frequent checks can cause problems and slow down the computer.

Re:Thats what they get

[hedwards]

But if it only stops casual piracy what's the point? I'll pirate software I own all the time to remove those annoying bits of DRM from the game. I paid for the game, I see no reason why I should have to change discs every time I change games.

Most of the time my disc is in a different room, or packed away. And I usually forget to put the CD back, so I'll have to hunt around to remember where I put it. Having to place it into the drive just increases the likelihood that it'll be scratched.

It also usually has the unpleasant side effect of making it hard or impossible to run via wine or emulator.

Seriously, the commercial pirates are a lot better at providing a compelling install service than the studios are. It's really hard for me to believe that the "good" guys are the ones that are making it impossible to reinstall the game an unlimited number of times.

Considering how often Windows has to be reinstalled, I can't imagine how this could ever fly.

Re:Thats what they get

[SpecBear]

It's also the people who are guilty of stealing who are the loudest to laud DRM's pratfalls.

What makes you think this? Except for those very few who actually crack the software, pirates don't give a rat's ass about DRM because it doesn't affect them. They have no idea how onerous Mass Effect's DRM is.

I assume that the people who scream the loudest are the paying customers who can't play the game they purchased because of some boneheaded DRM scheme that does nothing to discourage piracy.

Re:Thats what they get

[Anachragnome]

"Well, as pointed out above, not only by me, if DRM accomplished anything, it's that people who got dicked over by DRMcrippled software they bought start looking for a way around DRM, find out about cracks and then you lost a customer. And unfortunately, not only the companies using DRM to harrass their customers lose them, everyone does. Someone who has found cracked soft doesn't discriminate anymore between "good" companies that employ either no DRM or less invasive DRM, and "bad" companies who try to enforce something as ridiculous as the crap we're discussing here."

This.

You just described ME. I was that smart guy that copied all my CD keys into both digital format and on paper, then tossed the mountains of boxes, jewelcases, etc in the trash. I literally had a bookcase full of the stuff.

Then, just to keep in goosestep with Murphy's Law, I not only lost the digital version of my keys(stolen thumb drive), but, as one would expect, I eventually upgraded to a new machine and had myself a problem. I had misplaced the paper/pen copy of my keys. Nowhere to be found. I now had literally thousands of dollars worth of software that I couldn't use.

The result? I went looking online for keys, and after ONE page of Google, I found The Pirate Bay. It took me all of 30 mins to find everything I needed to play my games again(as well as a key for Photoshop).

But that is not all I found.......

If it were not for the early form of DRM, CD keys, I would never have found what I did, because I would never have had a reason to LOOK.

The example we are all talking about is pretty much the equivalent of the company itself being the one that stole my thumb drive and tossing my paper copy of my keys. Why on earth would I buy a product that I KNOW is going to have that happen to it? And if I DID buy it, and it stopped working after the 3rd install, what do they think I am going to do? Buy it AGAIN? Of course not. I'm going to go find a crack to play what I paid for.

Call me a simpleton, but that whole DRM scenario just doesn't make any sense to me, from a business practicality point of view.

Re:Thats what they get

[777a]

Elder Scrolls 3 - Morrowind, safedisc harmed performance so much that the developers removed it in the first patch. The nocd crack was recommended by just about everyone.

Part of the problem is that the developers don't usually install any DRM, it's usually done by the distributors.

So even if the developers thoroughly test a product, but the public always beta tests the DRM.

Re:Thats what they get

[Aaul]

Just a quick note about the backup feature Steam uses: it seems to be impossible to do a restore from a Steam backup while in Offline mode. I've recently tried doing a restore of a bunch of games I backed up a few weeks ago before I upgraded some major components and I've been unable to do it in Offline mode. For those interested, the failure occurs right after you select the games to restore and the progress window says it's creating local game cache files for each game. The error says "This operation cannot be completed in Offline Mode" and then "The Steam servers are too busy, try your request again later." I don't know if this is just something that was overlooked by Valve or they just don't want people restoring in Offline mode.

The restore works just fine if I do it in Online Mode (though I find it pretty stupid that even before I restore my games I have to download data to do so). Technically I should be able to restore the games in Offline, set them to "Never update automatically" and go back Online without them auto updating (and thus preventing me from playing until they fully update).

-James

Re:Thats what they get

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Without the DRM the content would not have been available at all. Or maybe the 'owners' would have realized that content sitting on the shelf doing nothing earns nothing and thus even just 1% of the pie is better than 0%.

Or maybe someone who would have been motivated by the complete absence of content would have given away *their* version of the content, but the presence of locked down content was enough to discourage them from the effort.

Or maybe someone who would have done an incredible job of incrementally updating the content with massive amounts of newer and more current information just gave up because the DRM prevented him from editing and building on the original content.

Or maybe enough people would have pooled their money to hire someone else to produce similar content and make it available for free, but the price difference per person wasn't worth the effort.

We know the, "without DRM, the content would not have been made available at all" argument all too well, that's why NormalVisual pre-emptively mentioned it, no need to elaborate. For each time it gets used, there are at least 4x more reasons to discount it. If anything, it is the sheeple argument because it assumes that there is only one way to skin a cat, is stuck in the box, etc.

There are benefits to restrictions as odd as that sounds. Restrictions in of themselves are generally useless and often counter-productive. They need to be backed up with solid empirical evidence based on current conditions justifying those restrictions. Not someone's opinion, even if it is an opinion shared by millions of others. The conditions under which copyright was conceived, and DRM proponents still labor, are centuries old and were highly questionable even then. The world has moved on, its time the market did too.

Re:Thats what they get

[Goldberg's Pants]

Oh absolutely. I mean the old "enter serial number" and then you're done... Awesome. Anything beyond that adds more wrinkles, each one of which can screw over the user.

Look at all those poor saps who bought music from Microsoft's service that's shut (or shutting) down. They won't be able to relicense what they've paid for.

The end user is the one who suffers. I spent several weeks unable to play Neverwinter Nights due to the copy protection not liking my CD drive. Wound up having to get a crack just to play what I paid for.

Another great example is Starforce. I have GT Legends here. Came free with GTR2 (which didn't use Starforce). I daren't install it given my last system suffered damage from Starforce. So I've got this great game I really want to play, but daren't risk installing it. Starforce is so woven into the program that it can't be removed.

All this protection does is stop casual copying. Stops me running a copy off for you or whatever. Yet nobody I know who pirates ever did that anyway. They've download whatever they wanted. First it was BBS's. Then FTP's. Now torrents etc... Even when I was pirating stuff years and years ago it was NEVER directly copying the original from a friend.

Finally, there is the ultimate rip off. You buy a game and the copy protection won't play nice for you and you can't load the game, so you take it back to the store... But they won't give you your money back because it's open and you may have copied it...

And they keep making the protection worse and worse... This 3 activation thing... Is that just on the disk based? Or download version as well? Really hope this potentially amazing game isn't going to be ruined by its copy protection.

Re:Thats what they get

[pecosdave]

You obviously don't have kids with kids games. It doesn't matter if you tell the kid "don't change the CD, call me and I'll do it" once kids figure out how to do it for themselves they will.

Let me put it this way. Would you hand a bare CD you didn't want to have to buy another copy of to six year old?

Re:Thats what they get

[Bazar]

But if it only stops casual piracy what's the point? The point is to get cheapskates to pay up. I'd argue that a reasonable amount of money is lost because people would rather pirate instead of pay.

If they couldn't pirate, then one would assume sales would go up.
Thats the theory behind it all.

The theory falls short because its always remained easy to pirate the game. Download the game, then crack the exe. For some this will be out of their league, and its those people that casual DRM is most effective on.
Taking an arms race on DRM on those that know how to crack a game will achieve nothing, because game publishers are far too outnumbered to put up a real fight.

However in their attempt, a lot of innocent customers are getting are getting caught in the cross-fire. From having CD's fail to be read due to improper FAT tables, system instabilities from malware running in the background, and now license key lockouts.

The sad part is, DRM on games just isn't effective, and whats worse, for all those pirates that don't/won't purchase a game, i strongly suspect they boost the legal sales of the game indirectly (viral marketing)

I've been forced to cracking games I've legally purchased just to get around their DRM lockouts. And the more DRM they add to the games, the faster I'll resort to cracking.

Moral of this rant was best said by vader:
"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers"

Re:Thats what they get

[pecosdave]

Well, I bought some Broderbund games for my kid from Half Price Books for $5 each, and she loves them. Turns out ripping disk to ISO's, mounting the ISO's to a virtual CDROM drive via a batch file launched with the icon the game came with works really well. I have The Cat and the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham disks safely tucked away out of reach while the perfectly legal backup copy is on the hard disk for play purposes.

Re:Thats what they get

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I'd respectfully disagree with that and point that it is your view that is supporting only one way, that without DRM, and mine leaves open the potential for both types of content. The problem with that argument is that it could be applied to ANY arbitrary restriction. The CueCat folks could have made a lot of money if there had been a law that prevented people from using cuecats for anything else. Automakers could make a profitable business selling ultra-luxury (and ultra-expensive) cars for cheap if there was a law that required car owners to temporarily lease their cars, payment going to automakers, to other people when otherwise not in use. Cities could save tax revenue if they were able to charge a royalty for every photograph of their landmarks. All kinds of cocakmamie schemes would become profitable if only they passed a law...

The reason DRM is evil - yes evil - not neutral, but evil - is that it destroys culture. It destroys our history. Imagine if all hieroglyphics had been written on self-destructing or encrypted tablets. We would know only a miserable fraction of what we do about the culture of ancient civilizations. Our society today would suffer for it. The public domain is a right, it is in fact the default state of the universe. Similarly DRM prevents the incremental development of new culture. Locked up culture may as well not even exist for all it contributes to the progress of the useful arts and sciences.

We've never really had freedoms. Sez you. You are making up a non-existent distinction - freedom whether you call it liberty or anything else has always come with consequences aka living with the results of your actions. To say that we have the 'freedom' to break the law but not the 'liberty' to do so is just hand-waving and extremely counter-productive.

Every law is a restriction a liberty or freedom and an enabler of rights. That is what laws do. Again with the generic argument for restrictions. It does not follow that just because some restrictions are useful that DRM or copyrights in general are a net benefit to society.

I believe in the rights of the users and those of the creators Well, then you and I will always disagree. The only right of the creator is to get paid whatever they can convince someone to pay them for the work of creation, just like everyone else on the planet. Just like your only right as an employee is to get paid for the work you do for your employer. I would love to have a law written for me that guarantees that I get paid a royalty every time someone uses a tool that I created - every new nail pounded in with *my* hammer will be 10 cents, thank you very much. But that's not the natural order of the universe - as soon as I let that hammer out of my control, I don't get paid any more for its use - the possessor is free to do with it as he wishes and it is infeasible for me to stop him- trying to contractually enforce such payments would bear a cost higher than the value received. If anything that law of nature applies 10x more to information distribution than it does to physical objects, yet the law of man is intent on contradicting that law of nature. The end result is a whole lot of effort wasted on enforcing the unenforceable, effort that would have been much more productively spent on creation in the first place.

Re:Thats what they get

[mrchaotica]

It is a slight inconvenience for the user...

If you assume that the user is on a desktop sits next to his shelf full of game discs. On the other hand, if the user has a laptop (which may not even have an optical drive) and doesn't feel like lugging all his game discs around with him all the time, it is a huge inconvenience -- so much of one, in fact, that he'd be very likely to pirate the game out of pure spite!

Re:Thats what they get

[mrchaotica]

Moral of this rant was best said by vader: "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers"

How do you manage to get the quote verbatim, but misattribute it so badly?

Re:Thats what they get

[karmatic]

DRM isn't REALLY about software piracy. I haven't known one person that has said "Hey! It is difficult to pirate this. I may as well just go buy it!".

Well, now you do. Over the years, there have been a number of applications that fell into this category for me, from Windows to MorphVox, Trillian (wanted some of the addons) to (once upon a time) C&Cheat.

The problem with DRM is that (if done poorly), the pirate copy is easier to get and more functional than the legitimate copy. This encourages users (through consequences) not to buy. This is bad.

OTOH, some copy protection systems aren't overly invasive, and because of add-on content, multiplayer (games), etc., the paid version is more functional than a pirate copy. This gives people a reason to buy it.

I sell software. I've sold software for years. Nagware and minimally invasive copy protection have (in my tests) brought in more sales, time and time and time again.

The funny thing is that piracy can often increase sales. The added exposure can help bring in business, and the reduced risk (I'm not paying $X for software I've never used) makes for an easier sale. Someone who would never buy my customer costs me nothing if he pirates it.

Greedy Corp X will still throw DRM at it because now they want you to pay for it for every machine you want to run it on

Some companies do - some don't. We charge for different platforms, because (for example) the PalmOS and Symbian platforms are different players, and required separate development efforts. You can switch devices as much as you want - we certainly don't care.

On the other hand, we're going to be rolling out widgets, and integrate application for over 600 different devices. If you've got widgets, paid apps, whatever, we're not going to charge you extra to use it on any device it's compatible with. We only charge you for two programs if we had to write two programs.

Re:Thats what they get

[Technician]

I actually agree with CD check protection... It is a slight inconvenience for the user, but not so inconvenient that I would really mind. It also offers a reasonable protection against casual (i.e. not-so-computer-literate) piracy, which is really the best any copy protection scheme can ever hope for.

For someone who travels frequently and having been bitten by having the CD case without the CD in it on arrival, A CD check copy protection is the number 2 reason on my list for not buying a program. It's right behind the dongle and right above online phone home checks. No dongle, no CD, or no internet are 3 modes if inexcusable failure. Packing light without all the baggage is required. Anything less devalues the software greatly. My laptop has a failing CD drive. It does somewhat OK with commercial CDs, but CDR playback is quite unreliable. CD read copy protection is unreliable for the laptop.

which is really the best any copy protection scheme can ever hope for

No it isn't. A one time registration providing a key with your registration detail is all that is required. I fill out and send in a registration form either online or snail mail and they send back a key. The key then when used with the software, unlocks it and proudly displays "Registered to Technician" (real contact information). I can re-install it as many times as needed from hardware upgrades, dead hard drives, etc. I'm not posting my key online. Piracy is not an issue. Phone home, CD access problems, etc are eliminated. It is about the only type of DRM I even consider. Anything else breaks the software when the hardware glitches. Broken software is useless. Any broken software priced above useless isn't purchased.

The CD key is why after purchase of the Voyetra "Teach me Piano" tutorial, it was the end of buying any Voyetra software. I use an older tutor called Piano Discovery System even though it was made for Windows 95. It is simply not a hastle to run.

Voyetra was dropped, while PDS got the expansion pack. DRM by CD check cost Voyetra several sales.

Due to the DRM in new versions of Windows with all the Anti-Piracy difficulties, I have since moved onto Linux. Stuff installs, and works the way it is supposed to. Rebuilds, upgrades and re-installs don't break everyting requiring tech support to "Get Genuine".

Re:Thats what they get

[arkhan_jg]

You can log in to the same steam account concurrently on different pc's but only the last one logged in is 'online' - the others are effective in offline mode, though you still appear to be logged in until you try to use online stuff.

You should be able to play any single player offline or lan games ok, but going into online games will likely fail on steam auth; so you could play tf2 while your brother plays portal, but you won't both be able to play tf2 and hl2 deathmatch online at the same time, for example.

As you say, lending or gifting games from one account to another isn't possible - that's steam's biggest weakness in my book.

The IP tracking scheme is not that aggressive; if you shared it out with a LOT of different people who use it at the same time, you run the risk of getting banned.

Steam does restrict a lot of the rights you're used to with cd-based games, like the right of resale; on the other hand you can install as many times as you like, on as many machines as you like, anywhere in the world without needing any of the original discs, codes or other paraphenalia, nor disc to play. The number of times I've reinstalled windows, and relinked into my steam folder and all my games 'just work' without having to do anything - it's a real convenience compared to digging out all the discs and reinstalling just to get the right registry keys installed with the licence code. Plus, steam games priced in dollars are WAY cheaper than normal UK retail price for me personally. I hated steam for years when it first came out, but it has grown on me (like fungus), and now i can live with it even if I don't love it.

Basically, you're getting poked in the ass by steam, but at least they're gracious enough to give you a reach-around to compensate. Whether the ease of use is enough to compensate or not, is up to you.

Re:Thats what they get

[xalorous]

Rivets are used extensively to fasten two pieces of metal when the strength, time, and expense of welding are not needed. Rivets are faster than welds and require no cooling time, whether done manually or robotically.

Look inside your computer case. If the cage is welded vice riveted I'll buy you lunch.

Re:Thats what they get

[Dan541]

That's what programs like CloneCD are for. Alternatly you can just burn the CD and keep it in the drive while playing.

Re:Thats what they get

[theanorak]

Just a fair warning about this sort of thing:

Long ago I subscribed to fileplanet, and included as part of the subscription package was a game from Direct2Drive. I chose Splinter Cell.

Fast forward a couple of years, and after building a new PC I wanted to reinstall Splinter Cell - so downloaded the installer, dug out the activation numbers from my email, and couldn't make it work. I contacted D2D support, and whilst they were very friendly and very professional, they also couldn't make it work. SC (the D2D version) wasn't compatible with my new system (with XP, I think, but I could be mistaken) and wouldn't activate.

There wasn't anything they could do - and to their credit, they were upfront about this and credited my account with sufficient points to buy a new game which would be compatible, so I can't fault their customer approach - but I was still left without the game I wanted.

Re:Thats what they get

[Bastard of Subhumani]

The problem is losing one key and the solution is to lose both of them?

Re:Thats what they get

[harl]

You forgot one other aspect of Steam. At any point they can render your purchases unusable by you.

Check your EULA. What does it say about guaranteeing access to the product you "purchased"?

Well first off they are very clear that you are not purchasing anything.
"Steam is an online service."
"You become a subscriber to Steam by installing the Steam client software. . ."
"...as a Subscriber you may obtain access to certain services, software and content ("Subscriptions") available to Subscribers."
"Your license confers no title or ownership in the Steam Software."

Then my favorite:

"VALVE DOES NOT GUARANTEE CONTINUOUS, ERROR-FREE, VIRUS-FREE OR SECURE OPERATION AND ACCESS TO STEAM, THE STEAM SOFTWARE, YOUR ACCOUNT AND/OR YOUR SUBSCRIPTIONS(S)."

"Either you or Valve has the right to terminate or cancel your Account or a particular Subscription at any time."

If you don't like it then you can fuck off according to them:

"YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT YOUR SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDY FOR ANY DISPUTE WITH VALVE WITH REGARD TO STEAM OR THE STEAM SOFTWARE IS TO DISCONTINUE USE OF STEAM AND CANCEL YOUR ACCOUNT."

These are not nice people.

At least with disc in drive DRM I'm the only person who controls if I have access to my purchase. Either through backups, or not damaging the disk, or nocd crack.

Re:Thats what they get

[Anomalyst]

Attribution was correct, just incomplete. Should have been "Lady Vader". See the 1st Timothy Zahn Trilogy. Zahn has done an excellent job of extending and supplementing the SW milieu.

Vista Obligatory

[Tablizer]

a user is only allowed 3 activations per license key. A license key is burned up when the O/S is reinstalled, ...

If you own Windows Vista, then you'll have about 3 days to use your license ;-P

Well,

[Daimanta]

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.

Re:Well,

[FinchWorld]

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.

And it'll still be cracked

Since Spore is a single-player game

and mass effect too...

Re:Well,

[Opportunist]

There is no distinction between weak and strong copy protection. No matter how strong, it will be broken. Whether 1% or 0.000001% of the people have the skill to break it is meaningless, it only takes one person to break it. Then it's spread millionfold through the net. Whether someone else breaks it too doesn't make a difference.

There is a difference between copy protection that is a minor nuisance (i.e. having to have the disk in the drive to use the software) and a major nuisance (i.e. disabling the software altogether after a while). The first will be swallowed grungedly. The latter will cause people to find a way to get around it to use the software they legally bought again.

If this has any effect, it will make more people search for ways to disable copy protection. It will show people who didn't even think about copying how to do it, how to acquire "cracks" and how to download cracked software.

And once the initial "work" is done to get a hand on such software, the incentive to keep doing it is immense. It does take some time initially to dig up sources for cracked software, but once you have the source, getting more software without buying for it is fairly trivial.

So the net effect of crippling DRM methods like this is to drive more people towards cracked soft. Because once you know where to get it, it's easy to get more.

Re:Well,

[Opportunist]

The step towards FOSS takes usually longer. But more than one person has found his way to cracked soft due to software he bought refusing to work properly. And once he sees how easily you can get software "for free", and how much more convenient it is when you don't have to do what the copy protection mechanisms demand from you, he usually stays there.

Umm... could anyone explain?

[Opportunist]

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?

Re:DRM is pointless

[A beautiful mind]

DRM drives a honest man to not liking DRM. Those who use software against the wishes of the content creator are rewarded with superior quality.

Don't buy DRM'd games!

[RenHoek]

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.

Re:Don't buy DRM'd games!

[drdaz]

Fraud.

Spore...

[JediLow]

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.

Re:Spore...

[Mascot]

At least Bioshock and Mass Effect have used it so far. Unless enough people protested by not buying those, I don't see why they'd remove it from Spore.

It's a pity, but a lot of people either are ignorant about the DRM, or don't care. Obviously they never bought music from an online store that since shut down.

Re:Spore...

[Znork]

Same here. I've bought most SimCity games (as far as they've worked under cedega), and was going to buy Spore once it got there, but this is simply a total dealbreaker. This is product is defective by design.

Re:Spore...

[apoc.famine]

The problem is with the protest part: If enough people "protest" by not buying it, the "truth thermocline" (shamelessly stolen from a previous comment posted here today) will convert that into a "piracy" problem.

As I understand it, it goes like this:
CEO: Why are our sales low, Level 2 Exec? Is it piracy?
Level 2 Exec: Why are our sales low, Level 3 Exec? Is it piracy?
Level 3 Exec: Why are our sales low, mid-level manager who actually knows what's going on?
Mid-level manager: Well, our DRM is so restrictive, it's locking out legitimate users. They're refusing to buy our product, because it's easier to pirate it.
Level 3 Exec: Level 2 Exec - you were right, it's piracy.
...continues on up to the CEO

This would stop if shareholders could grasp that "low sales means PIRATES!!!" actually means "the game sucked" or "our DRM was so bad that it drove legitimate users away". Unfortunately, the "truth thermocline" which exists a few levels down in management means that the real information about the problem almost never makes it to the top. And sadly enough, most of the information the shareholders get is from the people above this level.

I mean, if you're making a couple of million a year, you're not going to tell the man that signs your paycheck that he's wrong, and that your product is a piece of shit, are you?

Re:Spore...

[Blakey Rat]

Spore is an EA game. You'll be lucky if it doesn't kick you in the nuts when you install it.

Re:Spore...

[Gnavpot]

The problem is with the protest part: If enough people "protest" by not buying it, the "truth thermocline" (shamelessly stolen from a previous comment posted here today) will convert that into a "piracy" problem.

If a game has DRM I cannot accept, I am not going to buy it OR pirate it.

Reason 1: By ignoring the game, I do not count in any piracy statistics which can be used as an excuse for stronger Digital Restrictions Management in their next game.

Reason 2: I believe that I will hurt the game company more by ignoring their game than by playing a pirated version. If I played the game, even in a pirated version, I might convince others to buy it. Or I might add something useful to the game's online community.

Screw Piracy

[neokushan]

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.

Re:Screw Piracy

[DarkMage0707077]

I personally prefer "Sins of a Solar Empire" creator's model of copy protection: the game will technically work fine if you pay for it or not...for version 1.0.

If you want updates and any add-ons they come out with, though, you need to purchase a key(one-time purchase only, mind) in order to register the game.

I love it: I downloaded two of their games and tried them for 3 days. One, I got rid of; the other, SoaSE, I liked so much that I went and bought a legitimate key to register with online.

Granted it has its flaws: it would be very easy for someone to pirate a game with this kind of "protection". Even the key itself would be easy to spread around, I bet.

But if you actually like the game, don't you want to see improvements and add-ons come out for it? And/or more games like it? Most people are aware that these things cost money, and without that money, no more will be made like it. So if customers like what they see and want more, they come back and pay for more.

Re:DRM is pointless

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't even manage that feat. It encourages honest people to crack the DRM so that they get to use software they paid for. Ultimately they learn to just bit torrent it and have done.

Re:DRM is pointless

[AioKits]

Yeah, but it also turns an honest man into whatever it takes to get his damned game working since he feels entitled to it (rightly so cause he did pay for the thing).

I had brought a copy of Supreme Commander:FA and went to bit torrent for a copy of it since it would NEVER install all the way. Plays like a champ with the copy I got offa Pirate Bay, no insert CD or nothing.

BTW - I do know the latest patch removes the 'copy protection' on it.

Re:DRM is pointless

[LiquidAvatar]

I'd disagree - this DRM is making this honest man pirate. If a DRM suite cripples my legitimate use of the product, then I'm going to acquire the product without the DRM.

Re:DRM is pointless

[LWATCDR]

Not really.
I bought FS2004. I run the cracked version of it because I don't want to have to find the disk every time I play it.
I am honest because I am honest.
In this case I doubt I will buy Spore. The DRM is just too big of a pain do deal with.
DRM seems to be making honest people into criminals.
Seems way to like prohibition to me.

I'll just keep on waiting. . .

[JSBiff]

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.

Re:I'll just keep on waiting. . .

[Surye]

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'll give you a hint.

Re:I'll just keep on waiting. . .

[joe_n_bloe]

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 law and precedent is clearly present now, but EA will never come around on this voluntarily. If someone were to take them to court over their restrictive licensing/authorization practices, it would take a while, but that would put a stop to it. As far as I know, companies that sell software that is clearly sold, not rented, must follow the first sale doctrine; a shrinkwrap "license" that specifies otherwise is simply illegal.

But no one has really challenged this yet, and especially not in the case of games.

Lesson I take away is...

[Krinsath]

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.

Re:Lesson I take away is...

[Opportunist]

I'm all for creators receiving compensation for their work because they work hard and pour themselves into their work

That's the difference between you and me. I'm all for punishing dimwits who treat their customers as their enemies.

My solution is to simply avoid buying and using the product. I'm sure others will only omit the first part. But no game is worth stepping into illegality.

3 activations??

[sokkalf]

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.

Re:DRM is pointless

[digitrev]

No, the real question is will you continue to remain an honest man because of this? If your software acquisition process looks like this:

1. Buy software.
2. Install software.
3. Get frustrated.
4. Crack software.

you'll soon start to cut out steps 2 and 3, and then just cut out step 1.

For God's Sake Someone Sue Someone Already

[joe_n_bloe]

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?

Re:For God's Sake Someone Sue Someone Already

[eddy]

Developers without fail will publicly blame the publishers, neatly "forgetting" to mention that they, the developers, agree to the terms in the contract when they sign it, thereby validating it. If they really didn't want this DRM crap then they wouldn't leave control of it to the publishers, but they do, time and time again. Then they try to shift the blame.

Us gamers need to realize this and not accept the weak excuses of developers who support these braindead DRM schemes.

I don't know about the rest of the world, but I now do my PC game purchasing decisions based on DRM, moreso than price.

Re:A solution?

[Mascot]

And not playing is exactly what you'll be doing once they shut down the activation servers.

What you are doing, in effect, is accepting the fact you're renting a game, but still paying full price for it.

I for one won't accept that. Either slice the prices down to rental levels, or let me actually own the game I buy. They're doing a great job not getting my money. Not such a great job keeping me from enjoying the games. If they ever change their minds and want my money after all, they know what to do.

I just bought this game Sunday night...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.)

Re:I just bought this game Sunday night...

[courtarro]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a 64-bit OS, quad-core processor, and a $200 video card aren't exactly what I'd call "pedestrian".

Re:No problem for me.

[Opportunist]

Unless they push a patch some day that removes this lunacy, I guess I'll never know. Since I refuse to break the law for a game, and certainly don't feel like being at a company's whim whether I may or may not use what I bought, I guess the only option left to me is not buying it.

Ya know, despite what ads tell you, there is still this option...

Just like my DVR

[c0y]

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.

Re Spore, Why Not Complain Directly to Will Wright

[joe_n_bloe]

I wonder what effect a pile of non obscene letters and email would have at Maxis. Would "the word" get down to EA?

Behold!

[pecosdave]

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.

It's EA...

[BulletMagnet]

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?

Stardock games have product activation, too

[Digital_Quartz]

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.

Follow the Wiki link. . .

[JSBiff]

"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.

Re:DRM is pointless

[bakedpatato]

It's even worse because Mass Effect has a bug in the RETAIL version that makes the game impossible to play(the forever overheated weapons), and cracks fix that bug...hmmm...

Does fear offset convenience?

[Bones3D_mac]

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?

That's the magic of DRM.

[raehl]

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?

Re:That's the magic of DRM.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the stupid part here is that you bought ringtones.

Re:That's the magic of DRM.

[soundguy]

No, the stupid part is USING ringtones. No one wants to hear anyone else's crappy taste in music. Everyone needs to put their phones on vibrate and STFU!

Re:That's the magic of DRM.

[delysid-x]

YES. I hate my phone company (Telus - www.telus.ca) for not letting me make one of the MP3s in my LG Chocolate Flip be a ringtone. I'll NEVER pay $4 for some stupid 20 second chunk of a crappy song I could buy off their web page. Fuck you, Telus. Fuck you to death.

Re:That's the magic of DRM.

[Skrapion]

Just to drive the point home, don't forget about EA's online store. If you buy Mass Effect through EA's digital distribution service — thereby saving EA bucketloads of cash — your total savings amount to $0. What's worse, EA charges you an extra $6 for their "extended download service", in case you ever need to redownload the game after six months.

It's pretty clear that EA has no respect for their customers. It's a shame, because I'd really like to try Mass Effect, but between the draconian DRM, the greedy sales policy, and the refusal to release a demo (which could be excused if the game wasn't $50) it's pretty difficult to justify buying it.

Please, Bioware, find another publisher.

PC Gaming is dying

[WiglyWorm]

because the companies that provide the product refuse to treat their customers like anything but common thieves.

Hello console, Goodbye PC.

[Capitalist Piggy]

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.

Re:Hello console, Goodbye PC.

[Capitalist Piggy]

I'm quite surprised people who have not touched a console since the PS1 days aren't modding us down.

It takes a DRM thread to remind me of the nightmares I've run into in the past.

Most painful was buying a shiney, new copy of Half-life, installing TFC, then when trying to get online for the first time, it errored out saying my CD key was already in use. I called support and was treated like shit, I couldn't return the software to the store, and the only resolution was to pay $10 for a new CD with no promise that key hadn't been guessed and pirated. I paid up that time, but after 6 months I got the same message again. I gave up and just said "Never again" and stopped playing, as I wasn't about to fork over another $10 to play online again. From what I understand, Steam took care of those problems, but I really don't respect a company that was so lacking in treating a customer like a customer and more like a criminal on the phone, especially when they knew the problems were out there and were doing little to fix it.

Then again, these were the folks who had to lean on independent programmers to implement somewhat of a fix for the wide-spread cheating problems.

Damn, I think I appreciate Halo that much more. Gonna go play a few rounds after King of the Hill. Cheers! :)

Re:EA, Challenge Everything! Including common sens

[geekoid]

Ender77 price on his beliefs is exactly 1 game.

Well done.

Foot in the door

[Rekolitus]

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.

Mass Effect don't bug me

[billcopc]

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 ?

Re:I disagree

[TheRealMindChild]

because they see the drop-off of their revenue due to piracy

Due... to... piracy? That is a pretty bold claim. Maybe because they are spewing out the same old tired garbage, that no one sees value in it anymore. The percieved value of everything changes. Even the value of your cash. When people don't want your crap, you will sell less. If people can't do something more useful in your new version, you will sell less.

And do you think it is coincidence that even though we are talking about software, this is the exact same issue with the other big industry, music. People are tired of paying for the 13th Pearl Jam album that all sounds like filler from their first, so they sell less. They are tired of paying for a whole album just for a song or two, so they are selling less. Yet they are SURE that their revenues are slipping.... due... to... piracy.

You can get more activations

[Xelios]

... 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...)

Re:You can get more activations

[arkhan_jg]

The poor sod on the mass effect forums is on 10 days and counting on trying to get EA tech support to give him another activation for his own property.

As far as I know, no-one has actually been helped yet with the activation problems by EA tech support.

It may well be that this is another lie from bioware PR up there with 'uninstalling it will give you back an activation' and 'you can reinstall on the same pc without using a new activation'* and 'you won't need multiple activations for each user account' - all of which have been shown to be lies, just as they were when Elizabeth on the bioshock forums trotted them out.

According to the error message from the securom DRM, you need to buy another copy after 3 installs/windows reinstalls/hardware upgrades - and so far, EA tech support appear to be following that line.

*only true if you uninstall and then reinstall into the same user account on the same install of windows on the same pc - it looks for the registry hardware/serial checksum saved from the last install, and if it doesn't find it, it'll count it as a new install and use up an activation credit.

Re:A solution?

[AlexMax2742]

EA does not have a good track record with long-term support for games. How do I know that in say...two years...they won't tell me to piss up a rope?

And before you say 'no company would do that', that's precisely what they did with the EA Store. I bought Battlefield 2142 from EA Link, expecting to be able to download it anytime I want should I ever want to play it again. A few months later, they introduced the new EA Store, which limited your downloading to six months after the purchase date. Of course you could extend this to two years...for a little extra money of course. And from what I understand, even in the EA Link days they had a limit to the number of times you could download the game that I was completely unaware of.

They were 'gracious' enough to give former users of EA Link their game through EA Store with the six month time limit starting the day of debut, but the whole ordeal made me so sick that I decided to simply never buy another EA product for the PC. Since then, I've bought exactly one game from then, Skate for the 360, but then I read about how they love to shut down online services for their old games after a few years.

So as far as I'm concerned, THEY can piss up a rope. No more.

Another burned EA customer reaction

[farbles]

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.

Re:On the other hand...

[0111 1110]

All of that is irrelevant. It would only matter if someone could come up with DRM that actually works. And by "works" I don't mean seeking some perfect balance between annoying the fuck out of your paying customers and delaying the crack by a few days as in 99% of DRM so far. I mean no cracks at all Not even partially playable cracks.

The problem is not even that this task is literally impossible, although it may in fact be. The problem is that the man-hours and cost per shipped unit involved in a scheme that even has the tiniest chance of holding off the crackers for more than a week is non-trivial. We're talking about things like hardware dongles and parts of the code that are not even included with the game but which would have to run on servers that you are paying for. Maybe each customer would have their own unique sections of the game which have to be accessed online before the game could continue.

One of the more succesful attempts I have heard of was from Cubase. It had so many dongle hooks that for a while it seemed the sheer tedium of finding and removing them all would be too daunting, but eventually it was cracked. No more need for the dongle after all the references have been removed from the code.

A first step may be to try to design and build your own dongle. Don't use an established vendor since their techniques are already widely known by the cracking community. Probably the simplest idea would be to just assign a unique digital key to each customer in the form of a USB dongle and but tens of thousands of dongle lookups in the code. In fact at least half the executable size should be attributable to the lookups.

Another option is to sell your software with its own computer. Preferably something that the crackers aren't using very much or even would have a hard time getting their hands on. Maybe a Sun or a DEC Alpha or an SGI Indigo (although I do have one of those here). Other options may be an Amiga 500 or TRS80 Model III or Apple IIc. Except that some hackers may own some of those or could buy them cheaply. Probably the most practical option for this would be to just design/build your own custom computers. An entirely custom designed CPU and GPU with no published specs and which no one has ever heard of.

I am old enough that I can remember a time when there were no home computer games at all. Before the Atari 2600. During that time I used to play little handheld electronic games. I remember there was a car racing game that had a little steering wheel and a very basic black and white screen where you steered the car. I bought a game AND a piece of hardware. That definitely makes it harder to crack.

You could also try coding the whole thing in extremely obfuscated spaghetti assembly code. Don't use a compiled language because the compiler will clean up the code for you. Make the code so crazy with all kinds of blind alleys that lead nowhere. Hell say 50% of the code would be a blind alley that just ends up doing yet another dongle or other hardware check.

Yet another possibility is releasing the game initially as a sort of ruse. Yes, people would pay for it, but it wouldn't actually do anything except check for its dongle. Then you issue a new patch from your server that makes the first 10 minutes of the game playable after trying to search for valid dongles across the internet on the remote machine that is requesting the additional game material. Then you go to the next customer and repeat until everyone has the first 10 minutes of the game to keep themselves amused. And of course you don't release to the public any information about this system ever. As far as they are concerned they really do have the "game". Hehe. Even though they really only have a bunch of dongle lookup code written in insanely obfuscated assembly code. After everyone has their first 10 minutes (the intro or whatever) the server will then send some random but connected other part of the game to make it playable in some limited way for another ten minutes. Keep repeating that checking

Re:People actually buy games still?

[petermgreen]

I'm saying that modern 3D game development has much higher (sufficiantly high that few developers are likely to be able to pay them out of thier own pocket) upfront costs than music production. Someone has to take the risk of paying that upfront cost in the hope that the game can be sold profitablly. With many games it is the publisher who does this.

No new hardware, no os-reinstall?

[GodFjotten]

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.

Re:Vote with your wallet

[Technician]

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.

it's about the used game market...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Considering how often Windows has to be...

[Thiez]

I expect most windows-running people on slashdot to be able to keep their windows relatively clean, but we are not a good representation of the average user. The average user will happily run every executable they find on their msn/email/intertubes/blogs/blags/bligs/blugs/blegs, and then click away every warning message. Win32Trojan.exe? Clickclick!

After a few weeks of this torture the system will crawl into a corner and start crying and cutting itself. Time for a reinstall! The user accepts this cycle as 'normal'.

Call me a cynic but I believe 2 out of 3 people would sign their own death warrant because they can't be arsed to read what it says.