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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.'"
Supreme Commander was a case where the developers were forced to ship games with Securerom, but they had no requirements placed upon them about removing it via a patch. Since that was the case, they abided by the letter of the law and then immediately stripped it off.
That's a nice PR spin you have there.
There is no such law.
The developers were not forced to ship the game with SecuROM. Developers are free to agree or not agree to what a publisher wants.
big pNicture. What
There, that's a troll laden title that should get people to read it. Anyway onto the point. It seems that the majority of people complaining about the 'DRM' on Spore either a) haven't played it or b) don't understand the game. I'll expound.
I got Spore at the weekend and installed it on my Mac. It prompted for an EA account to connect the game to. This allows you to download other peoples creations or upload creations of your own. In order to do this it logs in. I guess if you had a certain slant on the world this could be seen as 'phoning home'. To me its no different than playing any game that has associated online content.
I just disconnected from the Internet and tried starting and playing Spore. It worked. What's the deal. According to what I've read its supposed to explode or something if it can't phone home. Oh, that's right. It doesn't, its just a rumour put about to forward a political viewpoint. Facts are optional.
Last point. It plays without the DVD in the drive. So install it, take the DVD out, and play. No problems there.
So what's the beef? Ah, its probably that there is a serial number to activate the game. The manual says that you can use this to install on multiple machines. No problem so far. Ah, perhaps if you try and play the game, on two machines simultaneously, whilst connected to the internet, it'll notice and fail to run on the second one. Right, so its not DRM as such but an anti-piracy measure. How does anyone think that being able to pay for a game once and run it on multiple machines at the same time is valid?
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
Something tells me that they kind of people that would spend their time on such an underhanded campaign wouldn't be the type that would buy a DRM-free version of the game if they ever did release one.
You do realise that threatening wrongs with wrongs is what the justice system consists of, right?
Imprisoning someone against their will is illegal, after all.
Um... "how many times do you have to call them before they cut you off?" Who gives a shit? Look... we all have a choice of purchasing the game or DLing a copy off of the internet. I prefer to purchase my PC games, but I will NOT purchase a game that has a system like this.
MS can get away with this crap because they have a monopoly... what a massive pain in the ass to do this for every lame ass game that comes out! I for one am not going to pay money to have some company bend me over the barrel. Fuck that! And fuck any game that is sold with a system like this.
And regarding steam: I'm with you... I actually like steam. It just works. I don't have to go find my CD's to play them or install them... there's value added to their "copy protection" scheme... so much so that I also prefer to buy games on Steam.
Don't let DRM take away your power as a consumer!
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all language nazi's will burne in heil!