I don't usually find piracy easy to justify, but considering that EA has been pig-headed to the extreme over the use of SecuROM in its products -- a measure deemed harmful to the enjoyment of the paying consumer -- it's kind of karmic to learn that Spore's piracy levels have been deemed "extraordinary" by by one peer-to-peer research firm.
Spore has been at the center of a big DRM controversy, as its piracy-protection program generated a huge user backlash on Amazon. We also learned that EA's "draconian" level of control limits people to creating only one account per copy of the game. People are understandably angry and upset at Electronic Arts for exerting this kind of dictatorial power over its customers, and it looks like they are doing what they can to punish the publisher.
"The numbers are extraordinary," exclaimed Eric Garland, boss of P2P researcher Big Champagne. "This is a very high level of torrent activity even for an immensely popular game title."
The game has been downloaded 171,402 times since September 1, and users such as "deathkitten" on The Pirate Bay are urging users to add to that figure, claiming that it's "the right thing," to do. The right thing it may not entirely be, but EA was kind of asking for it. If you punish your paying customers by using detrimental DRM, something like this is bound to happen. It also proves that SecuROM doesn't bloody work, either.
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Contest:
4:22 AM on 09.14.2008
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I'm not touching Spore until this mess gets sorted out.
P.S.
I'm pretty sure most of the people bitching are the pirates themselves.
and just stop the bitching about piracy. what have EA ever done for you? aside from charge you far too much for their overrated slightly updated sports titles and of course add securom to them, so you can only play them a small number of times.
if anyones doing the proverbial cock sucking (great term volomon), it's you guys pretending that EA's your daddy.
I'm pretty sure the pirates could care less. There was a DRM-free version of Spore floating around the internet at least five days before the release of the game.
Also fuck Spore. Will Wright had to dumb it down to pre-school level for the casual market (See: Destructoid Review). I didn't even play it for more than a day. Not worth $50 at all.
Red Alert 3 I'm pissed about because it's shaping up to be a great game (Unlike spore) yet it has the same crap DRM.
Just keep pushing EA. We'll push back.
Despite my being very much againest piracy I am currently torrenting XP, I own a copy of it but seem to have mislayed it, so at the same time I think I'll download spore. This is not to play it, just to pump up the numbers yay.
I mean, the game was hacked before release, what does that say?
Its easy to combat Piracy don't be a douche and we will buy your games.
So I still have no spore.
It's the right of EA as the copyright holder to seek to place DRM on their software. It is the right of Sony to sell them that DRM service. However... it is not right that SecuROM attacks the Zune software and kills all CD detection for ripping and transfer purposes.
Sony is using SecuROM to attack Microsoft's software, and EA made themselves an accessory to the fact. *blows a party whistle*
make pirate the only way you can try the game before you buy you cant rent PC games.
If not in about a month if im not playing anything good its as good as lifted. Fair reasoning in my book.
They can get people interested in the game, but they can't force people to buy it, especially when you can get it for free with less hassle. It's high time they started making people want to buy their games. DRM will never do anything to curb file sharing, it only makes it worse through coverage and turning off paying customers.
People will pirate, and people will buy. It's kind of a sign that your game is good
The other thing that this is doing long term for the PC game market is terrible since you really are opening a world of piracy to those that are new to it or wouldn't otherwise pirate games. These people feel justified because of the DRM and will probably pirate something else losing sales not just for EA, but for other manufacturers as well.
To tell you the truth- if tomorrow there was a DRM free version of spore that was listed on the box with "DRM FREE, INSTALL LIMIT REMOVED, MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS SUPPORTED" I would reconsider and prolly buy it, but that is not going to happen.
I'm pretty sure most of the people bitching are the pirates themselves."
Why would a pirate bitch about it? They were probably going to pirate the game anyway, DRM or not.
This is one of the dumbest comments I've seen in a long time. Why the f**k would pirates even care?! The DRM doesn't affect them!!
And this is only going to give EA more reason to put that piece of shit DRM on every other PC game they release.
Which will only give us a reason to start looking at other game companies. I'm sure that there is a lot of gold out there that simply hasn't gotten our attention yet.
If EA comes out soon and apologies, taking out the DRM by free download and changing all copies will buy Spore.
My only concern there is even they they remove the requirement to use SecurROM, will the crapware will still be installed or will it actually uninstall it?
What's DRM for? Isn't it to prevent illegal piracy of the game? Well if it was cracked and distributed 5 days before it's even released, I think that shows clearly how much good DRM actually does against pirates. So DRM isn't accomplishing its job, instead, it's punishing actual buyers at this point, given that the pirates don't have to deal with the mess created by DRM (limited installs, activation, etc.).
I don't really understand how it's gotten to this point... Starcraft is cracked on the internet, but you can't play multiplayer with it. The fact that you need to actually purchase it to play multiplayer is, to me, the best detergent against pirates (besides making the game good enough to merit its purchase).
Most people play Starcraft, Counter-Strike, etc. for their multiplayer, making it worthy to buy in a pirates view. I'm not saying that games such as Diablo and Doom should be pirated because it won't make a difference these days, I buy PC games if they're worth it, regardless of whether or not a pirated version is the same. But when a pirated version of a game is actually BETTER than the real version, something is wrong...
The only difference is you can't go online with the game, but I heard that there is no real multiplayer in this game, just downloading other people's creations I believe. Now, as I said before, a game doesn't need to have multiplayer to merit its buy, and I'm very interested in Spore, but with that awful DRM system they have now it almost seems counter-productive to buy the game as opposed to downloading it. Especially given the fact that I'm unemployed and a full-time student in college, I don't have money readily available to risk purchasing a game which many describe to be a long rental because of its DRM...
I'm pretty sure you're drunk.
If you don't want to deal with the DRM, then don't buy the fucking game. Is that so fucking hard? And you guys are saying to yourself, "Well, I'm going to teach EA a lesson! Their never gonna take advantage of me again." You're a fucking twat. EA has no problem with money for every copy of Spore you steal, somewhere else two copies of Madden NFL 09 are being bought. The only people you are hurting are the people you put their hard work into this game. The people who slaved over this game for years trying to make it the best they possibility could.
Besides, the only reason this DRM or any kind of DRM even exists is because of pirates. If shitbags like you guys didn't pirate games then there wouldn't be any DRM. So, now you think pirating the game is going help? Are you fucking retarded? This just means that the next big PC will have even more ridiculous DRM.
Hey, you guys see Live Free or Die Hard? Remember in the beginning when all the pirates and hackers' computers were exploding? Ah, I can still dream...
Well i think the way people see it is that boycotting would not send a message... EA will notice it's sales numbers and it will hear people complaining, but there are no numbers to tell them whether the boycotters are a vocal minority or numbering in the tens-of-thousands. EA gets no indication of how many sales they actually loosing out on
However, Pirating also holds a similar drawback in that EA can not tell how many people are real pirates (whom would never buy the game) and those who are protesting and actually would buy the game if EA would use a less draconian DRM and get rid of that piece of shit malware SecuRom... granted the piracy levels being far higher than normal along with the amazon fiasco might help send the message, but EA could easily see those pirated numbers as sales lost and what they will never be able to get back...
not to mention the pirating also reinforces the belief that EA must do something... though you would think they would realize the DRM and SecuRom are pointless now that the game has been pirated and therefore have no need to hold on to it... But we know how evil EA is
I guess the way to meet half way would be to boycott and then push around a petition that damns EA's methods and also claims that the signers would be willing to buy spore once they got rid of the crap on the disk.
1) EA charge for 'protection' if you buy through their digital distribution system (which only lasts a couple of yeasr). If after 6 months (or that couple of years) you have a problem, EA will tell you to buy the game again.
2) Limiting installs makes it far less likely that people will buy a used copy.
If you're cool with publishers infringing on your rights as a consumer, at least be aware of why they are doing it. EA hope this game will be as big as The Sims. How many times do you think people have reinstalled those games over the course of several years with all those expansions? How many times have you reinstalled your favourite game when there's nothing to play and then deleted it when you need the room?
This DRM is a part of the game forever. What's to say that EA don't just drop the game and lock people out as they reach limits when there's a sequel released? They already do this with servers for sports games I believe.
Ask yourself why the hell EA would spend money on DRM for Red Alert 3 to stop piracy when the exact same system was used for Spore, which was cracked and on file sharing sites 5 days before the release date? It makes no sense.
The solution is simple if you have such a huge problem with it. DON'T BUY THE GAME! Stealing it hurts everyone who actually bought the game because its just going to make DRM even more ridiculous.
I want Red Alert 3 but NOT with a DRM so I wont be touching it, not even illegally touching it.
Dead Space can come on over to my PS3 though no DRM there.
When I buy a game, I should be able to install it as many times as I god damn want. Shit happens, and computers may need formatting. Hell, I should be able to format for the fun of it, and why should I want to care about trying to work with a broken windows with a bad registry because I don't want to deal with losing an install of spore?