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.
Recorded on 16th – that’s before posting the comment on ‘Computer specs’. Still not the happiest Jonah.
@Mass Effect 3 is Origin-only
It’s a pretty aggressive move to push for Origin. I’m sure they will have higher revenues if they would sell on both Steam and Origin.
I think that it will take a bit until every Steam user will have an Origin account, so, at least on short term, I see EA taking a bit of a hit.
Paul, I liked your point on this one.
@EA passed $1B in digital sales in 2011
I also have an opinion that a good chunk came from Steam. Because yes, EA also sold games on Steam in 2011.
Jordan, I like game boxes as well. And Paul, I also loaded games on a Z80 computer from an audio cassette.
Jonah, the games online cost (at launch at least) exactly as much as the ones from the retail store. Why is that? If I’m to pay the same price, I’d rather get the boxed copy, thank you very much.
@Gaikai: Sony or Microsoft won’t have next-gen console
MSFT has it a bit easy: stick to the PC-like hardware, that evolved from XBox360 until now.
As for Sony, don’t know, don’t care.
🙂 Jonah, loved your input 🙂
@SOPA:
Not touching it, it has been discussed to death. Every person who listens to podcasts is aware about SOPA.
@Thief 4 rumored to have multiplayer
All engines do light calculations on all entities now, in order to have a realistic rendering. As long as there is a way to access the results of that computation, any engine should do ok.
@QOTW:
I would say that my first MP game I played was “Battle City” (called “Tanks 1990” on the NES clone we had). A lot of other games followed, like Chip & Dales Rescue Rangers 1 & 2, Monster In My Pocket and a bunch of others.
Favorite game? Man … dunno … maybe Medal of Honor – Allied Assault, close to it would be AvP2. That doesn’t rule out Battle City or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Tournament Fighters. Too tough to pick one favorite.
@Mass Effect 3 as Origin exclusive
I think EA move to get its games as Origin exclusives (for digital distribution) will be a mistake on the long run. Steam already has a huge player base, and some players like me are not willing to have their games scattered in different accounts of different distributors.
PS: I also think that digital versions of games should be a bit cheaper than the boxed retail versions. Some MMO’s did this in the past, where you could buy a boxed version for a few more $$.
@SOPA I’ve already said my piece on it, but it was really interesting to see the blackout on some sites. Webupd8.org for instance, had a huge part of the words in its texts censored when the user visited the website for the first time during the day.
@QOTW:
First game of multiplayer was probably Kings of the Beach for the pc, or maybe some spectrum game before that. But the first that really made me love multiplayer was Quake2, which was also my first multiplayer online experience.
After that I was amazed with the MMORPG experience, firstly with Project Entropia, as I’ve never seen such a complex universe before, and after that I tried a few MMORPGs . Nowadays I tend to prefer the massive online games to normal games with multiplayer, although I would have loved Skyrim to come with Coop.
By the drill, Paul, I don’t mean instant hate mail. It just means that I will just like the podcast 50% less.
@Bioware confirms Mass Effect 3 is Origin-only: Why? I pre-ordered Mass Effect 3 on PC, but I really hate Origin. Oh well, I’ll have to live with it, but I really hope that the online multiplayer won’t be too bad with Origin.
@Electronic Arts passed $1B in digital sales in 2011: I’ve already said that I like my games in boxes, for the very same reasons you mentioned. And also, I’m paying extra for the box, CD and display? Bullshit! Deus Ex: Human Revolution pre-ordered was €34.45 from my online retailer. 5 months later, it is still €50 on Steam and only €16 from my online retailer. That’s €34 less for getting the game in the box. Digital distribution? No thanks.
@Gaikai: Sony or Microsoft won’t have next-gen console: And they are guessing once again. Also, I think that it’s a little bit too early for cloud gaming to catch on and appeal to the masses.
@“What was the first multiplayer gaming you ever enjoyed?”: I would have to say Heli Attack 3 on Miniclip. It technically isn’t a multiplayer, but my brother would shoot using the mouse and I would jump around the bullets. My computer was pretty crap back then and we had no consoles so flash games were pretty much all that I played.
@mass eff 3: in order to play the single player game is required a constant flow of an eletric courrent trough your computer or console. lol
The Battlelog is actually a good and innovative idea, the bad idea is Origin that requires a relativelly high portion of the PC’s processing power that could be used to help me run BF3 in high specs. That is what i like in Paul: he votes with his wallet, and stand for his principles no matter what. Damn you steam for not having BF3 and ME3 T.T.
What is wrong with CD’s? I still have my total annihilation in 2 epic CD-rom’s. INSTALLING THEM NAO
Dear Jordan, in 94, Brasil was already blessed with the NES and the Super NES.
@sony or microsoft no moar console:no comments. is a stupid rumor that will not come true, since both companies are rock solid on the console battleground and will not give up
@QOTW
1st enjoyed mp game: Counter-Strike… millions of hours wasted… WORTH IT