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EA Patches Spore, Eases DRM
EA has released the first patch for Spore, the purpose of which is to fix a number of bugs and tweak some gameplay settings to be more entertaining. Some of the visual effects were upgraded as well. They've also officially responded to the complaints about Spore's DRM, stating their intention to increase the number of allowed installations to five and to set up a system to "de-authorize" systems in order to reclaim the installation credit. They plan to allow multiple screen names per account, which was an issue for many families trying to play the game. This comes not long after EA made similar changes to the DRM of upcoming RTS Red Alert 3, and after Spore's DRM protest spread to in-game creature designs. Reader SoopahMan notes that users in EA's Spore tech support forum are reporting a number of new issues caused by the patch.
I wonder if they actually believe this is going to change how people feel about the DRM, or if they just don't care and are trying to curb the Amazon comments?
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Some would even say that the game is responsing to outside stimuli and changing for the better in a way that could be called evolving. Or you could just EA pulled their heads out of their asses lol.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
We're willing to evolve our policy to accommodate our consumers. But we're hoping that everyone understands that DRM policy is essential to the economic structure we use to fund our games and as well as to the rights of people who create them. Without the ability to protect our work from piracy, developers across the entire game industry will eventually stop investing time and money in PC titles.
Not only does this sound hilarious ("essential to the economic structure...") but not once in the history of software piracy, as far as I know, has DRM -ever- stopped piracy.
I have to wonder if the CEOs and the decision-makers are out-of-touch and naive. Who do they think is actually going to believe this shit? Do they? Frankly, I don't think any actual malice is going on, just complete stupidity by non-techies easily wowed by the DRM snake oil.
People like to go "ugh EA is fucking us!" and also complain "But the DRM actually hurts sales!" (probably true) and yet they STILL bang their head against the wall. If DRM worked, then the EA fucking us thing might be true. But given how worthless DRM is and how hackers break it the day it comes out (and often, before, as was partly the case with Spore) I frankly have to wonder if someone is simply just out of touch.
Actually, I have a better idea. DRM is being used not because it works, but because someone (or some group, the people responsible for fighting piracy or such?) in the corporate structure ants the people up top to think they're doing their (impossible, and they likely know it) job so they don't get sacked. DRM stinks of a product of bureaucracy.
They could have acted sooner. alot sooner. now it's too late. they put me off, and I wont be swayed with this pathetic "fix"
"They could not have missed the point further if they had fired in a completely different direction and the point was in another country altogether."
The point is, EA, I WILL NOT be treated like a criminal. 5 activations is more than 3, yes, but it's still less than infinity, the number I should have. The number every other game (BioShock and Mass Effect aside) gives me. And I will not buy a single-player game that you can turn off at any time for any or no reason. Period. So back off the insane DRM or you will never get another penny out of me ever again. And I doubt I'm alone in that sentiment.
So the DRM is gone, hooray, the nerds can rejoice and celebrate!
Now if only they could patch in some decent gameplay. It seems like Maxis spent 4 years making some spiffy editors, but only 4 months on the actual gameplay.
and it works great. no issues with drm at all.
Read radical news here
I read that as "EA Patches Spore, Erases DRM"
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Sadly, the patch is PC only... I had such high hopes with the retail release being a Mac/PC simultaneous release.
[insert witty comment here]
Actually, from the very limited sample I've seen (two people, for two different products, to be exact) they actually do believe that it'll help. That somehow _this_ time, surely people won't find a crack for their hare-brained protection scheme, at least until the first weeks have passed and the sales went past their peak.
Both people I'm talking about were techies. One was a _brilliant_ programmer, in fact.
In both cases it didn't come as a requirement from the publisher. Well, I suppose it probably would have, sooner or later, but it didn't even have to come to that. People a heck of a lot lower down that food chain were already convinced that (A) they need some copy protection or people will steal their preciouss... err... I mean their work, and (B) that this time theirs will work. Even if you point out that every game before had been cracked before it even hit the shelves, they'll retreat into faith that surely people will be too stupid to find that crack.
(Especially us nerds are good at building stupid arguments based on "everyone else is stupid.";)
I guess the moral is: don't underestimate the power of wishful thinking. Faith may not really be able to move mountains, but it sure can make one run head first into a mountain, believing right until the impact that it'll yet move out of the way for him.
I guess it's just a subset of a more general observation I've made some time ago: the easiest way to get someone to do stupid stuff, to get even an otherwise intelligent and logical person to warp their logic into wishful thinking, is greed. You can see it in this, pyramid scams, advance-fee (a.k.a., Nigerian 419) scams, stock tip spam, both recent bubbles, or the occasional idiot gambling himself into debt. At some point the temptation is so big that the brain kinda shuts down. Well, ok, maybe not "shuts down", but goes into a failure mode where all logic is warped and it starts using fallacies and lies on itself. The carrot on a stick of "man, if I were that lucky..." is perverted into "yes, I _know_ I am that lucky, and here's the string of fallacies and bullshit that 'proves' it."
Especially when one has already invested a lot of personal money, and stands to lose them if things don't go as planned -- be it having already paid the first advance fee in a 419 scam, having already bought the started kit in a pyramid scheme, or merely having taken a loan to start that small games studio -- it's a depressing thought that you could lose it all for nothing. At some point you start lying to your own damned self just to allay your fears. Yes, you know you'll be that lucky, this time the hare-brained scheme will work, even if the universe has to bend its rules for you. Or even if half the world has to be hit by an access of stupidity and forget how to google for a crack. You know it'll happen for you.
Of course, that's just armchair-shrink conjecture, but it's the best I've come up with, to explain the real observation that otherwise intelligent and logical people can become utterly stupid and illogical about such a topic. They can do advanced maths just for fun, they can calculate advanced probabilities and exponents in their head, but they seem to genuinely believe that they can join a pyramid scam in some point where they still win big and everyone else loses. Something doesn't add up.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I'm honestly not entirely sure what I've been let down by. Perhaps it's something to do with the DRM or maybe it's just a random bug in the game. Whatever it is, I haven't been able to actually play the game for over a week now. I've Google searched the problem endlessly, but haven't been able to come up with a solution and I've even resulted to dealing with EA support (albeit comically*) to try and figure out what's wrong.
I purchased the game the day it came out, installed it without a hitch and had a generally okay time playing the game. It wasn't everything I had dreamed it would be, but I found it fairly entertaining in its own right. For whatever reason, on the third day the game stopped working. I hadn't updated my system, changed any settings, or done anything that should suddenly stop the game from working; but for whatever reason, it just stopped working.
I've pretty much stopped caring and even if I were to get it working again I'm not entirely sure how much more I would play the game after having to deal with as much crap as I have. I looked over the patch notes and it seems as though there might be a potential fix, but of course I'm running the Mac version of the game so who knows when they'll actually patch that. After dealing with EA, it hasn't even been the DRM that's turned me off so much as the customer support in general. I've finally become a casualty to this monster that people have been decrying for so long. I guess I'll take my number and join the group.
* In case you were wonder I've been undergoing support through EA's online support system. This entails me submitting my problem and them getting back to me sometime within the next three days with generally unhelpful advice. The last piece of advice I got was from a guy (every time someone has got back to me, it's been a different person) who instructed me to follow steps which started with "Go to Start -> Run ..." despite the fact that I'm on a mac. I got a pretty good laugh out of it, but at this point I really have to question how much EA has their shit together. From my end the answer seems to be, "Not very."
According to several blogs out there, the actual installation limit has been five a long time now. At least one guy called support to get more installations after three installs, and was told the limit was five and that he had two left (and that they would update their site to reflect that). I'm not going to dig out links, 'cause I'm lazy.
and your mom!
I seriously don't think the DRM has hurt Spore's sales. There are too many people out there who are in the "I have to have this game" mindset. The proof of this is all of the bittorrent people who don't have the self control to hold off on buying the game even if the DRM bugs them.
The time when DRM will truely negatively start effecting sales is when the game loses it's hype. I think the negative press right now is actually the kind that will make the hype last longer. You know, the harder something is to get, the more people want it?
Just my thoughts. Don't know how off or on I am.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
That gives me infinite installations!
For god's sake! I could see a limit to the number of installs in a certain time making some sort of sense, but they've still removed any resale value.
Big flipping deal. And if I go over five? Or 100? Or I decide I've had enough of it and want to sell the game? I know what type of "patch" I'll be looking for if I ever decide to buy the game.
Unfortunately I was looking forward to trying this game, especially since it was available for OS X, and of course the interesting hype and all. And while I don't think they are going to notice that I don't purchase it, the limit on installations just seems beyond silly. I will accept some DRM if it makes them feel better but doesn't limit me beyond keeping a CD in the drive or perhaps a serial number around. But just as other people here have said, I can't tell you how many times I've installed Starcraft or Warcraft or Quake.. You get the point. Unfortunately, working in the computer consulting industry, I have very much seen this type of attitude from managers/owners/PHBs where they are really too far removed to know how bad it is or they get sucked in by some 3rd party explaining how great (in this case) DRM will be for sales and helping combat piracy.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
Those 1990 and 1980s games from EA are just as copyrighted now as they were then. You are publicly admitting to larceny and I hope you're nailed to the wall for it. Right to the fucking wall.
Yes. They are copyrighted. So he can't claim that they were created by him or share them online freely. That's it.
If he bougth the actual games and the discs at the time, with none of this current "You buy just a license" stuff, his friends can borrow them from him and in many countries, arguably make copies of them.
In Finland, I would only be allowed to make copies for personal use and it is arguable if I can keep playing from a copy or not after borrowing the game to a friend. Technically I could, but I wouldn't want to test this in court lightmindedly.
So, just shut up.
...no one has said it outright: DRM (and plain old copy protection if you care for the distinciton) only punishes those who care to buy the software. While this might not have been the intent this is the reality of the matter.
Stardock saw it, why can't EA (et al.)?
"You are publicly admitting to larceny and I hope you're nailed to the wall for it."
Copyright infringement, at best. I am getting tired of having to point this out to those who ether refuse to acknowledge the difference, or are simply too brainwashed to tell.
Great Intellect...
I can't believe the gall of EA to speak about the PC game industry like this. Here is the largest third-party game publisher in the world (unless Ubi Soft has them now), holding exclusivity contracts with multiple major sports franchises so their yearly Madden installments have no competition - who routinely releases malfunctioning games to the end consumer - who has been called out for overworking and underpaying its employees - who would rather charge you a buck to unlock a cheat code, or put ads in your game, than respect you as a customer - and this guy has the nerve to speak about what is good for the industry?
No, EA. Not buying it. Not buying your game, not buying your bullshit. Cry me a fuckin' river about software piracy -- no way I'm feeling sorry for you being hoisted by your own SecuROM petard.
You are right, particularly since the law consider copyright infringement a much bigger offense than theft.
Not if he lends out the original disks long after he's uninstalled the games on his system. Then it's fair use, which for old games is likely the case. I've borrowed lots of old games in their original packaging after the first person to use them has long tired of them and deleted them to save space. That's usually the default way of things among gamer friends.
Even when they release the promised deactivation tool, how would you know the seller followed the proper procedures to deactivate it if you were to buy it used?
What gives you the right to pirate this game?
You don't own any legitimate copy, you're not a customer, you have no right to play a game just because you want to play it.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
What gives you the right to pirate this game?
Who cares? I have the ability to pirate it, so I will. I'm not willing to pay for it unless I can be sure I can still play it in 5 years time.
It is obviously ensured that you can with the cracks floating around. However, I don't believe you didn't realize this.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
I studied psychology (yeah, go figure) and one thing I liked to learn was how to control people.
One thing you can do is ask or impose something completely insane and then settle for something less. Everyone will be happy.
On the other hand, this "something else" would have been rejected without a second thought if it had been proposed first.
So, this patch will most likely make people accept the DRM more easily.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door-in-the-face_technique
It's not the Secure Rom or anything like that which bothers me...
It's the limited installations. I cannot think of how many times I've installed an OLD game like C&C Gold or Red Alert. Would the authentication servers still be online over 10 years later? That's why I hate limited installs.
Make it unlimited or I'll continue to pirate.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
Not to mention there is a thriving used games market(which EA hates and is determined to kill) on sites like eBay and Amazon and since the games are cheap if they turn out not to be my cup of tea I simply give them away. I have gotten great buys on bundles of classic games,many still in the original sleeves(Blood,Deus Ex,etc) and enjoy sniffing out that funky FPS that I have never heard of or tried.
If EA has their way the ONLY people able to sell PC games will be EA and the other big companies,since our right of first sale will be gone. This is nothing but using tech for an end run around the law,nothing less. PLEASE do not buy EA games until they stop trying to take our rights away! And as always this is the 02c of an old gamer who doesn't want us to get screwed,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Oh did my rental expire? My dad bought the games decades ago and gave them to me. Or was the right of first sale retroactively abolished too.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
C3PO: Surrender is a perfectly acceptable alternative in extreme circumstances! The Empire may be gracious enough to...
(Han nods at Leia who promptly turns him off)
Gotta get me one of these!
Having done some game development myself, I appreciate how much of the balance and flow of a game isn't apparent until very late in development. In fact, you don't really know how the game will play until it's in the hands of hundreds of players. That's far too late to make fundamental changes to the design. But if there really is a good game underneath the tedious parts, then a bit more polish can make it shine.
Remember that even a great classic like Starcraft wasn't great in version 1.0. It took a dozen patches and an expansion to produce the gem we play today.
You're right.
Maybe I just want to punish EA.
Spore has two problems. First of all it has rather annoying DRM that probably actually has negative effects on about 1% of its players. But more importantly it's just not that great of a game. It's style of play and features will probably appeal strongly to about 10% of players.
So the game is not going to do anywhere near as well as they hoped. But the gameplay problems are probably at *least* 10x more the cause of this than the DRM issues.
But who are the developers going to blame? Which do you think is more likely:
A) Developers admit "The game wasn't that good really. Next time we'll try harder. Sorry about the $50M we spent over four years."
B) Developers blame DRM protests saying "This game is a failure only because of the DRM related issues. We are saddened by the fact that so many people were pushed into bootlegging the game which prevented its being a commercial success."
Anyone else think "B" is slightly more likely?
The net result is that everyone blames the DRM stuff so that they don't have to take any personal blame for the failure. And so the anti-DRM crowd gain a huge win that will dramatically reduce DRM use in the future, even though DRM probably had little to do with the relative success of the game.
G.
P.S. After wandering through a computer store and seeing hundreds of copies of the game in both regular and collector's edition versions this weekend, I have a new tag-line for it:
Spore: It's what's in stock.
Spore looked kinda neat. As a -casual- gamer, I mostly replay games I already own like Civ and the Ultimas. Some I've played for years on a progression of a dozen computers. I usually buy one or two new games each year and Spore looked like a fresh, innovative addition to my collection.
Then I heard about the DRM. No sale! I may eventually pirate it once its good and cracked, but I'm not in the habit of paying for the privilege of being hassled.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
You could also do that by simply not getting the game at all and posting such as a review on a site like amazon.com - that you won't buy the game for that reason.
Your current actions however, can just be seen to reinforce EA's policy on continuing to use DRM. It isn't punishing EA, as you're also bringing the perception that their game is so great, you have to get it anyway.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
More importantly, calling things which aren't stealing stealing is slowly but surely making the concept meaningless, or at least not carrying the negative overtones it once did. That can and probably will have nasty consequences, when someone does the obvious conclusion that since downloading abandonware is OK, so is looting a store, since they are both stealing.
It's a bit like how the word "sex offender" is losing its meaning due to being used in every conceivable and inconceivable context: guy who pees in the bushes, guy who walks in the street naked, guy who rapes little girls... These are all "sex offenders" if caught, so the last nasty critter gets to hide behind the first two harmless ones. Not to mention the guy who was proven innocent in a court of law but is still kept in the registry...
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
You could also do that by simply not getting the game at all and posting such as a review on a site like amazon.com - that you won't buy the game for that reason.
Then I don't get the game. I'm trying to punish EA. Not me.
Your current actions however, can just be seen to reinforce EA's policy on continuing to use DRM.
Why? It clearly doesn't work otherwise my actions would be impossible.
It isn't punishing EA, as you're also bringing the perception that their game is so great, you have to get it anyway.
They see it as a lost sale. They don't see someone not buying it as a lost sale.
Again, your actions aren't considering punishing.
It prevents casual copy of the original game media, and obviously you just reinforce the idea that people will. You're going to end up pushing these companies to do more invasive DRM schemes or even change how they do games all together, such as, using the World of Warcraft model to DRM.
That's just what they argue legally in court.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
5 activations is more than 3, yes, but it's still less than infinity, the number I should have. The number every other game (BioShock and Mass Effect aside) gives me.
How many activations do the games included with Windows XP or Windows Vista give you?
i 'fixed' it. even if ea goes bankrupt, its not a problem for me anymore.
Read radical news here
You crazy? Car manufacturers don't get a pie of used car sales. Movie studios don't get a % of used DVD sales. The same for every fucking thing out there, CDs, houses, hardware, you name it. Where the heck you got the idea games should be any different? Besides, people has been selling and buying used games since, like, forever. It don't think it stopped EA from becoming the mammoth it is today or the games industry from having higher sales than the music one. Even if it did hurt considerably your sales - then you should seek another business model or adjust yours. Effectively forbidding resales isn't moral, and I surely hope, even legal.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
Over on the official Spore forums all threads about SecureROM, DRM, or questions about these threads are now being instantly LOCKED by EA/Maxis moderators. Also, this was edited into one of the threads by a moderator:
http://forum.spore.com/jforum/posts/list/3869.page
quote:
SecuROM as been discussed and discussed so much and it causes arguments in threads. If you want to talk about DRM SecuROM then please use another fansite forum. If there is any change you will be able to read it on the official Spore site.
Please do not continue to post theses thread or you account may be at risk of banning which in some cases would mean you would need to buy a new copy to play Spore. /quote:
So it would appear EA/Maxis's OFFICIAL stance is that if you question them, they will lock your account and force you to purchase another copy.
"At best" was a reference to his argument, not your status. Sorry for the confusion.
Exactly. Calling copyright infringement "theft" is identical to calling theft "copyright infringement". It is an insult to anyone who has had to deal with theft.
Great Intellect...
Do I still need to install a rootkit to play? no thx.
Not getting is not the same as losing, no matter what the RIAA/MPAA/BSA tries to tell you. You can only lose something if you had it first.
In any event, those who buy second-hand games are generally those without a lot of money, who have to buy second hand to be able to afford them. If you don't have $50, you won't buy a $50 game. But if you're a young gamer with $20, you may very well go to Gamestop for a used game. Older not-so-wealthy people are, perhaps, more likely to go to Circuit City for a bargain bin game, because for them, it may not be so imperative to have the latest like "all your friends" do. But kids try to get as much out of their meagre allowance as possible, and buying used is important to them.
Which brings me to a related subject -- since the average new game buyer is between late 20s and mid 40s, why do the game producers develop and market most games toward teens? Don't they realise that most of these kids don't have a lot of money, and a good portion of them will buy it used or pirate it? Where are the games directed at 40 year olds -- a much stronger buying group than teens? For every Civilization, there seems to be several dozen C&C: Generals. And even games that per se would have appealed to older people are ruined for this audience by adding rap music and unlocking.
To sum it up: Make something that people will want to buy, and many of them will buy it. But no more than what they have the money for. And target the group that pirates the least and can afford the games, and you will get less problems with piracy.
It prevents casual copy of the original game media, and obviously you just reinforce the idea that people will. You're going to end up pushing these companies to do more invasive DRM schemes or even change how they do games all together, such as, using the World of Warcraft model to DRM.
What's the WoW model to DRM?
We've demonstrated that we dislike invasive DRM, and that DRM increases piracy. If they keep pushing they'll eventually run out of customers, and more civilised companies will pick up the slack. They can do it that way if they like.
That's just what they argue legally in court.
If they didn't think piracy cost them sales, they would just ignore it. Perhaps they think that me not buying it costs them as much. Either way, one way I get to play the game, the other way I don't. I'll go for the way that benefits me.
Making the game only playable by interacting with their servers in a online mode, where some of the content is only available through their servers. By holding some of the logic (for example 'quests'). Additionally forcing a online component into the mix where the user has to authenticate with a valid key or such - no way around it.
Before copy protection became standard in software, software piracy was so rampant that many companies just closed up shop.
I don't think that will ever happen to companies like EA. EA generally hold all the cards, they maybe forced to pursue different revenue making games, such as the one mentioned above. Since these larger companies are also the driving force of the market, many (but not all) companies would follow in their foot steps.
Before any kind of copy protection, average joe user could do casual copying. This stops that casual copying.
Is it any good? I haven't heard anything great about it yet.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
I strongly disagree with the idea that Spore is bad game as far as gameplay goes. It wasn't what we were expecting from Wright as it is much more goal oriented than SimCity or The Sims, but the game is overall quite good. There are a few negative reports but the game overall got 8-9 from major game reviewers. The reviews on Amazon aren't a good sample of reviews.
And even if the gameplay was poor, the idea that it was a waste of $50M is still just wrong. EA Games is likely to recycle the game's code and use it for several applications in the future, R&D already done. Even if Spore isn't what we hoped it would be, the work on the engine is likely to make EA Games millions anyhow.