Why does Ea still continue to use this DRM?

Really I have never been more encouraged to pirate games like Spore or Mass effect

This is the worst system I have ever seen. 3 installs? are you ****ing me?! Consle gamers don't need to put up with this crap so why should we?

Really IMO this is ILLEGAL. If I buy a product I should be able to use it when I ever damn want to. its just sick that anyone could use such a system.

It dosen't even stop piracy. it onley hurts the people who buy the game. hmmm so whats better the pirated copy with no DRM or the legit copy with the DRM? well no ****ing **** the pirate one.

Its stuff like this that really makes people WANT to destroy a company. I bet if Mass Effect,Spore,Bioshock never had this system they would have sold MUCH better.

Really if I see 1 more EA game with this system IDC what company or developer made it im downlading it(mabye I might not just get the game:cry:.)

because this system drives me to do it. Its my onley way of protesting really against this system. I mean DRm with like Cd keys piss me off because sometimes I lose em. But its nothing compared to this really....

The first time they tried this system (think that was BioShock) I was somewhat ok with it. I can understand the at the publishers want to try different approaches address piracy. But given that it's obviously not having any real effect on piracy, I believe that the DRM install limit has less to do with piracy and more to do with EA making a move to effectively increase their control over legitimate consumers.

To be honest given the backlash over, especially spore but also both BioShock and Mass Effect I expect that they will have to give it up eventually. If nothing else because I expect it will push an increasing number towards piracy. Not so much because they refuse to buy in the first place but because, once people hit their install limit they are quickly going to find that the quickest solution is not to call EA, but to do a quick search on google and download a crack. An indirect consequence of this is that those users have taken a first big steps towards piracy.. Once you've started downloading cracks, found the web sites.. learned to install a BitTorrent the jump to downloading a full game is a lot smaller than before.

I think it's a system that is going to end up biting them in the ass in more than one way.

why? simply because they are crazy

DRM is painful, because i cant use bioshock anymore, and im afraid it will happen to spore aswell.

Im one of those people who reformats their computer every 3 or so months to get it clean and so on...OMG the DRM game...damn thats one useage gone, install again. I got a laptop aswell what i game on when i goto the mines to work for a week...thats another gone....i reformat, thats 3 gone...

This stops me from cleaning and proteting MY computer, what basically means i gotta go out and buy ANOTHER game...actually no, after that i will just pirate it because its a whole load of bull to buy a game that i already brought.

Same with the red alert 3 beta (i know its only a beta) but it still has DRM...i installed it on a mates computer to see if it would run fine when the game comes out - HEY I WAS ADVERTISING YOUR GAME!! YET YOU PUNISH ME!! then i of course install on my main computer and computer at the mines. Now thats 3 gone already, saying that my main computer died and i had to reformat, omg thats all gone...so well i emailed them bout it you know "we will respond in 24 hours my a$$" yeah well its been 3 weeks now so i think that 24 hour thing is a load of bull (this was the first time emailing them a "problem"

I got bioshock aswell, but due to reformatting and putting them on my other computers i have a disk and a serial number not working...so any ideas on how to destroy the dvd?

rant off :D

i think what started it all was companys being big babys and calling the insurence companys and requesting billions of dollars because of "theft". the sad reality is that im sure the numbers they give to insurence companys are very over estimated(i won't bother explaining this your either smart enough to know why or your not).

so after that i imagine insurence companys formed a union or something along those lines, purhaps some new company that forms rules governing software companys and forced them to use certain copy protection otherwise they would be denied access to insurence.

and now that its to that point its impossible to stop this runaway train, all insurence companys im sure will require it more and more regardless of how many "claims" they have. and its becoming more and more out of the hands of the developer and more into third partys. maybe im wrong on all this but it does seem very logical to me

however the next stop for this runaway train is going to be off a cliff when all the developers go out of bisness, but im sure they have a plan for that...which is make people accept DRM, but giving them no choice. companys love controling people these days....its a great way of increasing profits regardless of the reasoning.

Yohoho and a bottle of dew.

If they actually think this will decrease piracy then they're sadly mistaken.
"Pirates" don't care if they are the reason others needs to suffer from things like these, most of them consider us morons for actually paying money for a game. Therefor we get this DRM stuff that I will agree is a deperate stratedgy and I can understand why they want to stop pirates but in reality they're ruining the game and if they keep it up they will also ruin themselves financialy.

Who would want to buy 5 copies of Spore so they can play it becuase they can't anymore after they've installed it 3 times and then it's practically useless, No game is that good that you will actually buy several copies. Sure you could try to call EA, last time I did I was waiting in line for four hours.

Pirates will always find a loophole in security systems, in the end it's the average Joe who bought the game rather then downloaded it illegally that gets screwed over.

Does anyone really think these DRM schemes of 3 installs... 5 installs(or whatever) are for preventing piracy? As has been stated... Its about control. Controlling what the people who paid money can do with the software.

i think what started it all was companys being big babys and calling the insurence companys and requesting billions of dollars because of "theft".

machiavell8x8

Look very closely and this is actually the whole essence of DRM. It is just a result of bean heads on their "business meetings" and their "ideas" to solve piracy...and thats what we got it

A obvious desperate reaction.

Although, perheps they were just being truly cold heart and wanted to finish the idea that someone might borrow their games to a friend, or sell it later etc and others forms of "minor" license violation and still be quite aware that DRM would not stop cracked versions

Wait a minute. Am I missing something here? I thought they got rid of the install limits for Bioshock? I purchased it through Steam anyway, so I don't believe it has all that SecureRom crap. I haven't had any issues with it yet.

Back to the topic at hand though... It really is a shame that companies like EA are putting these install limits into place. If a person buys a game they should be able to play it on as many computers as they want. Total BS.

Wait a minute. Am I missing something here? I thought they got rid of the install limits for Bioshock? I purchased it through Steam anyway, so I don't believe it has all that SecureRom crap. I haven't had any issues with it yet.en-z-io

Yeah, it's a really dumb idea. It just makes people more inclined to pirate it. Besides, I have the feeling that when people do use up their three installations, they will just torrent it, figuring they don't want to pay for another copy...

...not that I'm advocating torrenting...

Really I have never been more encouraged to pirate games like Spore or Mass effect

This is the worst system I have ever seen. 3 installs? are you ****ing me?! Consle gamers don't need to put up with this crap so why should we?

Really IMO this is ILLEGAL. If I buy a product I should be able to use it when I ever damn want to. its just sick that anyone could use such a system.

It dosen't even stop piracy. it onley hurts the people who buy the game. hmmm so whats better the pirated copy with no DRM or the legit copy with the DRM? well no ****ing **** the pirate one.

Its stuff like this that really makes people WANT to destroy a company. I bet if Mass Effect,Spore,Bioshock never had this system they would have sold MUCH better.

Really if I see 1 more EA game with this system IDC what company or developer made it im downlading it(mabye I might not just get the game:cry:.)

because this system drives me to do it. Its my onley way of protesting really against this system. I mean DRm with like Cd keys piss me off because sometimes I lose em. But its nothing compared to this really....

JangoWuzHere

Get used to it, you're probably going to see a LOT more of this DRM now that EA is using it. Already the makers of Sacred 2 are using limited activations as well. EA is, like it or not, an industry leader. If they do A, lots of other companies may very well do A as well. I hope that other companies will see the backlash EA is suffering as well, but they may not care. The gamers no longer control the publishers, they are controlled by suits and frakkin' bean counters, the most useless creatures on the face of the planet. All they care about is the bottom line, to the exclusion of all other considerations. They only think in the short term, and they really don't care if they damage the entire industry to get what they want. Useless, spineless pieces of garbage, IMO.

Frankly, if I ever find out the name of the suit who made the call to go with limited activations, I'm going to be very tempted to hunt them down like the dog they are. Maybe a couple of beatings will clear their heads of this asinine idea of DRM. But you know that nobody will ever own up to making the call, it'll be something decided as a group, by concensus.

Gods, I hate EA. And I used to be one of their defenders, a loyal buyer of every product in at least one of their franchises (Sims). Now, I won't even look at a game if it has the EA name on it, even if it was put out before this limited activation insanity. They managed to lose a several thousand dollar a year customer. Peanuts to them, but if enough people stop buying from them, maybe they will notice. Wishful thinking, I know, but I can hope.

They need to take the Apple iTunes approach. You can authorize 5 computers to play your iTunes music (iPods don't count against your installs), and you can deauthorize your computer from playing music to give back an install. What this means is that for people who are going to be knowingly making drastic changes to their system, formatting, getting a new comp, etc, they can take action to keep their installs running. And, failing that, if you do use up all of your 5 installs, Apple also lets you reset your installs like once every year (or is it 6 months) to start back on a clean slate.

That is a MUCH friendlier version of DRM and I have not had a single problem buying stuff off of iTunes, as Apple isn't punishing you with their DRM.

[QUOTE="JangoWuzHere"]

Really I have never been more encouraged to pirate games like Spore or Mass effect

This is the worst system I have ever seen. 3 installs? are you ****ing me?! Consle gamers don't need to put up with this crap so why should we?

Really IMO this is ILLEGAL. If I buy a product I should be able to use it when I ever damn want to. its just sick that anyone could use such a system.

It dosen't even stop piracy. it onley hurts the people who buy the game. hmmm so whats better the pirated copy with no DRM or the legit copy with the DRM? well no ****ing **** the pirate one.

Its stuff like this that really makes people WANT to destroy a company. I bet if Mass Effect,Spore,Bioshock never had this system they would have sold MUCH better.

Really if I see 1 more EA game with this system IDC what company or developer made it im downlading it(mabye I might not just get the game:cry:.)

because this system drives me to do it. Its my onley way of protesting really against this system. I mean DRm with like Cd keys piss me off because sometimes I lose em. But its nothing compared to this really....

Royas

Get used to it, you're probably going to see a LOT more of this DRM now that EA is using it. Already the makers of Sacred 2 are using limited activations as well. EA is, like it or not, an industry leader. If they do A, lots of other companies may very well do A as well. I hope that other companies will see the backlash EA is suffering as well, but they may not care. The gamers no longer control the publishers, they are controlled by suits and frakkin' bean counters, the most useless creatures on the face of the planet. All they care about is the bottom line, to the exclusion of all other considerations. They only think in the short term, and they really don't care if they damage the entire industry to get what they want. Useless, spineless pieces of garbage, IMO.

Frankly, if I ever find out the name of the suit who made the call to go with limited activations, I'm going to be very tempted to hunt them down like the dog they are. Maybe a couple of beatings will clear their heads of this asinine idea of DRM. But you know that nobody will ever own up to making the call, it'll be something decided as a group, by concensus.

Gods, I hate EA. And I used to be one of their defenders, a loyal buyer of every product in at least one of their franchises (Sims). Now, I won't even look at a game if it has the EA name on it, even if it was put out before this limited activation insanity. They managed to lose a several thousand dollar a year customer. Peanuts to them, but if enough people stop buying from them, maybe they will notice. Wishful thinking, I know, but I can hope.

The only way to fight DRM, EA, " the name of the suit who made the call to go with limited activations ", and The Man, is to not buy thier games. To bad The Man finds new ways to prevent this every year. Whatever happened to power to the people?:( :cry: It would be awsome to have a super pc gamer rebellion against DRM :twisted: but I can only hope, too.

They know they can't stop piracy, so they must be trying to hold off piracy as long as possible in order to maximize sales during the first week or something. Anyone know how long it took to crack Mass Effect & Spore? Herrick

[QUOTE="Herrick"]They know they can't stop piracy, so they must be trying to hold off piracy as long as possible in order to maximize sales during the first week or something. Anyone know how long it took to crack Mass Effect & Spore? Makari

if the crysis warhead amazon.com comment is true this is bad for pc gaming industry. Amazon will slowly turn into a hub to bash pc games, or maybe people are just ignorant. Each option is a negative.

I can't believe EA is stupid enough to believe limiting # of installs will cause a decrease in piracy. That's like kicking the consumer in the balls and asking them to come back again for more. Sometimes I think EA is just out to ruin PC gaming.

I really don't care about securom, but limiting the # of installs is completely unjustified.

I won't be buying warhead. Hell, I've uninstalled/reinstalled crysis about 10 times now because of space limitations.

I can't believe EA is stupid enough to believe limiting # of installs will cause a decrease in piracy. That's like kicking the consumer in the balls and asking them to come back again for more. Sometimes I think EA is just out to ruin PC gaming.

I really don't care about securom, but limiting the # of installs is completely unjustified.

I won't be buying warhead. Hell, I've uninstalled/reinstalled crysis about 10 times now because of space limitations.

Swiftstrike5

They really aren't stupid enough to believe they are preventing any piracy at all. What they are doing, however, is trying to strangle the second hand or used game market. One of their European executives openly said that they want to stop the used game market, because they don't make any money off it. And their president has more or less said they want to go to a more subscription based model, basing revenues on a revenue per customer model, rather than a number of games sold model. These are not good signs for the future of PC or console gaming.

[QUOTE="Swiftstrike5"]

I can't believe EA is stupid enough to believe limiting # of installs will cause a decrease in piracy. That's like kicking the consumer in the balls and asking them to come back again for more. Sometimes I think EA is just out to ruin PC gaming.

I really don't care about securom, but limiting the # of installs is completely unjustified.

I won't be buying warhead. Hell, I've uninstalled/reinstalled crysis about 10 times now because of space limitations.

Royas

They really aren't stupid enough to believe they are preventing any piracy at all. What they are doing, however, is trying to strangle the second hand or used game market. One of their European executives openly said that they want to stop the used game market, because they don't make any money off it. And their president has more or less said they want to go to a more subscription based model, basing revenues on a revenue per customer model, rather than a number of games sold model. These are not good signs for the future of PC or console gaming.

That makes sense, but I don't know of anywhere that accepts used PC games anymore. Does steam have the same limit as the retail? I'd assume not since I can't really sell a used copy.

[QUOTE="Royas"][QUOTE="Swiftstrike5"]

I can't believe EA is stupid enough to believe limiting # of installs will cause a decrease in piracy. That's like kicking the consumer in the balls and asking them to come back again for more. Sometimes I think EA is just out to ruin PC gaming.

I really don't care about securom, but limiting the # of installs is completely unjustified.

I won't be buying warhead. Hell, I've uninstalled/reinstalled crysis about 10 times now because of space limitations.

Swiftstrike5

They really aren't stupid enough to believe they are preventing any piracy at all. What they are doing, however, is trying to strangle the second hand or used game market. One of their European executives openly said that they want to stop the used game market, because they don't make any money off it. And their president has more or less said they want to go to a more subscription based model, basing revenues on a revenue per customer model, rather than a number of games sold model. These are not good signs for the future of PC or console gaming.

That makes sense, but I don't know of anywhere that accepts used PC games anymore. Does steam have the same limit as the retail? I'd assume not since I can't really sell a used copy.

You could take a used PC game and sell it on Ebay easily enough. I have several PC games I bought there used. That's your secondary market. It's not as big in retail stores, it's more a person to person exchange. Flea markets, garage sales, classified ads... it doesn't have to be a formal store to be a market. There are also some local and smaller game stores that still deal with used PC games, just not as many. Basically, you can sell it on your own, but with limited activations, and EA openly saying that nobody but the original owner has a guarantee of getting more? I don't see a big market for used games like that. Actually, as an aside, EA doesn't even guarantee the original owner will get more activations, it's decided on a "case by case basis" (direct quote from the Bioware website regarding Mass Effect), plus the EULA basically says that they can shut down activation servers at any time. Not exactly reassuring, EA doesn't have a very good track record in the category of giving a damn about their customers.

That makes sense, but I don't know of anywhere that accepts used PC games anymore. Does steam have the same limit as the retail? I'd assume not since I can't really sell a used copy.

Swiftstrike5

what? people sell their used games on ebay and amazon all the time; also, people give their used games to friends and kids to play.

install limit is to stop used game circulation, not the crack-hacking pircay. note, the corporate minded people, including quite a few GS members, do think used game circulation is piracy; so, yes, install limit IS to stop "piracy."

[QUOTE="johnny27"]EA is out to kill the pc gaming industry :([/QUOTE

I'm out to kill EA....or at least throw the biggest hissy-fit ever. :evil:

* whoa thtose quotes got messed up!

EA is out to kill the pc gaming industry :(johnny27

Right. So you'll have to go out and pay more for the same game on console.

[QUOTE="Royas"][QUOTE="Swiftstrike5"]

I can't believe EA is stupid enough to believe limiting # of installs will cause a decrease in piracy. That's like kicking the consumer in the balls and asking them to come back again for more. Sometimes I think EA is just out to ruin PC gaming.

I really don't care about securom, but limiting the # of installs is completely unjustified.

I won't be buying warhead. Hell, I've uninstalled/reinstalled crysis about 10 times now because of space limitations.

Swiftstrike5

They really aren't stupid enough to believe they are preventing any piracy at all. What they are doing, however, is trying to strangle the second hand or used game market. One of their European executives openly said that they want to stop the used game market, because they don't make any money off it. And their president has more or less said they want to go to a more subscription based model, basing revenues on a revenue per customer model, rather than a number of games sold model. These are not good signs for the future of PC or console gaming.

That makes sense, but I don't know of anywhere that accepts used PC games anymore. Does steam have the same limit as the retail? I'd assume not since I can't really sell a used copy.

I bought Sins of a Solar Empire off of ebay.

[QUOTE="Makari"][QUOTE="Herrick"]They know they can't stop piracy, so they must be trying to hold off piracy as long as possible in order to maximize sales during the first week or something. Anyone know how long it took to crack Mass Effect & Spore? pvtdonut54

if the crysis warhead amazon.com comment is true this is bad for pc gaming industry. Amazon will slowly turn into a hub to bash pc games, or maybe people are just ignorant. Each option is a negative.

Crysis and Crysis Warhead does not have install limits.

" The CD key is only required when starting an online game using the Crysis Wars disc. Both Crysis Warhead and Crysis Wars require separate installs using their respective discs. "

Crysis and Crysis Warhead does not have install limits.

" The CD key is only required when starting an online game using the Crysis Wars disc. Both Crysis Warhead and Crysis Wars require separate installs using their respective discs. "

Deihmos

about a week and change to reliably crack both.. ME had an early crack with the galaxy map broken, Spore had an early crack that had memory leaks. neither got cracked before discs hit retail somewhere in the world - ME released retail normally, Spore was being sold in Australia about a week before it hit NA.Makari

I guess that discourages anyone who is not patient enough to wait for a crack. I wonder how much of a difference it really makes though.

[QUOTE="Makari"]about a week and change to reliably crack both.. ME had an early crack with the galaxy map broken, Spore had an early crack that had memory leaks. neither got cracked before discs hit retail somewhere in the world - ME released retail normally, Spore was being sold in Australia about a week before it hit NA.Herrick

I guess that discourages anyone who is not patient enough to wait for a crack. I wonder how much of a difference it really makes though.

[QUOTE="Herrick"]

[QUOTE="Makari"]about a week and change to reliably crack both.. ME had an early crack with the galaxy map broken, Spore had an early crack that had memory leaks. neither got cracked before discs hit retail somewhere in the world - ME released retail normally, Spore was being sold in Australia about a week before it hit NA.Makari

I guess that discourages anyone who is not patient enough to wait for a crack. I wonder how much of a difference it really makes though.

piracy wouldn't be much a problem if most pirates act like inpatient, hype-thrusting and hyping-generating gamers.

amazon reviews are going up complaining about the install limits on Crysis Warhead. problem is, last time i heard there weren't install limits -_- greeeat.Makari

Yeah, from what I've read so far, I'm unsure. The vast majority of information people are providing indicates there are install limits, definitely not a good sign.

There have been screenshots of the back of the box posted showing internet connection and online authentication are required to play. However, that doesn't necessarily mean there are install limits, and some people believe that might be referring to Crysis Wars.

At any rate, there's no official/public announcement, there's no consensus on whether or not the Steam version has install limits, a developer has stated don't panic yet in regards to the DRM (dicussions still taking place?), and for Spore (something could be similarly planned for CW perhaps?) EA is indicating a patch is upcoming that will allow de-authorization of installs.

[QUOTE="Makari"]amazon reviews are going up complaining about the install limits on Crysis Warhead. problem is, last time i heard there weren't install limits -_- greeeat.Nitrous2O

Yeah, from what I've read so far, I'm unsure. The vast majority of information people are providing indicates there are install limits, definitely not a good sign.

There have been screenshots of the back of the box posted showing internet connection and online authentication are required to play. However, that doesn't necessarily mean there are install limits, and some people believe that might be referring to Crysis Wars.

At any rate, there's no official/public announcement, there's no consensus on whether or not the Steam version has install limits, a developer has stated don't panic yet in regards to the DRM (dicussions still taking place?), and for Spore (something could be similarly planned for CW perhaps?) EA is indicating a patch is upcoming that will allow de-authorization of installs.