Slashdot Mirror
EA Is Now Officially On Steam, Spore Loses SecuROM
Trevor DeRiza writes "Today, Valve and EA revealed that this week's earlier rumors were true: Spore (and other EA games) are coming to Steam. As of today, Spore, Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack, Warhammer Online, Mass Effect, Need for Speed: Undercover, and FIFA Manager 2009 are all available for download on Steam. In the coming weeks, EA will add Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, and Red Alert 3. On the official Steam forums, when asked whether or not Spore would contain the dreaded SecuROM DRM that contributed to it being the most pirated game of 2008, a moderator replied, 'It does not have third party DRM.' EA has also finally launched a 'de-authorization tool' to free up limited installation slots."
Several readers have written to point out other news about Steam today: they've begun selling games priced in local currency for European customers. The only problem? Their conversion rate seems to be $1 per €1, somewhat less favorable than the current exchange rate, which is roughly $1.40 per €1.
The fight against DRM gains Steam.
Now I can buy Spore! I knew they'd drop it sooner or later and then I can finally buy it.
Wait... why would I?
Maybe the lesson here is, if you avoid DRM like the plague, you avoid buying overhyped games as a beneficial side effect.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Maybe I will purchase EA games again. I gave up on them after I tried to no end to get Battlefield 2142 to run just half way decently. I now buy most of my games through Steam, which means I miss out on a few titles, but the advantages of Steam far out weigh missing out on them for me.
Well about time. About what two years ago I bought BattleField 21**, they had released it with their then new downloading service. It was, annoying to say the least, your account had to match the email you had used to buy, not that this was well sated. After that things only got worse, on my end at least, the service went through two other names till a year or so later I come back and try to play the game I bought. Guess what? They donâ(TM)t even have my account anymore! Turns out at some point in time they decided that I would only be able to download my purchase X amount of days after I bought it, oh and it was retroactive. Of course they never sent me a check for the money they stole. Well at least they're smartening up now.
The only problem? Their conversion rate seems to be $1 per â1, somewhat less favorable than the current exchange rate, which is roughly $1.40 per â1.
Yeah but they don't have to physically ship pixels when they change money. Pixels are heavy, bytes are dense.. it's a complicated system of pipes and transmission lines.
I record my sleeptalking
Its been widely hypothesized that EA's intent with the DRM on Spore was not really to prevent piracy, but to impede second-hand sales. Doesn't Steam do exactly the same thing? Can you feasibly resell a license/copy of a game purchased on Steam?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Now why, why on earth would Mass Effect be required to Run as Administrator?
For most of the games it also says "INTERNET CONNECTION AND END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT REQUIRED TO PLAY." Well, yeah, Steam games already require that. Are they trying to say that Offline mode is disabled for that particular game? There an extra EULA hand-crafted by EA on top of the Steam one?
This all sounds very suspicious to me.
No one is claiming anything about steam.
It is what it is.
A service that allows you to buy(rent), download your game to any computer with the client, and play. It has a functional offline mode that works for every valve developed or published title I have played. It has introduced me a to few indie games that were fun. The prices are good, and I've bought most of my games on discount. It has community features that I find useful. It keeps my game up to date.
It is the only authentication system that actually gives you something in return for authenticating your game, and it doesn't bitch about me having virtual drive software.
The only major issues I've had with a game on steam was when a publisher(THQ not Valve) decided that the steam authentication wasn't good enough and decided it needed another DRM solution on top of steam, and it didn't let me actually play the game while their authentication severs were buggered.
Steam is what it is. Nothing more nothing less.
You mad
I am seeing praise here that they are dropping the SecureROM for Steam.
Why?
The way I see it, I still have to rely on some kind of authentication server in order to play my games. What if 10 years down the road I want to play some spore, and Steam is no longer online. What then?
Sorry, but I still refuse to buy until I have a hard copy in my hands that I can install at any place any time.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
I see so much praise for Steam these days. Has it improved significantly over the monstrosity I swore off ~four years ago? I am talking about the years when you could not play a Steam game offline if you did not put yourself into offline mode while still online. Steam trying to authenticate itself killed the network at dozens of LAN parties, and that behavior could not be stopped without closing Steam.
It may not be logical to you but that don't make it wrong.
Peace,
Mild Bill
bamph
And Europeans got burned when it vented.
I'm not sure why the slashdot editors have decided to combine two unrelated steam stories, effectively denying the localized price story its own discussion. Maybe nobody reads slashdot in Europe? I'd say that, for anyone interested in using Steam living in the EU, the huge price increases are much bigger news than the EA thing.
How huge? For example, Call of Duty 4 went from 49,99 US$ to 71.97 US$ overnight, according to TFA. As a result, for most (all?) games on Steam it is now cheaper to buy them in brick-and-mortar stores, and you get a box too!
It looks like the message is "If you want to be free from Securom, you'll have to pay more. Actually, scratch that, you'll just pay more regardless."
...when asked whether or not Spore would contain the dreaded SecuROM DRM that contributed to it being the most pirated game of 2008...
Ok...I understand that people get mad about DRM (at least, those who even notice it), etc., etc. But how is this statement any different that the **AAs saying that piracy has contributed to their decline in profits? Everyone gets all pissy about that kind of claim, but here we have the same thing in reverse, and nobody notices the flaw.
I know the whole Spore/SecuROM thing was a big media piece in tech circles, but is there any validity to saying that SecuROM is actually responsible for increased piracy? Could it be that there were just more people that wanted to download/play the game for free? Could it be that the media that hyped up all this DRM vs. piracy about the game that maybe raised people's awareness/interest in pirating the game?
In all reasonableness, sure, there are some who have pirated it because they didn't want the DRM...but I think the game's popularity plus the not-wanting-to-pay factor probably has alot more to do with this than the fact that SecuROM was used. Further, if someone did pay for the game, then cracked the SecuROM functionality because it sucks, then I'm not sure that really counts as piracy, even if it is a violation of the DCMA in the US.