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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.
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.
It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.
-Voltaire
And it'll still be cracked
Since Spore is a single-player game
and mass effect too...
"I may be full of crap about this game, and I may be wrong, and that's fine." -Jack Thompson
- Buy software.
- Install software.
- Get frustrated.
- Crack software.
you'll soon start to cut out steps 2 and 3, and then just cut out step 1.Cynical Idealist
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.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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 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.)
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?
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