EA lightens DRM on Red Alert 3, but misses the point

Agreed. This is getting ridiculous. I'm tired of EA. Perhaps with continued public uproar they'll eventually eliminate the activiation limit on their games. Or perhaps that's just wishful thinking.en-z-io

Did you see the Spore protest DRM creatures on Shacknews?..there hilarious..

[QUOTE="en-z-io"]Agreed. This is getting ridiculous. I'm tired of EA. Perhaps with continued public uproar they'll eventually eliminate the activiation limit on their games. Or perhaps that's just wishful thinking.Pinkyimp

Did you see the Spore protest DRM creatures on Shacknews?..there hilarious..

LMAO, just looked it up.

it's 5 activations at the same time, meaning you can install it on up to 5 computers... do you have 5 computers?

and yes, you gain the activations back when you uninstall

it's 5 activations at the same time, meaning you can install it on up to 5 computers... do you have 5 computers?

and yes, you gain the activations back when you uninstall

RT_Jackson

If that's how it works, then why are people upset? I'm not saying you are wrong, but if uninstalling the game gave you back an installation... I don't see why there would be any uproar period.

it's 5 activations at the same time, meaning you can install it on up to 5 computers... do you have 5 computers?

and yes, you gain the activations back when you uninstall

RT_Jackson

That was in the Bioshock version, in the Spore and Mass Effect version it was just 3 installs...no getting any back

[QUOTE="RT_Jackson"]

it's 5 activations at the same time, meaning you can install it on up to 5 computers... do you have 5 computers?

and yes, you gain the activations back when you uninstall

nevereathim

That was in the Bioshock version, in the Spore and Mass Effect version it was just 3 installs...no getting any back

Ok, that's what I thought.

[QUOTE="nevereathim"][QUOTE="RT_Jackson"]

it's 5 activations at the same time, meaning you can install it on up to 5 computers... do you have 5 computers?

and yes, you gain the activations back when you uninstall

zomglolcats

That was in the Bioshock version, in the Spore and Mass Effect version it was just 3 installs...no getting any back

Ok, that's what I thought.

[QUOTE="en-z-io"]Agreed. This is getting ridiculous. I'm tired of EA. Perhaps with continued public uproar they'll eventually eliminate the activiation limit on their games. Or perhaps that's just wishful thinking.Pinkyimp

Did you see the Spore protest DRM creatures on Shacknews?..there hilarious..

Link?

doesn't affect me abit. i want this game on my pc and i have only one pc. i don't even feel like entertaining the possibility of having to install it 5 times -- in fact i have never done that to any of my games. why the people are making a fuss out of EA's DRM -- which is the company's unquestionable right to protect their property -- is completely beyong me. but of coz, it's not my problem. ;)

EA's DRM -- which is the company's unquestionable right to protect their property -

Jinroh_basic

not before they make it clearly that they're leasing their games/properties instead of selling their products/commodities.

[QUOTE="Pinkyimp"]

[QUOTE="en-z-io"]Agreed. This is getting ridiculous. I'm tired of EA. Perhaps with continued public uproar they'll eventually eliminate the activiation limit on their games. Or perhaps that's just wishful thinking.Lonelynight

Did you see the Spore protest DRM creatures on Shacknews?..there hilarious..

Link?

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/54749

a HD crash and you loose an activation forever

a reformat (like every 10 months) without uninstalling first and you loose an activation forever

worst system ever

effectiveness against piracy: none

annoyance/troubles for legit users: roofing

thats like buying the new Nevermore CD, (a band) and having it only be able to play in the first 5 cd players u put it in, and anymore you would have to buy another copy...

these game devs if they want to stop worrying about losing money, need to tell the publishers, and investors to butt the f*** out.. cause they have plenty of money these days.

if only they would make it so when you uninstall, you get your "life" back, i belive that would solve the problem. suddenly a re-format or system upgrade would not lose you a life.

but no, they wont do that, which is making me think the DRM is not to prevent piracy (which any nob could tell you that it will not prevent piracy - the damned pirates are the LEAST inconvenienced by the DRM) but is a cunning way of selling more games because eventually someone somewhere will run out of installs and instead of poncing around beating a dEAd horse they will simply buy another copy of the game.

EDIT - i have read in some places that uninstalling DOES give you an activation back, but in others that it doesn't. i think if it DOES then its not so much of a problem, but i wish EA would put it on the bloody box so people know the score when they buy

[QUOTE="en-z-io"]Agreed. This is getting ridiculous. I'm tired of EA. Perhaps with continued public uproar they'll eventually eliminate the activiation limit on their games. Or perhaps that's just wishful thinking.Pinkyimp

Did you see the Spore protest DRM creatures on Shacknews?..there hilarious..

looking at the " EA SX " creature was soooo creative and funny. kudos

if only they would make it so when you uninstall, you get your "life" back, i belive that would solve the problem. suddenly a re-format or system upgrade would not lose you a life.

but no, they wont do that, which is making me think the DRM is not to prevent piracy (which any nob could tell you that it will not prevent piracy - the damned pirates are the LEAST inconvenienced by the DRM) but is a cunning way of selling more games because eventually someone somewhere will run out of installs and instead of poncing around beating a dEAd horse they will simply buy another copy of the game.

EDIT - i have read in some places that uninstalling DOES give you an activation back, but in others that it doesn't. i think if it DOES then its not so much of a problem, but i wish EA would put it on the bloody box so people know the score when they buy

matt120282

I don't think this will result in more sales.... if there intention was something along this line, I think it was more to shut down used sales. Which could potentially result in more sales for EA.

You could also presumably get around the install limit by imaging your system rather than reinstalling windows when needed. And supposedly you can call to get another install. I don't think its bad if EA really wanted to protect themselves, but practially turning these games into rentals is bad.

EA will allow 5 activations and you will not need the DVD in the drive in order to play, but it has totally missed the point of the uproar against their recent DRM schemes. The problem is not the number of activations, but the existence of a limit on activations at all. 5, 10 15, it does not matter. You do not tell me how many times I can install a game, period. I don't care if the game is the most beautiful, genius, uplifting, and influential game I ever experienced that positively affects me for the rest of my life. No game publisher gets one penny of my hard earned money who dictates the number of times I can install its product. Falconoffury

I agree, and on top of that...What does this show to us PC gamers of how EA thinks of their PC games. Giving us a limit of installs is pretty much telling us that they're games aren't worth playing 2,3 years from now because chances are you've already used up all your installs, they must think people won't want to play after their first install because they're games are mediocre.....

EDIT - i have read in some places that uninstalling DOES give you an activation back, but in others that it doesn't. i think if it DOES then its not so much of a problem, but i wish EA would put it on the bloody box so people know the score when they buymatt120282

[QUOTE="Falconoffury"]EA will allow 5 activations and you will not need the DVD in the drive in order to play, but it has totally missed the point of the uproar against their recent DRM schemes. The problem is not the number of activations, but the existence of a limit on activations at all. 5, 10 15, it does not matter. You do not tell me how many times I can install a game, period. I don't care if the game is the most beautiful, genius, uplifting, and influential game I ever experienced that positively affects me for the rest of my life. No game publisher gets one penny of my hard earned money who dictates the number of times I can install its product. -Origin-

I agree, and on top of that...What does this show to us PC gamers of how EA thinks of their PC games. Giving us a limit of installs is pretty much telling us that they're games aren't worth playing 2,3 years from now because chances are you've already used up all your installs, they must think people won't want to play after their first install because they're games are mediocre.....

it's 5 activations at the same time, meaning you can install it on up to 5 computers... do you have 5 computers?

and yes, you gain the activations back when you uninstall

RT_Jackson

No, you actually don't. Unless they've changed their mind in the last two days, it's the exact same DRM as Mass Effect, and you don't get those back when you uninstall there either. They haven't put out a revocation tool, though they are saying they will for Spore at least. Still not good enough in my mind, but it's something.

Also, it's 5 activations, period. You can activate the game on 5 computers, yes. Or you can activate it on the same computer 5 times (after formats, after changing hardware enough to trigger the activation, etc). Go on the Bioware Off Topic forums and you'll find extensive discussion on the current version of SecuROM EA is using, discussed quite completely by people who know. The Spore forums have just a couple of topics on this as well, you might want to read up on it there before you continue.

Is it illegal to download a patch to get past the DRM even if I legitly buy the game? Because it would be a shame to pass up on RA3 simply because of this dumb DRM.SSCyborg

not sure the true *legal* status of this action, but you're certainly a pirate according to Crytek: *altered* exe file is what they base on to count "illegal" game copy played.

Is it illegal to download a patch to get past the DRM even if I legitly buy the game? Because it would be a shame to pass up on RA3 simply because of this dumb DRM.SSCyborg

Not really legal. Funny really though, paying customers having to break the law in order to use what they paid for.

If you have to break the law at all... why even bother paying for the game at all?... that's the kind of message i'm getting.

[QUOTE="SSCyborg"]Is it illegal to download a patch to get past the DRM even if I legitly buy the game? Because it would be a shame to pass up on RA3 simply because of this dumb DRM.teardropmina

not sure the true *legal* status of this action, but you're certainly a pirate according to Crytek: *altered* exe file is what they base on to count "illegal" game copy played.

[QUOTE="SSCyborg"]Is it illegal to download a patch to get past the DRM even if I legitly buy the game? Because it would be a shame to pass up on RA3 simply because of this dumb DRM.FamiBox

Not really legal. Funny really though, paying customers having to break the law in order to use what they paid for.

If you have to break the law at all... why even bother paying for the game at all?... that's the kind of message i'm getting.

Sigh....

Those tards at EA better not count me as a pirate.

Those tards at EA better not count me as a pirate.SSCyborg

You know what they should do? They should clearly print the number of activations on the box. Then they should come out with editions of the game with different amounts of activations. You can pay $29.95 for 3 activations, pay $44.95 for 5 activations, and pay $59.95 for 7 activations. Then, when you run out of activations, you can call EA and BUY more activations!

Do I truly think this is a good idea? No. At the very least, it would bring out the honest intentions behind this scheme. This is not just about stopping pirates. This is about squeezing more money out of paying customers. EA needs to admit this fact. EA needs to come out and admit that they no longer sell games as a product. They sell them as a limited service. I don't want to buy a service, when a product is far superior to me as a consumer.

You know what they should do? They should clearly print the number of activations on the box. Then they should come out with editions of the game with different amounts of activations. You can pay $29.95 for 3 activations, pay $44.95 for 5 activations, and pay $59.95 for 7 activations. Then, when you run out of activations, you can call EA and BUY more activations!

Do I truly think this is a good idea? No. At the very least, it would bring out the honest intentions behind this scheme. This is not just about stopping pirates. This is about squeezing more money out of paying customers. EA needs to admit this fact. EA needs to come out and admit that they no longer sell games as a product. They sell them as a limited service. I don't want to buy a service, when a product is far superior to me as a consumer.

Falconoffury

it's a pain in the ass for them to support the infrastructure to give out more installs too, which kind of defeats the point of what you're trying to say there.

I'm not an expert in the games industry, but maybe they believe that the payoff is well worth the investment in infrastructure. The install limit thing is a pretty new concept, so they are still testing the waters.

It looks to me like the early stages of EA transferring their gaming business to service-based rather than product-based. Selling activations would move them even more in this direction, and confirm to the players the real and full intentions behind it.

[quote="Makari"]it's a pain in the ass for them to support the infrastructure to give out more installs too, which kind of defeats the point of what you're trying to say there.Falconoffury

I'm not an expert in the games industry, but maybe they believe that the payoff is well worth the investment in infrastructure. The install limit thing is a pretty new concept, so they are still testing the waters.

It looks to me like the early stages of EA transferring their gaming business to service-based rather than product-based. Selling activations would move them even more in this direction, and confirm to the players the real and full intentions behind it.

Well, we will see. If it was truly about piracy, once the games have run their coarse, they should remove the install limits. If its about hosing their paying customers, and shuting down the used market, they won't.

It's a good thing they put that DRM on Spore and annoyed everyone. It really stopped the game from being pirated, just like these convoluted DRM scehemes always do. Yep.

Seriously, when will all of these companies realize that these DRM schemes are a waste of resources and a waste of everyone's time? Every single one of them is cracked within a week, if not a day. There will always be a way to get the software to ignore its own DRM scheme, no matter how convoluted it might be. All they do is piss off legitimate customers and maybe deter some very small percentage of people who know enough to figure out how to get stuff from illegitimate sources and are willing to do so, but somehow couldn't follow whatever directions came along with it. Spore was available illegally before the game even came out (and no, I didn't download it), so I really don't see what this nonsense even accomplished.

The install limits don't bother me that much. I'd be fine with one install limitas long as I can get it back when I uninstall the game. A limit of 5 adds a nice buffer in case of system glitches.

My main issue with the activation style DRM is a matter of trust. I am a collector who likes to revisit old favorites from time to time. There are no distributors or developers in this industry that I trust enough to release a patch that removes the activation DRM if the company goes under or stops supporting the title.

You do have to give EA a little credit. They are talking to us. What they are doing is no where near as bad as Bioware requiring reactivation everytime a save game is reloaded for the Neverwinter Nights downloaded modules.

Seriously, when will all of these companies realize that these DRM schemes are a waste of resources and a waste of everyone's time?

SpaceMoose

they don't need to realize since these DRM are not only not a waste of resource but will effectively prevent/limit the used game circulation (ebay, amazon market etc. and loaning/borrowing games), which IS what these DRM are for to begin with.