Slashdot Mirror
Will DRM Exterminate Spore?
AC Dude writes "Will an anti-DRM flash mob that's determined to give EA's latest sim game Spore a rock bottom rating on Amazon.com sink the game, or will Spore evolve and shed the DRM? Is this the beginning of the end for DRM-laden games?
'Over the past few years we've focused a lot on the music industry and how it has attempted to use DRM to control distribution. While DRM in this market segment has been unpopular, anti-DRM campaigns have largely fallen flat when it comes to attracting widespread public attention because of the fragmented nature of music. Games are a much easier target given the monolithic nature of their release — campaigners only need to spread the word on a handful of specific online outlets to reach a wide audience. A quick read through the Amazon reviews of Spore seems to suggest that the negative comments are already putting people off from buying the game.'"
and I'm a geek, a gamer (though mostly console) and a slashdot reader. The general public are screwed!
Spore is ace, and frankly if it wants to shaft my vista installation it's welcome to it. It's the only thing I use vista for.
Reminds me of Supreme Commander, they had 'securerom' with the original DVDs, but once installed it downloaded the usual patches, one of which disabled it. So, authenticate once and then you never have to worry about playing with the media in the drive.
I think its the best compromise we're likely to get.
I was bit by BioShock's DRM (didn't realize the extent of it until after my purchase.).
Whenever a game is coming out that I'm interested in, if it's laden with such anti-consumer machinations, I intend to e-mail the publisher explaining that I would rather pirate it than pay them money thanks to their greed.
No sig for you!!
I don't understand how the cost of developing DRM protection on games and then dealing with the support costs of having DRM can outweigh the "cost" of a few pirated copies of the game.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Of course, by the time Spore has hit the bargain rack, EA may have turned off the activation servers for the game, and it won't work any longer!
If you don't believe in your cause enough to actually boycott the product, then you don't deserve to see your cause prevail.
Also, I believe it is counter productive. If you pirate the game, they will know people want the game enough to jump through hoops for it. EA will just try to make piracy more difficult than buying the product. You may be saying "Great, they will take out the DRM and the game will be easier to buy than pirate!" but you're wrong. They will litigate. Think of the RIAA and where they went when music piracy got too out of hand for them. Do you want to create another monster?
If you can prove that you can go without the product if they don't make it in a form you like, then they will be much more likely to remove DRM, because its the only enemy left.
The rule for media is: If it's good, you don't have to protect it to make some massive profit.
Same goes with computer games. If your game is popular enough to start getting viral through torrents, then you probably should be working on the sequel. Look how good Batman Begins, and now The Dark Knight, are. Even if they invent a new DRM to go on the DVD for that one, they're going to sell millions.
How about you play the game all the way through, and don't just complain when you get bored after the first two stages? Which, I might add, are practically tutorials and character development leading into the later levels?
Agreed. It's 5 minigames with the same goal stitched together. It's horribly boring. It plays like as tripped down Sims. You get little to no reward for anything.
I'm waiting until either the game comes out on Steam (the only DRM I'll tolerate, since it actually ASSISTS with roaming and such) or the DRM is removed. Bullshit, I'm not going to waste however much on a game that will only be reinstalled three times - especially given how it's marketed as a sandbox that you're likely to keep returning to.
You don't think that interested parties keep track of what's going on at the torrent sites? Granted, they may or may not be able to come up with a real number but if they can show their buddies in congress that it's one of the most active torrents going for any significant period of time they can easily make the case that "we would have had sales if they didn't have downloads."
I know someone is going to yammer on about how "people would have never have bought it, yadda yadda yadda" and that not everyone who downloaded it would have bought it, and this may very well be true but at least some of the torrent base was potential customers. The logic of "teh d0wnlo^d != l0st sales!!!onehundredeleven!!" doesn't go over well in the real world.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
...at least are forced to reinstall windows enough that a 3 install limit is FAR too limited a deal.
or, if you uninstall something, let's say MS Office because you're turning the machine into a Linux server or something, it should do its call home to tell MS that its no longer installed. That way I can move it to another machine if I wanted to. Blowing hundreds of dollars on a piece of software and have it stuck on one machine is ridiculous. Which brings me to this:
The biggest suspicion is that all this was done to minimize the chance and value of the reselling the game.
It's one thing to install software and then give the license away or sell while still using your installed copy - that's assuming you don't need the CD/DVD in a drive to use it - but, if I don't need the software anymore, what's it to the publisher if I sell it; other than a loss of extra revenue because they couldn't sell another license?
It hurts them more. Because now, I'm much more hesitant to by software. Unless I really need it for some reason, I won't buy because I know that there's no recouping the cost if I should fin that I don't need it in the future. So I make do without or find a F/OSS alternative. I'm not a gamer.
Let's see. Warhammer Online is coming out next week. Oh look! It's publisher is EA. Guess I'll cancel my order for that. Only way to get EA's attention is to cut their income. Even then I'm not sure they'll learn. They're too greedy to be sensible in my experience.
DISCLAIMER: I'm a die-hard PC gamer. I go all the way back to the Commodore 64 and I've owned and I have had the privilege to play some of the best games of all time.
PC gaming is already in a fragile state. There is much competition from the Console market. Cheaper hardware, less compatibility problems, more stability and no DRM (at least until they go all download based). Assuming that DRM will eventually permeate every PC game, it could very well be the factor that pushes PC gaming over the edge. It just adds one more reason to choose Console over PC as a gaming platform. Soon, everyone will compare the two and most likely arrive at the following conclusions:
In today's day and age, consoles are unfortunately what most people want. They want to go buy a game at the store, plug it into their console and start playing right away. As much as I hate to say it being a long-time PC gamer, this is just one more nail in the coffin for PC gaming.
If the PC gaming platform is going to be saved there are many issues that need to be addressed. Gaming PC's need to be cheaper to be competitive with the price point of Console rivals. There has to be some sort of compromise about DRM. There has to be a way to raise the level of quality (stability, hardware support) of PC releases. Most PC releases, especially console ports, seem like they were just slapped together. Lots of products are released that are buggy as all hell and you have wait for 2 or 3 patches to get to play the game properly.
I sincerely hope that PC gaming lives on but right now it seems like it's fading away.
We'll make great pets
Tell that to my gf who absolutely loves the game.
She was planning to buy the game, solely based on her experience with the earlier released creature editor.
As soon as I heard about the draconian DRM with the three activations limit I stopped her from throwing away her money.
Three activations would in our case mean she uses them in one blow. One for her comp at her place, one for the lappy she lugs arround and one for her comp at my place.
Sorry Will Wright, usenet did it's job once again. And this time I don't feel quilty one bit.
Life starts at the end of your comfort zone.
THQ (the publisher) forced Gas Powered Games (the developer) to use Securom. And the "law" part is just a turn of phrase in contemporary English, meaning they followed the exact wording of their contract. Thus allowing them to remove it later through a patch without breaking their agreement with THQ.
"Now you know, and knowing is half the battle!"
I remember when their creature creator demo came out, I downloaded and installed it, and faced this EA download manager.
As best I can tell, the thing attempts to connect out to its update and authentication server via some kind of IE backbone. It couldn't make it through my system, which was running no firewall, no antivirus, no router blockage - the only possible blockout is the fact that I keep my internet explorer settings for activex/flash/java/javascript completely off for non-trusted sites. And the thing wasn't going to tell me what site it was trying to visit so I could trust it.
I determine right there I wasn't buying this game - it won't operate on my system when installed legitamitely.
You can get 15 minutes of fame, but you can go down in history for infamy.
If it helps, Amazon UK have removed all reviews bar one, they are censoring peoples own opinions. I wonder if EA have pressured Amazon to remove them?
I was really psyched about this game as I loved the sim games. I bought it yesterday but I havn't installed it yet. Reading up, this all sounds like total BS on the part of EA and I should return it and get a pirated version. I really don't pay for software all that often and I went out on a limb here out of respect for the developers and wanting to keep my game play experience easy and not wanting to deal with cracks to play online. But it sounds like buying it could lead to the opposite case. Now I'm suspicious. Does this DRM scheme rely on some spy-ware installed on my machine? Also, I have a PC and 2 laptops that I wanted to put it on for work & personal travel. Now I have to pick up the phone and get ahold of a stupid call center for permission to use my property?
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No matter how thin you slice it, its still baloney.
My father in law was an avid PC gamer too. Then he had two games in a row fail to work on his machine due to weird DRM incompatabilities with his hardware. We could never figure out exactly what the problem was, since he wasn't doing anything all that strange and although it was a custom-built system, it was all pretty standard hardware.
He solved the problem by buying an Xbox 360.
He expects that if he buys a game and puts the disk into his machine, it should run. DRM caused that to not happen. To me, it doesn't seem like an unrealistic request (and the Xbox has no problem doing it).
And people wonder what is killing PC gaming? Its the companies that make PC games.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
The problem with the ANTI-DRM movement is the fact they don't separate themselves from good Non-DRM advantages vs Bad Non-DRM advantages.
Being able to copy a game and give it to a friend (who may give it to an other friend or post online) is exactly what they want to stop, they want people to pay for their copy. These aren't Not-For-Profit companies, They want to make as much money from their product as possible. If you don't understand that then move to Cuba. So any debate that goes I wouldn't get it unless it is free, will fall on deaf ears. Or Piracy as a marketing method, for the next version (that is why they give free demos).
In order to fight DRM you need to convince people of some real advantage that not having DRM will have to the Legal Copies Purchased owners who run on software and hardware that they officially support.
Back in them old days of the 1980s when games fit on a Floppy disk they had copy proctection on it. Normally putting a bad sector on a disk causing the disk copy method to skip that bad track. Allowing them to fairly successfully prevent illegal copying of programs. (pre internet day made it hard for someone to find the crack) however this only lasted a couple years and they went back to normal files (non Copy Protected). Why did this happen because the Copy Protection had a lot of flaws for legit use of their software.
1. Floppy Disks didn't last very well so a Backup Copy was considered good practice, where the game was actually normally run on the backup disk keeping the master disk safe. So Copy protection put their media at risk (chances are people wouldn't buy a new copy if it was gone)
2. Hard Drives were becoming popular they loaded faster and easier to and cleaner (no mess of disks flying around) People wanted to use this mass storage mechanism to run their products faster then before.
3. Upgrades those 5 1/4 disks drive systems were being replaced with 5 1/4 and 3 1/2 inch disk as well game size for new versions have gotten bigger. Wasting space for DRM was not efficient, on those small disks and people can often take 5 1/4 disks and put it on one 3 1/2 . As well they could see the end of the 5 1/4 disk so by forcing Copy Protection means once the drive goes so does their program.
None of this issue back then were about fluffy ideals (or as Fox news would call them, Crazy Hypi-Commi-Liberal UnAmerican ideals.) You need to prove that DRM is bad for the company and effecting its bottom line or will effect it soon. This thing on Amazon may or may not last. However people have been getting better at reviews and sifting threw the Glowing Reviews or Negitive Reviews and finding the middle stuff that actually give a good story of the product.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Anyone else? I have had such poor results with anything published by EA over the last 5 years or so that I have stopped buying anything that EA puts out. I know it has been compromised or kneecapped or has some stupid gotcha like DRM. Looks like that holds true for Spore.
Corporations don't think quite the same way as individuals. The best way to reach an individual person is to convince them to do the right thing, and then morality and personal pride will often compel them to take your advice (provided you were convincing). When you're dealing with a big corporation, you have to bear in mind the fact that corporations don't work with pride or morals, they work with the bottom line. Ultimately, what you have to do is convince them that your way is the way that will make them more money, and if a boycott or bad ratings are the only way of doing that, then that's what you need to do.
I myself purchased the game, downloaded and installed the (cracked) pirated copy, then replaced the serial number in the system registry with the legitimate registration number. Illegal? Probably not, since I already own the software and I'm just downloading a backup. Breach of license? Definitely. That said, I bought their damn game. I don't intend to allow them to punish me for doing the right thing.
Recently Slashdot linked to an article listing the Gamer's Bill of Rights.
This list was created by a publisher called Stardock, best known for Galactic Civilizations and Sins Of A Solar Empire. The list makes tons of sense, and it's doubtful if the PC gaming market will survive if publishers don't heed the wisdom of its suggestions. I never even heard of this publisher before Gal. Civ., but now I'm becoming a fan due to their benevolent attitude toward gamers. Boycotting clueless publishers isn't enough because there will always be people who will buy the game anyway. Instead of showing publishers what they can lose (which might not be a lot to them), show them what they can gain. Show them the profitability of treating customers well by giving the good publishers a chance. Also, don't underestimate the innovation of indie games.
DRM doesn't work. You may have noticed that, regardless of how draconian the DRM on Spore is, people are still pirating it (and had it out almost a week before it was in stores). Therefore, DRM is only hurting the paying customers- I bought the game and considered using a cracked version to keep DRM off of my system because I don't want to risk losing access to my game just because a server goes down. In the end, DRM encourages piracy, not discourages it.
Look at Galactic Civilizations II, which only had a CD key, no software DRM. The publisher said it was fine for people to install it on multiple computers. It did fine, and if the comments people posted online were true more people were buying it that would have pirated if it had DRM.
The phone home stuff is old. The original idea of the DRM was it'd call EA's servers to reactivate every 10 days, and would shut itself off if it couldn't.
So if you put it on a laptop and went offline? Oops, no game for you. After a massive outcry on the Mass Effect forums (the first game that was supposed to have that), they backed off on the 10 day thing.
It still refuses to install after 3 activations though, you have to call EA to get another one and prove that you're actually a paying customer... as if any pirate would need to call, since their copies have cracks to remove SecuROM.
I recently had Mass Effect randomly decide I wasn't authorized and stop working... then a while later randomly start working again. Maybe you're okay with that, but if I'm paying for a game I expect the the game to actually run when I want it to and not randomly decide I'm no longer authorized.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Steam is okay with many largely because it's been broken forever and a half ago. All my (single-player) steam games are (cracked and) backed up on an external HDD. I don't need to contact VALVe's servers to install my (legitimately purchased, single-player) software.
It's like DVD's. They're DRM'd too but we've known for so long how to get around it and have become so accustomed to doing so that we don't really mind it so much.
Even so, that doesn't make it right. I shouldn't have to activate OR crack HalfLife2 to play it on my box after paying good monies.
"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
So was Sim City a toy or a game? And did it matter?
Depends on the version. Toys generally encourage free form exploration and have no explict goal. You can't "win" at toy soldiers. Games usually have a goal, a victory condition. Super Mario Bros is a game.
The PC version of the Sim City was a toy. You played until you got bored. The Super Nintendo version was a game. You had specific goals (reach a certain population, reach a certain amount of money, etc.).
And it does kinda matter, because some people prefer games over toys and vice versa. I didn't like the PC version of Sim City. I liked the SNES version.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It actually says Windows XP and Vista. I might even buy Spore if it will run on my windows 2000, which I refuse to upgrade to avoid an environment more infested with DRM.
Random example of DRM: The FREE basic spore creature lab fails to start if you have run sysinternals ProcessExplorer before, a quite legitimate program that can be downloaded from microsoft.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
The old Maxis "games" (SimCity, SimEarth, SimLife, and so on) had a bit in their manuals about how they were toys, not games. You had to make up a goal if you wanted to actually play a game with them. It seems like Wright still has that philosophy about design, and people who liked the old Maxis toys and the Sims will probably like Spore too.
And people wonder what is killing PC gaming? Its the companies that make PC games.
I agree. Instead of using DRM and features that only the most advanced computers can run, try making a compelling story line and fun game play that just works.
It's only propaganda if it's intentionally hiding/twisting the truth. So long as an adequate explanation of the single star is included (i.e. a description of the DRM and why it's a problem for the reviewer) I don't believe it falls under that category.
You might argue that the lopsided nature of the "flash mob" twists truth by weighting the overall rating in an abnormal manner. That's a tougher, more interesting argument.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
I disagree. I bought Spore, and did NOT know anything about the DRM or malware. It wasn't until after I installed it over the weekend that I found out about it. This is an excellent way to make sure consumers know about the dangers to their system.
If I were buying ANY software, I would appreciate reviews which let me know it was doing things to my system that I didn't know about.
And it's a protest, and yes, it's hurting sales. That's the ONLY THING EA Games is going to respect. I'm sure EA would prefer that people just write them letters telling them how they felt, but until there's a protest that affects the bottom line, EA and other manufacturers won't abandon agressive DRM.
People forget that the Amazon Comment storm stopped Quicken from continuing to impliment similar draconian DRM on TurboTax. In fact said comments and reduced sales actually caused them to reverse previous policies. They completely removed the DRM and actually allowed via the EULA more copy rights to the owner than previously existed in the next years version. I was part of that boycott, choosing that year to use TaxCut instead of TurboTax. Not only that but the executives at Quicken got the wake up call that the guys selling them the DRM were snake oil salesmen.
Don't discount the power of a comment boycott. It hurts a publisher in the pocketbook directly by informing customers of the DRM before purchase, rather than after. These potential customers now aware of the problems before purchase then avoid the game entirely choosing not to deal with the problem. Even if there are still sales the real power of the boycott can only be seen in the total sales, not the day to day sales. Amazon's comments are a powerful medium to educate consumers. Amazon comments in the case of quicken caused a media storm and dramatically hurt sales of the DRM laden TurboTax.
Based on previous comments from the executives of EA it will probably not make an impact on their decisions and motives, unlike Quicken. But if it keeps happening on every game they distribute then they will either vacate the PC game market or quit using DRM. Both scenarios are good for PC gamers as they are currently the biggest DRM publisher and PC Game developers will choose to use other publishers.
(I'm sure this will be modded down) Seriously, what the fuck is everyone complaining about? Yes, Spore has DRM... but it's not at all as bad as everyone is making it! Yes, it's SecurROM. But what do average consumers have to worry about?
We have proven to EA that they HAVE to put this DRM stuff on their game. Someone fucked up and released Spore weeks early in Australia, and just a FUCKING DAY after the game comes out, there's already a shitload of torrents! Hello? If you want to bitch about the DRM, tell the people stealing the game to stop...
If anyone read about Spore's DRM, here's what it does:
1. Let's you install it 3 times and only 3 times. Yes, this is an annoyance, but it can easily be fixed by simply calling EA. If you ahve that much of a problem with this, get the crack. You bought the damn game...
On the contrary, Spore's DRM is far less worse than even Steam. I don't need to be connected to the Internet to play my game. I tried it, it just says you just can't play online.
Again, people showed EA they need DRM, so stop complaining about it.
(Also I fully support downloading movies or music... but I draw the line at PC games.)
There is a way to support Will Wright, and screw EA.
Buy the game. Install the DRM free torrent. Call EA tech support at least once a day with DRM issues relating to the game. Will gets his payoff for designing a groundbreaking game, EA gets ginourmous support bills.
Hit 'em in the pocketbook, but don't suppress innovation.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
Does anyone know, is this the most restrictive DRM yet on a mainstream title? I'm curious why people are so hateful against spore's DRM over that on other games.
Then again, I can't think of any other games that has a hard limit of installs. Great way to eliminate right of first sale.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
The DRM isn't helping, but the biggest problem with Spore is it's a huge disappointment.
I don't know about you, but I played through most of the game in one sitting. I started out as a little googly-eyed bacteria, and got to the space exploration stage. At that point, I got so intensely bored I just stopped playing.
There isn't anywhere near enough variety in the game to keep things interesting. The only challenge is patience, there is no skill involved, and very little thinking. The various creatures are interesting to see at first, but after a dozen races they all start looking the same. It's hard to specialize your critter, because the parts look different but have very similar stats. You can get the fastest legs, the meanest teeth, the strongest arms, all on the same char. There are no tradeoffs.
What's worse is one stage has little or no bearing on the next one. It feels less like evolution and more like 5 mini-games bundled together. Your race's appearance carries over, but the abilities/stats become irrelevant. It is difficult to lose in any phase, and downright impossible in some, thanks to unlimited lives.
I think we all got hyped up about the potential, but reality (EA) came along and made sure this game was anything BUT epic. They probably did this so they can release expansion packs later on, because had they delivered the game we thought we were getting, there would be no room for expansion.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
This was shot down early on. They provide no means to contact EA for further activations, they expect you to call and sit around on hold indefinitely until someone feels like helping you.
Furthermore the test case for this was Mass Effect with an identical DRM scheme. Customers requesting further installs were told to go buy the game again.
Moreover they have never come out and clarified what exactly triggers an activation to be burned up. Is it a video card upgrade? Sound card? Both at once? Maybe my hard drive fails and I restore from backup onto a new drive, does it notice the change in hardware and cost me further hassle?
While the pirates happily play their hassle and cost-free version of the game, a paying customer is left crossing their fingers and hoping (often enough in vain) that EA doesn't pull the plug for reasons they won't disclose publicly.
Finance a car with the caveat that the bank can permanently disable the vehicle remotely at any time for reasons which may include unnamed legal violations, unauthorized mechanical service, having too many or too few passengers in the car and driving at, above or below the speed limit and because they're vaguely suspicious of you; furthermore no test drive is allowed. And remember that when you agreed to the deal they reserve the right to change the rules at any time and make no guarantees that you will be allowed any kind of appeal, nor will you necessarily be informed why the decision to permanently disable your vehicle was made, nor is there any guarantee the car even works.
This is the deal EA is offering consumers and in no other industry would this be tolerated.
That's why I won't buy DRM laden Spore.
Some people don't understand what they may be getting into, as EA doesn't exactly make the installation of SecuROM public. If you value speaking with your money because you're an informed individual, it would help to inform others who may not be so informed.
I almost bought Spore last night, but decided to hold off for a week. With this news, I likely won't be buying Spore, and will be informing family and friends about the activation limits imposed by EA.
Making the truth known isn't disinformation.
Registered Linux User #449434
So lets say that you bought a new stereo system and it breaks. You find out that the customer services SUCKS with this company so you log onto a customer review site and complain. Perfectly valid and in fact there are a TON of reviews just like this for many products on Amazon. This however has NOTHING to do with how good the sounds was coming out of the stereo or the usability of the stereo... Is that still a valid review?
What if photoshop had something written into their legaleze that said that everything you created with said version of photoshop was wholely owned by the makers of photoshop and not you. Would it be ok for you to go onto the site and "review" their product and point this out?
I think this "flash mob" is perfectly in the right with their review slamming. I almost bought the game a little bit ago but saw the reviews and changed my mind because I thought their negative ratings were COMPLETELY VALID and changed my mind on weather i should buy the product or not.
(BTW... lets not call it a "flash mob" if we can help it. That makes it sound like a hand full of people who are doing this rather than an "internet uprising" against a corporation that seeks to redefine the accepted software use model in the industry.)
d
all language nazi's will burne in heil!
I only bought the game yesterday and only made it through the tribal stage, but the GP is pretty spot on from what I've seen so far.
The cell stage gives you some minor customization options, but really it's flOw. Replace customization with moving on to the next "level" in flOw and playing as a new creature type and you have the same game.
I initially had problems with the creature stage and was trying to tactically equip my creature to be able to befriend other creatures better. But then I realized that I should just add a companion (I forget what they're called right now). At that point the stage became trivial. I was a big fat bird with no offensive abilities other than bite and I and my recruits were destroying anything but the giant elite creatures. With one button.
The tribal stage was so short and shallow I'm surprised it was even in the game. It DOESN'T matter what kind of weapon you use. I had access to the flame sticks and axes and was planning an assault on the green village. When I got there I realized that I forgot to equip axes. Didn't seem to make a difference. I destroyed the villagers a few seconds slower than I could have I guess.
I spent 2-3 hours on the creature stage trying to collect parts for customization even after I was able to move on to the next stage. I didn't realize that this customization had almost zero effect on the gameplay that would follow and was mostly for aesthetic purposes.
I was disappointed that the creature stage throws out any semblance of evolution or heredity. When mating to create offspring you can completely throw out every single part that the parents had and create a completely new creature. And the entire tribe morphs into that new creature. Some restrictions or forced incremental steps would have been nice here.
As I said I'm about to embark on the civilization stage, so maybe that will improve my opinion. Right now I'd say the game is... neat, but I can't see myself playing it over and over again. These first stages have felt like flash games (not even the best flash games) with a great creature editor tacked on.