It turns out Electronic Art’s Spore has some digital rights management (DRM) under the hood that’s irking a few video game players. We use the term “few” lightly, as game players use their voices to be heard and let them ring loud! Taking a gander at Amazon.com’s listing of Spore and you’ll see 797 customer reviews with an average rating of 1-star.
What’s the problem with the DRM? It’s almost easier to ask what isn’t the problem with the DRM in Spore. First, it’s intrusive, install Spore more than three times and you’ll have to call Electronic Arts to have them re-activate the game. Are we renting games now?
To re-activate your game with one more additional install will require you to give proof of purchase, so the comments say and, pretty much, you’re assumed to be pirating the product immediately. That might be over-reacting, a bit, but not really much considering the limitations on the product.
What if the DRM solution goes wrong? What if the game cannot access the Internet upon installation? There are plenty of what-if scenarios one can play out when they find their precious $50.00 game is phoning home to protect itself from you and your habits.
“This caused EA to remove the requirement that the game authenticate online every ten days, changing it to authentication whenever new content was added to the title. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be enough, and the limit on installations is what gamers are now finding most heinous. Review-bombing Amazon is a particularly nasty way of getting the point across as well; casual gamers who aren’t aware of this campaign may not bother to read the content of the reviews and only assume the game isn’t very good.” (arstechnica)
No doubt all the negative press will result in a full on revolt, having gamers who’ve not purchased the title ding it with a 1-star to prove a point, why not? How else shall we fight “the man” and their unholy DRM solutions.
Oddly enough, you can find the game pirated already across the Internet, what has this proven? The game was found on torrent sites before it’s release, already cracked. It’s said they’re using a Sony DRM solution, a known DRM solution, which means hackers whom have already cracked this protection before had it un-shelled in a matter of hours.
What did the DRM get Electronic Arts but a PR nightmare and a bunch of people stealing it off the Internet now that they know it’s already available? Lot’s of publicity for very little gain; imagine the reviews and comments had they chosen to go without a DRM solution and be a pioneer of future technological solutions.Sure, it would be on a torrent site within hours… but it was anyway.
Xbox 360
Veterans to the rescue!
Maybe I’m not a ‘true’ veteren but I’ve been writing in for over a year now so I’m starting to fall into that category, I guess.
Anyway, I’m waiting for the plane to leave after a week’s vacation in Sicilly which I used to relax on the beach and at the pool but also to give Metal Gear Solid another go (hurray for the Vita!). I played through MGS3 (19.5 hours – embarrassing) and I really enjoyed it despite my two previous unsuccessful attempts to get into the game. Do you guys have any experience with the series?
@qotw
You mentioned Red Dead Redemption in the episode. I played tens of hours of the game, including MP (Platinum, yo!) and I had to play in the violence-less mode because it was impossible to focus on anything else with people riding around and shooting each other in the other mode. I tend not to play MP games a lot but when I do I try to get together with people from specific communities from podcasts and message boards. This decreases the number of unpleasant encounters.
Hey guys, I didn’t comment on the last two because I felt that I had answered the QotW and didn’t have anything to add.
@Dungeon Keeper: I think the Mobile version of the original is very poor with these arbitrary time restraints. I agree that players get very tired of being nickeled and dimed. It doesn’t feel like a real game with these limitations.
@Bartle: I’d like to second Jordan’s comments that your segment on this was so through that I can’t really add anything myself without being a broken record on this topic. I really do feel that the Free-to-play games need to change and find a different way to work.
@QotW: I have to second what Pawwel said, I tend to stick with a close nit group of people who I know relatively well. I remember once trying Red Dead Redemption in MP and got sniped three times by the same person in the starting area, I quit MP of that game right there. I feel like Paul in that I am getting older but also been quite content to play single player. I found the WoW experience to be “Too many people in the pool”. I’m not very comfortable even with the anonymity of the internet with just talking with random people. Perhaps because I never forget these are real people I am talking to and never just a handle and avatar.
There was also a StarCraft II custom Map game called ‘Mafia’ that my Polycast group played. In it you are a Town trying to find the Mafia members before they kill all the Towns people during the night. There was a number of trolls going on with that game, those not taking it seriously and just trying to ruin it for everyone that did cause me to quit a few times.
So yes the few times I have done Online MP where random strangers were involved I have quit. Hence why I stick to people I know well enough.
I wanted to add a question:
You talked about Rockstar Games in a previous episode and how the hero dies no matter what. I remember at the time it upset many people that this happened. It also happened in other Rockstar Games, *spoiler* LA Noir *spoiler* and I’ve been told each GTA protagonist dies by the time you get to the next game. So I wondered why when people don’t want the “cliché” happy ending and they get the Hero dies ending instead, that they get upset about. They can’t seem to make up their mind if they want a good ending or a “bad” ending (by that I mean the Hero dies or something similar).