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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.
and it works great. no issues with drm at all.
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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."
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
Didn't realise just how much profit they made on second hand games (never having sold one and if I did I'd use eBay).
Still, there's supply and demand here. Presumably you have no stats as to how many times games are resold on average.
Honestly, I don't fault Gamespot for doing this. Games are expensive, and they're serving an apparent market niche here. I think people are insane for paying so much and selling for so little but they have the choice.
The developers themselves tend not to receive royalties anyway (the studio does but it tends not to trickle down to the actual coders, artists and designers), so I'm not really too fussed.
The only company I could believe shutting down the DRM when they die is Valve's Steam, and I'm still fairly skeptical of that.
LGP has stated that everyone in the company is authorized to release patches disabling DRM if the company goes under...
Actio personalis moritur cum persona. (Dead men don't sue)
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.