Mass Effect, Spore to have invasive phone-home DRM

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/05/07/mass-effect-and-spore-drm-detailed/1

Whoever thought this one up needs to be castrated in the most painful way, then taken outside and shot. [:' (]

The Angels at EA!

Now I feel the urge to get a pirated version out of spite. You don' t punish people that actually buy the games, that' s just f*cked up. I was so pissed when Valve made you play Half Life 2 while connected to the internet.

XBL Gamertag: Rampage99

" Basically, pollute the air all you want, your just speeding up the inevitable. Our future generations are f*cked as it is and there' s really nothing we can do about it. Have a nice day "

It is obnoxious... but how do you all suggest that the PC game publishers deal with rampant piracy? I believe Crytek recently announced that they will no longer do PC exclusive games... and didn' t Cliffy B describe the PC market as being " in disarray" ? So what is reasonable for publishers to do?

Focus on console development for anything other than MMOs (and Blizzard games in general because they will sell)... I really don' t know.

XBL Gamertag: Rampage99

" Basically, pollute the air all you want, your just speeding up the inevitable. Our future generations are f*cked as it is and there' s really nothing we can do about it. Have a nice day "

I understand the dilema pc developers are in! If only the people who pirated games had a little insight into the games industry.

Meh. Who doesn' t have a net connection these days? If you have a PC good enough to run those games, you' ll have one. Besides, even if you don' t the crackers will have hex edited the files to always reset the timer to 0 or something similar.

Piracy will always be a step ahead of DRM. PC developers, like the music industry need to entirely reformat their system of sales. They need to refocus their market to attract customers they' re losing because of convenience of piracy, and the expense of buying retail games.

I haven' t pirated PC games in a long time, I' ve seen the strain it' s putting on developers and the industry, but I can also certainly understand it' s appeal, especially with ridiculous DRM measures like this in place.

We' re hearkening back to the stupid days of old, where you had the access code for your game written on a decoder wheel, or your game' s manual (Tie Fighter anybody?).

I understand the dilema pc developers are in! If only the people who pirated games had a little insight into the games industry.

QFT.

Hey, I think that most of us here has pirated PC games at some point. My reason for doing it when I was younger was simple. I had no money. Now that I do have a good job and can afford the games I want, I have no urge at all in PC game piracy.

I know that some people will argue that if they can save the money through piracy then " why not do it" , but come on. If you' re either too f.ucking lazy, or too f.ucking incompetent to get a job to afford the games you want, or are just plain cheap, then too f.ucking bad for you. It' s is now coming to a point where it is ruining it for those of us who actually buy the game.

Most wanted games:

Mass Effect
Assasins Creed
Crysis
Little Big Planet
Drakes Fortune
UTIII
Kane and Lynch
Heavy Rain
Alan Wake

Go play on consoles you whiny bastard. Can' t you afford the console version?

Go play on consoles you whiny bastard. Can' t you afford the console version?

That' s what I am saying. Why pirate when you can just not be a cheap lazy c.unt and buy the damn game.

Most wanted games:

Mass Effect
Assasins Creed
Crysis
Little Big Planet
Drakes Fortune
UTIII
Kane and Lynch
Heavy Rain
Alan Wake

Just download the crack online, you don' t need to " pirate" it, just download small 5mb patch that the PC gaming community creates to counter this crap.

Just make a good multiplayer game that requires a unique cd key to play online.

For single player games there isn' t much you can do to stop it.

The piracy isn' t as bad as developers make it out to be. The vast majority of the people that pirate the games wouldn' t pay for them anyways.

When there is a demo people also less likely to pirate a good game. Especially when the demo is before the game is released. Because then they' ll play the demo and if they like it they' ll get it at launch.

"If you knew how good I am you would think I'm modest."

Tbh when I was younger I used to buy pirated copies of console games more than PC games. PC games were only about £15 new anyway or even less second hand. I could afford those on my £5 a month pocket money.

Its when the PS1 came out, games started going up in price, I got mine chipped and bought my games off a friend who got them from Hong Kong. I' ll always remember completing FFVII in Japanese the first time round and beating Sephiroth with Ice 2 cause I didnt know how to get anything better! I bought the game when it came out in the UK though.

My pirate days were short lived however, by the time the PS2 came out I had a job and could afford to buy them, mostly second hand.


Piracy is mostly done by kids who dont know that what they' re doing amounts to blatent theft. If I ever have kids, I' d bitchslap them if they were torrenting retail games for free. I suppose a lot of parents don' t even know what they' re kids are up to on the interwebs.

The measures PC devs are resorting to are only driving previously dedicated PC gamers away to consoles - as they grow older and become less inclined to download cracks and patches just to play their games.


We' re always going to have to struggle to balance security with freedom - in all walks of life - but you can go too far either way. Things can' t be totally free or it' ll amount to anarchy. Then again complete totalitarianism will drive people nuts.

So far Valve have had the best idea - like Unlucky I don' t mind having to connect to the web to login to steam and play my games or initially activate them (of course I can always play them offline too), but actually stopping my game from functioning if I dont do this every ten days is excessive.

ORIGINAL: UnluckyOne

Meh. Who doesn' t have a net connection these days? If you have a PC good enough to run those games, you' ll have one. Besides, even if you don' t the crackers will have hex edited the files to always reset the timer to 0 or something similar.

.

I dislike this as much as any of you, but sadly it' s not completely unexpected...

The piracy rate nowadays is terrible, and publishers are just trying to keep their investments safe. [:' (] Sux

Its not unexpected from some publishers, but there are others out there willing to stand by their principles ie not to shaft their customers, or at least give them the choice whether to be bum raped or not. You either agree with invasive DRM or you dont imo.

Sure if you' ve bought the copy legit and have an always available internet connection, you probably wont notice your games phoning home. What happens when on the 30th day your cd-key is detected to have been keygen' d. D' you have to buy a new game? You at least wont be able to play your game for a period.

Most pirates who want to find an illegitamate copy, will, why punish the decent paying customer. It makes no sense.

A lot of people will be put off by this, and I certainly wont be buying either game if this is the case, not even Spore. Every person who buys the game is saying its ok to do this, and I guess a few of you think it is.

I guess that' s the reason why console games are so expensive. They just add 10$ to the console game price to make up for all the pirated PC versions.

As far as I understand console games are twice the price due to licensing fees. Anyone can make games for PC and stick it up on the internet on the other hand.

Also they charge a premium for every game to make up for losses on each console, you' re basically paying them back over a long period.

Also the market is bigger, and they' ll charge you more becuase they can.

EA/Bioware backtrack on DRM

BioWare producer Derek French recently caused an uproar after announcing that copy protection on the PC editions of Mass Effect and Spore would require online validation every 10 days in order for the games to continue functioning.

In the face of increasing pressure, BioWare and publisher Electronic Arts today relented, updating the official Mass Effect PC FAQ to note that validation will now only be required when the player downloads new game content.

Q: If the game isn' t going to require an authentication every 10 days, will it ever require re-authentication?

A: Only if the player chooses to download new game content.

I' ve been thinking recently about ways piracy can be combatted. So far, every single DRM method has been broken. Even steam has been completely compromised, with hacked versions of it allowing free downloads of most of the game library.

So if trying to prevent piracy just ends up failing all the time and making it harder for the legit user, perhaps it' s just time for a different approach. So far the only thing I' ve been able to think of that' d withstand piracy would be giving away the game completely for free. The only catch would be that it' d be ad supported.

Google and many other companies make tons of money from advertising, while keeping their core services free. Why can' t this apply to games? If something is free, with complete functionality, then there' s no motivation to crack it. Although, for this to be effective, it' d have to be implemented fairly and kept relatively unobtrusive. But it is possible, and proven to work in other areas.

So far the only thing I' ve been able to think of that' d withstand piracy would be giving away the game completely for free. The only catch would be that it' d be ad supported.

I love this idea. Games are way too expensive to begin with. I doubt you can make a high end game fully subsidised with advertising but even if you can subsidise half the game. 50-80$ a game is too much, it' s not worth that. It' s still just media that won' t retain any value. Games should never cost more than 30$. When you lower the price of games people will buy more and more people will buy. I don' t want to watch a comercial but having product placements in games would not bother me at all.

On a related not. Battlefield Heroes is looking pretty good. I' ll be spending a few hours with that game.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/05/10/ea-backs-down-from-draconian-copy-protection/1

EA backs down after listening to fans. Pussies, no just kidding. Thank god they didn' t go ahead with it. You' ll still get frisked when using patches, DLC and online modes however.

Seems much more sensible than every 10 days though!

See... EA are in touch with gamers. They really listen!

I love EA :)

Lol, you' re such a jew.

I love it when a company listens to their customers. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

http://www.bit-tech.net/columns/2008/05/13/picture-perfect-quandary/1

Here' s a brilliant editorial on the whole copy protection vs piracy issue. Really makes sense and puts things into perspective. Interesting read.

Oh and sry Unlucky I just realised you' d posted ealier about them backing down. No harm in giving them double credit for it though heh.