Spore/Mass Effect Requires A Virgin Sacrifice on Western Coast of Easter Island

[Ratman_tf]

So my question is: Does DRM exist to deter piracy, or to limit what a legitimate user can do with the software? It's damn apparent that anti-piracy measures do absolutley nothing to stop piracy, and have a very minor effect on slowing it down. Publishers must know that the money and time that they invest in DRM is not accomplishing what they claim it's for, and yet they persist.

Which leads me to believe that they do it to keep the legitimate users under control. To limit how useful their software is.

--Finally, people were stating that "pirating software is putting it to the man", in what appeared to be a revenge motive in some cases, and a "send a message" motive in others. In my opinion, neither do anything worthwhile to the original issue: revenge just makes the companies think they need more restrictive DRM, and the message is the wrong one.

I don't think that's the case. As I posted above, DRM does not seem to be aimed at piracy at all. Which just may be why people are willing to justify "piracy". They know or feel on some level that publishers are "the enemy", and delivering an inferior product intentionally.

I doubt Joe Gamer goes through that kind of convoluted process to hit that conclusion though. It's more along the lines of "I can't install my game more than 3 times? Fuck that shit! Stupid company!" etc...

[ajax34i]

Publishers must know that the money and time that they invest in DRM is not accomplishing what they claim it's for, and yet they persist.  Which leads me to believe that they do it to keep the legitimate users under control. To limit how useful their software is.

If it doesn't work, I think they do it cause they don't know WTF else to do; DRM doesn't work but nothing else seems to, either.

However, it's possible that what they see is that DRM stops just enough piracy to make up for the loss of customers that are pissed off by it.  We're assuming it doesn't work, who knows.

[Azazel]

I think PC DRM does stop game piracy at it's most casual level - the person who would copy the disc but it too scared/not knowledgable enough to go to gcw or mg for a cracked exe/nocd. My older brother and my mum would be people like this. So would my wife and, say, almost all of the people I work with. These are the kinds of people who would by and large just tend to buy the original to avoid all the fuss and hassle, and to be sure the software they buy "just works". Sims players, amongst other things

DRM such as found in Bioshock and the upcoming EA titles is a new breed of DRM which it does appear has the legit user as a target. Which ones? Not the most savvy, like us. But the people I just outlined who are the ones "kept honest" by low-end DRM like CD checks. They're also the ones who will be hardest-fucked by things like Bioshock and Spore and Mass Affect.

This is why I don't hate or really have a huge issue with low-end, non-intrusive, non-malware DRM like CD checks, etc.


Neither will stop the dedicated pirate (ie warez kiddiez), or more edumacated software users like f13 readers. I'm not sure - kneecapping the used game market is one thing, but do places like EB in the US even deal with secondhand PC games? I know I'll happily buy a secondhand console game on occasion, but I won't touch secondhand PC games.

[raydeen]

Wow. Epic thread here.

I'm going to come out and admit that I skipped about 7 pages in this one and will just post my thoughts. If they're echoes of someone elses, oh well.

If I have this straight, you can install this game on 3 different computers. Past that, you have to call and deauthorize one or more of them. I was a little pissed when I read this because I thoroughly expect Spore to be The Second Coming, but after thinking about it, there are two things to consider:

1.) How often do you (or the average joe) upgrade? For me, it's been an average of 3-5 years per machine. Sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. If I buy Spore today, I would expect to get at least 10 years worth of it. My current laptop is 2 years old. I'm hoping for another 2-3 years before I consider it archaic and buy a new one.

2.) What is your attention span per game? How many games are you still playing after a year? 2 years? 5? MMO's don't count. I think for me, the only games that I still get into are the TES games and UT99 (which broke all tradition and rendered it's own copy protection null and void after it had been out for a year). The only real problem I can think of is that if Spore is really that good that maybe 10 years down the road I want to re-install and can't access the long gone authorization server. I'm still not all that peeved as I'm sure a crack will be found somewhere that will bring the game back to life or I'll be playing Spore III.

In any event, I think panties are getting needlessly twisted in this case. This isn't like they're using Starforce.

[Tebonas]

1.) Roughly every 6 months, sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less. I never fully exchange hardware, I gradually upgrade various parts as the whim strikes me.

2.) About 10% of the games I have installed at any given time are older than, about 50% older than a year. Some games are classics I play all the time, some I just set aside for the newest shiney and play through at a later time. Or if an interesting Mod comes out for it.

So maybe you shouldn't extrapolate from your own experiences and pass them off as how everybody should behave.

[raydeen]

1.) Roughly every 6 months, sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less. I never fully exchange hardware, I gradually upgrade various parts as the whim strikes me.

2.) About 10% of the games I have installed at any given time are older than, about 50% older than a year. Some games are classics I play all the time, some I just set aside for the newest shiney and play through at a later time. Or if an interesting Mod comes out for it.

So maybe you shouldn't extrapolate from your own experiences and pass them off as how everybody should behave.

Sorry. I wasn't trying to put everyone else in my shoes, just describing my situation and was genuinely wondering what other's positions were on those points. Do some of you really change out enough hardware on a consistant basis that the software would see three completely different machines in a short span of time, say < 2 years?

[Tebonas]

Depends on what the software sees as a different machine. My current machine went through 2 motherboards and three graphic cards in the last 2 years, on one of those motherboards I changed the processor twice and I'm up to the third hard disk (last change was to get the old one free for my second computer, plus I changed the raid controller). I'm kind of an impulse buyer regarding those things. See - want - buy. Which is why I would REALLY appreciate disclaimers on game boxes as well, if it isn't discussed here and I stumble upon it, I don't do all that much research on my purchases. I check a Starforce list and thats it.

[ajax34i]

In any event, I think panties are getting needlessly twisted in this case. This isn't like they're using Starforce.

Panties are not getting twisted.  This thread isn't the type of whine thread you see on game forums, where players are trying to get the devs to do something by hyperbolizing the issue.  Took me all of 2 seconds to decide to not play these games anymore, and everyone else not much more than that to decide what they wanted to do about the games and the DRM.  And, otherwise, we're disagreeing on principles that those in this thread cannot really "fix", one way or the other.

But, bottom line, you're not convincing me that my opinion was wrong and I should buy these games.  I hate e-herpes.

[Lantyssa]

Sorry. I wasn't trying to put everyone else in my shoes, just describing my situation and was genuinely wondering what other's positions were on those points. Do some of you really change out enough hardware on a consistant basis that the software would see three completely different machines in a short span of time, say < 2 years?

Is it new configurations or new installs?  People were saying installs earlier.

If you upgrade, format, or have a disk crash that's two installs right there.  Hope you don't have technical problems which require you to uninstall/reinstall.

I think PC DRM does stop game piracy at it's most casual level - the person who would copy the disc but it too scared/not know ledgable enough to go to gcw or mg for a cracked exe/nocd. My older brother and my mum would be people like this. So would my wife and, say, almost all of the people I work with. These are the kinds of people who would by and large just tend to buy the original to avoid all the fuss and hassle, and to be sure the software they buy "just works". Sims players, amongst other things

This is my view of it.  Stopping casual piracy is great.  I'm fine with some form of disk copy protection, or an account login upon install, or something relatively simple and non-intrusive.

But real pirates aren't going to be deterred by the worst schemes imaginable.  And may even improve the performance of the game by removing overhead.  Rootkits, limited installs, and all the rest just causes a headache for legitimate users.

I finally thought of an analogy which seems semi-valid instead of all this stealing Zepp likes bandying about.  Gun control.  Some people will be against it no matter what.  A large number are okay with some practical steps like requiring permits for heavy weaponry.  When draconian or arbitrary measures are enacted for the sake of getting rid of guns, but only affect those who are going to follow the law without any consequences for those whom are happy to skirt it, people start getting really upset.

(I'm not trying to turn this into a thread on guns.  Just frame it in a context with some precedence since the stealing analogies fall flat for many of us.)

[Samwise]

I finally thought of an analogy which seems semi-valid instead of all this stealing Zepp likes bandying about.  Gun control.

That's gotta hurt.   

[Lantyssa]

If it gets the point across it's worth the pain.

[Ratman_tf]

You can have my computer when you pry it from my cold, dead, cheeto dusted fingers?

[Azazel]

Wow. Epic thread here.

I'm going to come out and admit that I skipped about 7 pages in this one and will just post my thoughts. If they're echoes of someone elses, oh well.

If I have this straight, you can install this game on 3 different computers. Past that, you have to call and deauthorize one or more of them. I was a little pissed when I read this because I thoroughly expect Spore to be The Second Coming, but after thinking about it, there are two things to consider:

1.) How often do you (or the average joe) upgrade? For me, it's been an average of 3-5 years per machine. Sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. If I buy Spore today, I would expect to get at least 10 years worth of it. My current laptop is 2 years old. I'm hoping for another 2-3 years before I consider it archaic and buy a new one.

2.) What is your attention span per game? How many games are you still playing after a year? 2 years? 5? MMO's don't count. I think for me, the only games that I still get into are the TES games and UT99 (which broke all tradition and rendered it's own copy protection null and void after it had been out for a year). The only real problem I can think of is that if Spore is really that good that maybe 10 years down the road I want to re-install and can't access the long gone authorization server. I'm still not all that peeved as I'm sure a crack will be found somewhere that will bring the game back to life or I'll be playing Spore III.

In any event, I think panties are getting needlessly twisted in this case. This isn't like they're using Starforce.

1) About every two years. I don't generally upgrade components. I usually buy a whole new systen because if you're changing the CPU, GPU and MoBo I figure you may as well spend the little bit more and get a new box. My wife then gets the old box, and her one becomes the 3rd box. 3rd boxes have been getting retired, but I think we'll go for the 4th box next time...

2) Depends on the game and how much I like it. I've installed and played through Max Payne about 5 times and MP2 about 4 times. They're the first things I play on any new PC. Something like Civ2 I've installed about 4 or 5 times. Civ 4 has had 4 installs. KoTOR has had 2 installs. Call of Duty 1 and 2 have had a couple each, along with the original MoH. Return to Catle Wolfenstein has had at least 4. Far Cry has had 3. Spore seems likely to be closer to something like Civ than Red Faction (1 install and playthrough).

A good FPS does get at least 2 playthroughs from me. A good thinking game often gets more, through the years.

See, it's like they're telling me my next install of KoTOR is the last one I'll ever be able to have, unless I want to ring EA and stay on the line and hopefully get someone who knows what they're talking about and is wiling on this particular case-by-case basis to allow me to reinstall the game I bought. My Civ 2 and 4 would be borked. etcetera.

[Polysorbate80]

If I own something that stops working, then I feel fully justified in repairing the broken item.  Even if we're talking about software and DRM cracks.

No moral qualms herel.

[Tebonas]

We are talking here like the ability to call the company for a manual activation is even a possibility for all games.

Game companies go belly up all the time. Many people here replayed Vampire Bloodlines recently, good luck getting a reactivation from Troika games for that if they had chosen to go that route!

While from the companies standpoint that isn't a consideration (we are the best, we will exist forever), we as gamers should be well aware of that. If well acclaimed developers like Microprose and Looking Glass Studios can die a painful death, we shouldn't have to trust the survival of a particular company to keep our games working.

[Margalis]

Any product that has to phone home (either via literal phone or digitally) is full of fail for rather obvious reasons.

Not only is there a danger of going out of business, there's the danger of just flipping the home servers off or discontinuing the phone support.

[Threash]

Wow. Epic thread here.

I'm going to come out and admit that I skipped about 7 pages in this one and will just post my thoughts. If they're echoes of someone elses, oh well.

If I have this straight, you can install this game on 3 different computers. Past that, you have to call and deauthorize one or more of them. I was a little pissed when I read this because I thoroughly expect Spore to be The Second Coming, but after thinking about it, there are two things to consider:

1.) How often do you (or the average joe) upgrade? For me, it's been an average of 3-5 years per machine. Sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. If I buy Spore today, I would expect to get at least 10 years worth of it. My current laptop is 2 years old. I'm hoping for another 2-3 years before I consider it archaic and buy a new one.

2.) What is your attention span per game? How many games are you still playing after a year? 2 years? 5? MMO's don't count. I think for me, the only games that I still get into are the TES games and UT99 (which broke all tradition and rendered it's own copy protection null and void after it had been out for a year). The only real problem I can think of is that if Spore is really that good that maybe 10 years down the road I want to re-install and can't access the long gone authorization server. I'm still not all that peeved as I'm sure a crack will be found somewhere that will bring the game back to life or I'll be playing Spore III.

In any event, I think panties are getting needlessly twisted in this case. This isn't like they're using Starforce.

I'm on my third bioshock install in under six months.  I had to replace the hd on the machine i originally installed it on, then i got an unexpected upgrade.  Not going to fall for that again.

[Trippy]

Copyright "first sale" doctrine applies to software too:

http://aecnews.com/news/2008/05/21/3414.aspx

[Venkman]

So my question is: Does DRM exist to deter piracy

That's the goal. Yea, it's not really the result. It merely prevents casual piracy with restrictions that unfortunately also work against casual use (company goes under, OS changes, hardware changes, etc)

The people making decisions about which DRM solution to use are usually not the folks who understand the actual effectiveness of them. They're merely being advised by smart folks. But business relationships trump technical relevance quite often. And it's only the consumer that gets boned.

[eldaec]

The goal is to increase sales.


Detering copyright infringement is supposedly a means to an end; but there is little to no evidence that DRM mechanisms which are targeted on copyright infringement have any impact at all on overall sales. To be honest, I think the publishing industry is smart enough to realise this.


Almost no recent DRM efforts have been about copyright infringement, they have been about increasing primary sales by killing the secondary market. Which puts them in extremely dubious moral and legal territory, which can only be sustained so long as the industry can keep idiots in politics, law enforcement and the media confused about the difference between stealing and copyright infringement, and confused about the impact of DRM.

[Merusk]

Copyright "first sale" doctrine applies to software too:

http://aecnews.com/news/2008/05/21/3414.aspx

That's fantastic. Glad to hear it.

[Fordel]

Can someone give me the cliff notes version of what this "first sale" ruling means?


Even when I understand all the words, the lawyer talk makes them mean not what I think they should mean.



-edit- Is the PC version actually out yet? I need to throw away my money or something 

[Azazel]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_sale

[eldaec]

Can someone give me the cliff notes version of what this "first sale" ruling means?

It means you can sell your shit. And EA can't stop you.

Even if it is something as sacrosanct as (gasp) a computer game.

[Azazel]

And on a related note:
http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=13281.msg454254#msg454254



Oh yeah, the thing is. EA is stopping you. Even if that's illegal.

[eldaec]

There are enough countries around that take the consumer's right to resell seriously enough to stop that becoming universal.

[Samwise]

Oh yeah, the thing is. EA is stopping you. Even if that's illegal.

I guess two wrongs CAN make a right, but only when it's a big company with lots of lawyers doing it.

[Azazel]

No, the onus is only on consumers to do what is morally right and legal. Games companies are under no such obligation. 

[Fordel]

I've picked up this, Only run through the first tutorial area so far, seems pretty awesome. It SCREAMS co-op for the combat, shame that isn't an option.


Most of you probably already do this, but upgrade your drivers before running this. It was Crashy McLockup before I got all of my crap up to date again. Pretty sure Hardware/Software sound causes a lot of shit one way or another.


One *really* annoying thing, is there is this small 'stall' while moving through new areas. I assume it's some kind of texture loading or somesuch, maybe it's just my PC.. It isn't top of the line, but it isn't that far out of date... either way, annoying when the game is roughly 10+ gigs installed. Folks with the top end rigs will get a lot of pretty out of the game. I haven't played the 360 version, so I'm not 100% sure on what is actually different, but I assume the PC one will be nicer to look at if cranked up.

On that line, there is a configuration tool, that scans your system and recommends some settings for you, except it ONLY recommends these settings on the first use of it. If you didn't save them right off the bat before you went fiddling with them yourself, I don't see any way to bring back these recommended 'defaults'.


My only other complaint is in order to pause the game and bring up the Squad/Ability menu for combat, you must HOLD space, instead of just tapping it. I'm so used to just tapping space to pause in Bioware games, it throws me off constantly. It can also be a small bit overwhelming with both the quick bar and the various 'fps' combat. It's like half WoW, half Gears of War. Probably just needs a little getting used to.

[Rendakor]

I've picked up this, Only run through the first tutorial area so far, seems pretty awesome. It SCREAMS co-op for the combat, shame that isn't an option.


Most of you probably already do this, but upgrade your drivers before running this. It was Crashy McLockup before I got all of my crap up to date again. Pretty sure Hardware/Software sound causes a lot of shit one way or another.


One *really* annoying thing, is there is this small 'stall' while moving through new areas. I assume it's some kind of texture loading or somesuch, maybe it's just my PC.. It isn't top of the line, but it isn't that far out of date... either way, annoying when the game is roughly 10+ gigs installed. Folks with the top end rigs will get a lot of pretty out of the game. I haven't played the 360 version, so I'm not 100% sure on what is actually different, but I assume the PC one will be nicer to look at if cranked up.

On that line, there is a configuration tool, that scans your system and recommends some settings for you, except it ONLY recommends these settings on the first use of it. If you didn't save them right off the bat before you went fiddling with them yourself, I don't see any way to bring back these recommended 'defaults'.


My only other complaint is in order to pause the game and bring up the Squad/Ability menu for combat, you must HOLD space, instead of just tapping it. I'm so used to just tapping space to pause in Bioware games, it throws me off constantly. It can also be a small bit overwhelming with both the quick bar and the various 'fps' combat. It's like half WoW, half Gears of War. Probably just needs a little getting used to.

It took me til your last paragraph to realize you were talking about Mass Effect and not Spore; i was so very confused. 

[Samwise]

It took me until the third paragraph to realize he was talking about the actual game and not the DRM.

[Signe]

Righ picked it up.  Crashes a lot.  Realtek.  No point in playing until patch.  Thank you, Bioware, for charging us $50 to debug your game for you.  Dammit.  I have to wonder if the pirates who have already hacked this are having a smoother time of it.  Not stealing, just wondering. 

Bastards.

[Tebonas]

Feeling for you, but only because I know you. If I didn't I would say you deserve it for supporting that POS DRM with your money.

[Venkman]

I've picked up this, Only run through the first tutorial area so far, seems pretty awesome. It SCREAMS co-op for the combat, shame that isn't an option.


Most of you probably already do this, but upgrade your drivers before running this. It was Crashy McLockup before I got all of my crap up to date again. Pretty sure Hardware/Software sound causes a lot of shit one way or another.


One *really* annoying thing, is there is this small 'stall' while moving through new areas. I assume it's some kind of texture loading or somesuch, maybe it's just my PC.. It isn't top of the line, but it isn't that far out of date... either way, annoying when the game is roughly 10+ gigs installed. Folks with the top end rigs will get a lot of pretty out of the game. I haven't played the 360 version, so I'm not 100% sure on what is actually different, but I assume the PC one will be nicer to look at if cranked up.

On that line, there is a configuration tool, that scans your system and recommends some settings for you, except it ONLY recommends these settings on the first use of it. If you didn't save them right off the bat before you went fiddling with them yourself, I don't see any way to bring back these recommended 'defaults'.


My only other complaint is in order to pause the game and bring up the Squad/Ability menu for combat, you must HOLD space, instead of just tapping it. I'm so used to just tapping space to pause in Bioware games, it throws me off constantly. It can also be a small bit overwhelming with both the quick bar and the various 'fps' combat. It's like half WoW, half Gears of War. Probably just needs a little getting used to.

It took me til your last paragraph to realize you were talking about Mass Effect and not Spore; i was so very confused. 

Glad I wasn't the only one! My google radar was going wild for some hitherto unannounced Spore release...

[Nevermore]

Slight Necro.

So since this is the epic thread that established that piracy is always evil, all the time, no exceptions EVER and that all pirates will boil in hell, I'm curious about this claim that Ubisoft pirated a no-cd crack from pirates to patch a game that they broke by adding copy protection to stop the evil pirates.