Did 'Spore' copy protections backfire on EA?
Clarification: Story updated at 6:57 p.m. to clarify the difference between the Spore and iTunes models.
After years of anticipation, the coming-out party for Electronic Arts' new evolution game Spore seems to be getting rained out.
Spore was one of the most highly anticipated games in recent years, in part because it's the brainchild of Will Wright who, with The Sims, turned simple tasks like taking virtual trips to the bathroom into the best-selling PC game ever. Fans and EA alike had high hopes for Spore, a similarly quirky game that's based on evolutionary biology and individuals' own creature creations.
By most accounts, Spore is a great game. But in the first week since its debut, many of the people perhaps most excited for its release have turned against it.
Enraged by what they call "draconian" copyright protections, thousands of people flooded Amazon.com to give the game a one-star rating. And now there seems to be another movement afoot, one that is far more likely to hit EA where it counts.
What's the fuss about? Electronic Arts imposed copyright protections that limited the number of times a user can install the game to three. EA has likened the system to the limits imposed on songs bought through Apple's iTunes store (though in the case of iTunes, users can easily manage their libraries by specifying which computers are authorized to play their purchased content).
Such digital rights management technology is intended to keep piracy to a minimum. But in this case, it seems to have had the opposite effect, angering would-be buyers and DRM opponents to such a degree that they are illegally downloading it en masse, apparently to make a statement as much as to get their hands on the game.
On Saturday, TorrentFreak wrote that the game had already been downloaded more than 500,000 times on BitTorrent sites.
Though it didn't appear to have broken any overall download records at the time this story was published, peer-to-peer research company Big Champagne told Forbes on Friday that the rate at which it was being downloaded was "extraordinary."
So will EA consider the DRM move a mistake? PR representatives didn't immediately respond to a request for comment, but that will likely depend on how well it sells. In its first week, it seemed to do pretty well--at least anecdotally, with stores around the country reporting they'd sold out of their stock.
Jennifer Guevin is assistant managing editor of CNET News. She focuses on science and green tech. But she also makes the occasional contribution to CNET's kitchen gadgets blog or writes about the latest Web distraction. Once a week, she takes the mic as host of CNET's Daily News Podcast. E-mail Jennifer.
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That is false.
The copy protection on Spore is not like the copy protection on iTunes. iTunes limits the total number of computers you can authorize to play your purchases at one time, but you can re-assign those authorizations an **unlimited** number of times.
The copy protection on Spore limits you to three installs--period, even of the same computer, even if you have to "re-install" because you changed some components on your computer and the copy protection no longer recognizes your computer as authorized, even if you uninstall the program, even if you buy a new computer. Three installs, for any reason. Period.
Spore's draconian copy protection is not like iTunes copy protection. One is arguably reasonable, the other is like a Mission Impossible mission briefing, and essentially "self-destructs" after three installs, making the purchase of spore some kind of rental, or ticking time bomb. What it isn't is a proper way to treat customers who have **purchased** the game. This maltreatment only happens to .people who paid for the privilege to Spore. Pirates, who pay nothing, don't have to deal with such inconveniences because pirated versions of the game don't have the restrictions. It is stupid of for Spore to charge for the privilege of having a worse version of the game than pirates get to have.
I can't see that iTunes is any better.
Because with iTunes, if you reach your limit and decide you want to listen to the songs on a different 5 computers, you can just reset the computers it is assigned too and and then license the tracks to a different 5 computers. With spore, once you reach that magic number, you are stuck and cant play the game anymore if you change computers.
What if I want to run spore on linux/mac using Wine? (Presuming at some point in the future Wine advances enough to support that game).
The media/game companies don't get it. HOw would their ceo's like to walk into a store and have the store detective follow them the entire time, treating them like criminals? That is exactly how they are treating their paying customers. Heck, they even made anyone who wants to assert their fair rights to personal use a criminal where DRM is concerned (Just look at DRM fascist Joe Biden's previous work).
DRM = Evil. Pure Evil.
I have Neverwinter Nights which was release about 2001 (?). Since its release, I have installed the product about 10-15 times. This is because of hardware problems or computer upgrades, or just removing it to save some space until I was ready to play it again. If it is a good game it will be played a lot and for a long time. Sims is still played by some people, so it is not unreasonable that people may be playing Spore for 5 years or longer. Is it not unreasonable to believe people will need to uninstall and reinstall at least 3 times if they play the game for that long?
I still install old games. I am playing through Fallout 2 again to prepare for Fallout 3. Just because you don't play this game doesn't mean it is right for them to limit how others may use the game. I feel sorry for Will Wright since EA is making sure Spore will never be as Epic as Sims or NWN since its unlikely people will be able to play it for more than a year or two.
I used to be so vocal against piracy. But the companies are creating a real threat to consumers. We pay for something, and we might not be able to even use it. I have a stack of licenses here for Windows alone because I get so sick of having to ask permission to install Windows when I need to. Change too much hardware, and they want you to buy another copy.
I honestly hope EA, Microsoft, and Adobe lose serious revenue now. I do. Nothing else seems to make these companies listen to what consumers are trying to tell them. I personaly love to support the software developer. Keep creating great software. It helps us all. But be fair about it. You're upsetting the people who actually pay your salaries. I pay your salaries. The people stealing are not hurt by this. Your customers are. There is a limit to what peole can stand. Honestly, you software companies are starting to create such uinfairness that I beginning to think of it as you guys are stealing from us. Yeah yeah, I know, don't buy it. That's exactly where this is going.
Pretty soon Linux will be good enough. Have the software I need that is good enough. It's not quite there, but when it gets there, believe me, I will stop buying your software. I'll use Linux desktop, Open Office, and perhaps finally learn GIMP, though I do love my Adobe tools. But it's getting so bad that I grow tired of it. And more and more I want to drop DRM-based software so I can have peace of mind.
I have a warning for your big companies. You're upsetting us so much that when honest folk like myself do switch away from you, you likely won't get us back. You'll start to see it hit you in the pocket books. Then, you'll lower your prices. But by then, the damage will have been done. We'll have standardized on something that is OpenSource. And how will compete with free? You can't. So trust me on this. Stop making me ask myself why I need you. Because soon the answer will be that I don't. Once that bridge is crossed, you guys go out of business. It's no joke, you're all headed there in my opinion.
Get it through your thick skulls.
WE ARE SICK OF YOUR DRM.
Alex Alexzander
Say it differently. They are training their customers to steal.
They really are. For instance, I didn't know how to rip a DVD until I found out I couldn't put a copy of my DVD collection on my PMP. Because the companies involved restricted how I could media I paid for already, I had no choice but to learn how to rip a DVD in order to put it on my PMP so I could watch what I had already paid for. The companies involved should have given me an alternative to doing it illegally, but they didn't.
Do these companies really think we'll all put up with this for very much longer? Can you imagine how much more movies, tv shows and music would be being sold if it were possible to consolidate your various media libraries? Hell, I'd have all my music, movies, books and tv shows on one server and load up what I wanted any time I want, and what's more I'd be on Amazon or iTunes all the time, as well as at the store getting exactly what I wanted all the time.
I don't believe in Downloading what I didn't pay for, but at this rate they are simply not going to be satisfying this customer in the near future.
EA.... get it through your thick skulls: YOU DON'T NEED DRM! What you need to do: lower your prices so that everyone who wants to buy your product legally, can buy it legally.
Attention Large Greedy Corp: We have options.
We will exercise them.
The only vote that truly counts is the one you make with your waller. I don't advocate piracy at all, but posting your opinion everywhere you can, signing petitions and generally making noise in addition to not putting more money in EA's pockets will let them know exactly how we feel. I refuse to even buy their XBOX 360 titles, until DRM comes off of PC titles.
The five permitted reinstallations (they did up it from three) is annoying, but manageable. But code that hides in my computer, automatically updates, and can't be easily uninstalled? Not on my computer.
No, you can run a virtual CD program. I don't have a DVD Rom drive on the machine I installed Spore on. I used a different machine to create an ISO of the DVD and copied it over. Used Daemon Tools to mount that image, installed it. And all works fine with the Image mounted.
Now, Daemon Tools does work with SecuROM and some of that other DRM crap code. So that may be why Spore doesn't "break" when used under it. Or because I installed it from the virtual drive so that "loop hole" was missed in testing and a patch will "fix" that problem. *shrug*
If that happens, I'll just download a pirated version so I can play what I bought.
-J
Daemon Tools will emulate SecuROM for the virtual disc (iso), and this would have also disabled the check. You would also need to use a No-CD to play it (which would also disable SecuRom). As such, your example is not proper. If you installed from a physical CD/DVD drive, SecuRom would have checked for the existence of Daemon Tools and refused to install.
I use Daemon Tools all the time, but I also have to use a cloaker program to install games with SecuROM that hide DT from the install program.
All DRM does is stop the casual copy, keep the original owner under it's thumb, and really **** the owner off when there's a problem.
or demand your money back + costs for your time removing their spyware
While I have not touched Spore, Vista's DRM protection was more than just a pain in the ass. I had an MSI motherboard that, while advertised for Vista, did not work with Vista. Three times the "vista bomb" went off when Vista mistakenly thought the machine had changed too much. One time this happened after installing new drivers via Windows Update. It was a known bug and nothing was really done about it. Unfortunately I had used Windows Anytime Upgrade and the upgrade key is only valid during the upgrade itself so simply re-entering the key and reactivating was not an option. Full format and triple install each time. Now Vista SP1 comes around and MS has removed the feature.
Bottom line is no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, pirates are going to copy your stuff. You can put activation on it and they will crack it. It might take a while, but it WILL be done. So get over itself and worry about the users you are pissing off who are PAYING you and not the ones who won't pay you anyway but will still copy your stuff.
Bard's Tale didn't have much as copy protection went, just a damaged disk sector and a program called the Disector could easily copy it. But Bard's Tale broke a lot of sales records, and created a lot of customer satisfaction and inspired a ton of books to be written and the Bard's Tale Construction site allowed fans to create their own Bard's Tale games.
After that Electronic Arts decided to keep upgrading the copy protection and eventually went into DRM.
Just like Metallica upset fans, so did Electronic Arts these days. All DRM and copy protection does is annoy the people who actually bought the game, and pirates easily download the pirated version from P2P networks without the copy protection or DRM and play them for free. I would have bought Spore if not for the three installs and you are out policy. I will never buy it and I will never pirate it either.
In fact I am boycotting all commercial games and will only play open source games which don't have DRM or copy protection in them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_games
I invite others to only play open source games and never buy commercial games again, as a form of protest against game makers and software makers who punish and annoy the buyers of the game for what pirates do on P2P networks.
The more copy protection and DRM that are added to software, the more the pirates will crack that program and pirate it like crazy all over the Internet. For every pirate you stop, twelve to a hundred more to almost a thousand or ten thousand download more copies of the pirated software. They pirate your software as a form of protest and to prove to you that any copy protection technology or DRM you can invent, they can bypass and remove it.
-misidentifying normal, legally bought cd software like Nero and Roxio as "emulation software"
-causing people's cd drives to crash
-interfering with the running of programs including Virus Scans and Firewalls
-attempting to dial home to Sony, sending encrypted transmissions
The Sims community has been telling EA for the last year how they feel about their copy protection systems. EA has not been listening, which is why when EA chose to go for this copy protection, most of us dreaded the worst and have had our fears realised.
While EA is perfectly within their rights to protect their intellectual property, they do not have the right to try to extort money out of their customers for what is essentially a very expensive rental. They also do not have the right to interfere with customer's pcs, or breach their privacy, as they did with the creature creator which packaged customer's Windows account names as part of any creatures created.
Most noteably they're doing this at a time where companies like Stardock are laying down a Gamer's Bill of Rights which lays down basic consumer rights that gamers should reasonably have, like the right to have minimum specifications on a game which are actually REALISTIC. EA's behaviour looks appalling by comparison.
At this point, all gamers should be avoiding EA like the plague until they learn to treat their customers with more respect.
Saraswati
[Editors' note: Advertisement deleted]
Depending on their criteria, Visual Studio could get nuked by this rootkit.
Vista is even MORE stable than XP, unless you are stupid like me and go 'stepping where wise men fear to tread'.
Really, after about 3 years..... all game companies should be REQUIRED to release patches that remove the DRM. They have ALREADY gotten their money in that time period, so it is time for them to remove the DRM. Period, done with, over..... it's time to do that after three years at most!
I hate playing devil's advocate,I HATE EA(anyone who thought of publishing Crapsis..er Crysis I will hate) but it seems like the mention of Bioshock/Mass Effect/Spore, even where SecuROM is not a issue, causes the whole interwebs to scream "OMFG!!!!!111 teh SecROM sux!!!!11" , and that pisses me off(see the /. article on Bioshock's storyline).(BTW:check my IP/email/etc, I am not associated with EA/Sony SCP in any way.)
DRM is bad. Very bad.Preferably, I like to play Sins of a Solar Empire because of its lack of DRM, but when I want a storyline that rocks(due to the lack thereof in Sins), I play Bioshock. Simply put, unlike (seemingly) every other person online, I am willing to compromise for the sake of the PC gaming industry. As long as the DRM does not interfere with my experience, I am willing to put up with it. FairPlay is very disruptive to my life because all but my iPod Touch(a gift) are PlaysForSure devices, for example, so I refuse to buy iTunes songs unless they are iTunes Plus songs.
Same goes for games, I have NEVER had any problems with the Big Three complaint games(Bioshock, Mass Effect, and Spore) in terms of SecuROM(I did have that lovely overheat bug in Mass Effect, not SecuROM related),and I run DAEMON Tools without YASU. I'm sure most of the people that complain about SecuROM have never owned one of the Big Three games,and those who complain are the minority( give me solid figures and I will consider myself corrected), making people like me who have never had problems cower in fear of being flamed.
I'm not saying that PC gaming is dying, in fact, its entering a renaissance(Spore, Diablo III, StarCraft II, ,Team Fortress 2, heck, WoW)but in comparison with console gaming, PC gaming needs help(how many copies of Halo 3 sold in comparison with Crysis?(comparing two best selling games in same period) . Do your part, buy PC games.
I will not discount the power of complaint, however. C&C3 required me to run YASU, and because people complained, I don't need to. The outcry about the "call home every ten days" rule in Mass Effect was good. But please, support the PC gaming industry and buy the games. If you have trouble, then you have a right to complain,but I refuse to believe that all the people that bought Bioshock had SecuROM problems.
/rant
Bioshock was great. I loved the story and the whole steampunk feel of it.
I am having a blast with Spore... I think I am spending more time in the creator than I am actually playing the game!
It was nice to see someone else playing Sins of a Solar Empire and I am right there with you on it. No story line to it, but it didn't need one.
I don't think I have pirated a game since Driv3r many years ago and that was one I would not have bought any way. I've ended up paying for HL2 twice, once in the original purchase and again with The Orange Box. Portal and TF2 were well worth paying for The Orange Box and now I have a few extra games as gifts if I encounter someone who does not have HL2 or the expansions.
I love PC over console and I can't think of any issue I have had installing a game in the last 10 years. I do think we would all be better off without DRM cause it only effects those of us who legally buy the game.
P.S. Hey EA, Take your game and shove it!
There was a time when people would boycott a company for simply being associated with another company that had shady business practices, but now people kiss the feet of companies they hate, because... I don't know. It's about as stupid gets.
If you want change, you have to leverage the power you have. And we have GREAT power when it comes to these game companies, our money pays their heating bills, their employess, they company cars, and boardroom expenditures. Without our money, these companies can't even pay their rent. So spend money on companies that you agree with.
YOU get it, linuxman1, but the rest of the gamers are complete morons. Otherwise, this DRM crap would have been kicked long ago...
But not having to have the disk in the drive while I am playing.
Tell your friends . open source programs are legit , if not better than pay-per-use software/games
No people, do NOT switch to open source programs, they are too freaking easy to find problems with and exploit today. The only reason Linux hasn't been BOMBARDED with viruses, spyware, etc.: it's still a 'geek' OS, not installed on many computer so it is not worth the criminals time!
You MS shills must be getting desperate to pull out the discredited 10 years ago idea of security through obscurity.
Explain why Apache on Linux owns the server market share yet Windows Server and IIS owns the exploit share.
MS products take no skill to crack.
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by Imalittleteapot
September 13, 2008 10:32 PM PDT
- If they make a profit they'll say SEE IT WORKS! However, I think the DRM does set it back in sales. Making a profit doesn't mean they couldn't of made more profit without it. However, that's not why they put DRM in their products anyway.
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See all 178 Comments >>A pirated copy is available as I write this. That's proof right there that DRM does not work and does not cause more people to buy it. It actually causes more people to pirate it. The pirates offer the superior product without restrictions or rootkits. The store bought copy is now the buggy demo version. It's backwards.
Not only that, but the game companies even know this. At first we assumed that the game companies just didn't understand DRM. However, it's foolish to suspect that the game companies are that dumb. I think we need to look at the companies that make the DRM. Quick, can anyone tell me how a company continues to sell a product that doesn't work? It's called fraud. They claim it does work and when that won't make the sale they just do a kickback.
A few companies may be dumb enough to think DRM works. Other companies do it because everyone else is. Microsoft does it because they're just power hungry and have a level of greed not capable by a normal mortal.
However, I guarantee you that a few of the people that make the final call on DRM are getting their pockets filled with money by DRM makers. That's all there is to it. That's why we keep seeing it even though it doesn't work.