PC Gamers Angered by EA's New Copy Protection System

You know, it is funny. There are people, in many industries, that have decided that piracy is nowhere near the problem that other companies have made it. As an example, the music industry is apparently the most problematic with piracy concerns. And yet, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails actually freely gives his stuff away, putting his music under a Creative Commons license even, and he sells the music as well. Did he get hit negatively with piracy? Nope. In fact, it seems that when people have the freedom to hand the music around, it attract more fans, and people are willing to support him.

The thing is, piracy will exist. The nature of software is such that making a big deal over piracy is somewhat counter-intuitive to software, where the whole system is based around making copies. Rather than thinking of piracy as something negative and to be stomped out (this effectively making it happen a lot more frequently), the developers should realize it is effectively a form of advertisement -- free advertisement at that. People who really like something will be willing to pay for it. But attempting to stranglehold the process just gets a lot of those who might be willing to pay for a good product to not be as interested in the product.

In other words, don't tick off your customer base, don't treat them like children or criminals, don't assume they all are criminals. EA apparently, in this move has decided that all of their customers are inherently criminals and thieves.

Note: I am not promoting piracy, I am just saying that companies like EA need to figure out a better way of handling/dealing with it, rather than taking measures that penalize all of their customers for the actions of a few.

I'm either not going to buy it now...and I've been looking forward to it since news of it first came out....or I'm going to wait until someone hacks it so this 3 time installation thing is invalid....what happens when you have to reformat or your comp gets a virus eh? I'm not gonna split my hard drive or buy an external one just for this game. Not to mention there's no real reason to check for the CD-key all the time like that besides paranoia...if you have it the first five times you're gonna have it the next five too.

What I'm curious about is, if I buy a legit copy of something but it doesn't work due to crappy DRM, and I then download a cracked version of the same game and install it only on my own machine (the one I would have played the legit version on) - am I breaking copyright law?

I do mostly PC gaming and honestly I don't have a big issue with copy protection as long as it doesn't interfere with me being able to play the game. What makes me worry is that the ability to play the game is entirely contingent on the publisher's authentication server working. Are the Bioshock auth servers going to be on until the end of civilization? What if I want to play it ten years from now - will they keep their servers on and updated so I can? Fortunately I always figure that if all else fails I get a pirated copy of a game I already bought. They have my money, I get to play my game, so who really is wronged in this situation?

I was planning on buying Spore, and thinking of buy Mass Effect's PC version. Now I will be buying neither. I refuse to buy games that require me to "phone home" constantly in order to prove that I purchased them.

@Black Manta

The thing is, the Orange Box and Bioshock (which use different protection schemes/verification systems to my knowledge) only require you to connect to the internet for initial setup. After that you can play offline at your leisure. This more recent version requires you to contantly connect to the internet every few days, which is going to be an annoyance to more than a few people. Sure it doesn't affect you, but for people with more limited internet access (yes some people still have dial-up and lack a home network) it'll be a pain. Then there are those of us that object on principle. It might not be a problem for me from a technical standpoint, but I refuse to put money towards games that assume I'm a pirate and will shut down if I don't constantly prove I'm not.

Well, I was planning on getting the PC version... thanks EA. Guess I'm getting it on the 360.

/fail.

Big Brother is watching you play your games.

Well good work EA you just lost another sale thanks to your "protection".

Like many gamers, I'm torn on this one. Despite hearing a raft of bad news about the Bioshock protection, I wanted it badly enough that I bought it, and I honestly had no real problems with the copy protection. (And since the game really isn't good enough to merit a reinstall anytime soon, the limited number of activations isn't a major concern.) But my level of interest in Mass Effect and Spore was significantly lower; definitely there, but not off the charts. And unfortunately, in both cases this kind of intrusive and wholly unnecessary copy protection scheme is enough to drive me away from them. I won't be purchasing either.

But the reality is that those of us who actually refuse to purchase the game, as opposed to people who just make noise about it and then cave in and lay down their money on launch day, represent such a tiny portion of the game's intended audience that we won't even register with EA. When this scheme fails - and it will - major publishers will just come up with something even more outlandish and demanding. Pirates will play their games, the paying public will deal with increasing levels of frustration, and a few of us will just do without.

And for the record, I won't be pirating these things either. I support the industry enough that a refusal to buy the game does not equate to a green light to pirate it. That kind of self-serving thinking is one of the reason the littlebrains at EA think they need to go to these lengths to protect their property.

Spore is easily the most anticipated game of all time for me, and this is going to make me pirate it instead of buy it. GG EA, gg.

Which is why i prefer console gaming.I still need to check out Mass Effect once my 360 gets repaired.

Back in the day, EA practically built up PC gaming with their own hands. Now, they've basically tearing it down. It'd be fitting if it wasn't so tragic.

TheEdge
I'd rather hack the game that put up with a easy break oven, also its better to wait and get the game used cheap than to buy it full price with all that crap on it.

It could be worse it could have a 5 token install like Bioshock still has........

NovaBlack
Bioshock didnt have a full working crack for about 1 week,a ton a fakes and buggy ones but nothign solid for about 1 or 2 weeks.

Goddamn EA!

I actually feel that out of all the anti-piracy measures on the market, this is by far the most favorable. Right now its greatest drawback is the dubious quality and technical hiccups that come from SecuRom products.

Why do I favor it? Because when done right its completely transparent. I think you do not have to look farther than Valve's Steam system to see this same sort of verification system working transparently to the user.

Maybe as a bonus this means we won't have to keep a disk in the drive tray to play?

I was going to get spore from wal-mart. Now I'm getting it from The Pirate Bay.

Oh well, looks like I'll be pirating it then.

If Will Wright and everyone else involved in creating the game would care to supply me with PayPal details, I'll be happy to send them the money afterwards.

@TheFremen: "Blizzard never uses draconian copyright protection that completely fucks up your system and causes instability, why do all these other people feel the need to do that?"

What's Warden then, chopped liver?

I have two requirements for PC (single player) games, if something doesn't meet these requirements, it doesn't get bought. All these requirements are is simple security best practices, so they're not all that unreasonable.

1) No direct network connections
2) No admin access required, either to install or run.

Very, very little actually meets this, so I've only been console gaming for a while.

The cost to produce games is rising at a significant rate, while the number of people paying for games is dropping thanks to the growth of the internet and the increasing ease of sharing warez. It doesn't take an expert to realize that's not sustainable. So what should the videogame companies do? They can raise the price of their games so that they make more money off the legitimate buyers, or they can put on copy protection to try to discourage pirates, or they can just stop making games with several-year development cycles and top-of-the-line graphics and go back to churning out uninnovative first-person shooters with four-year-old graphics based on old and cheap engines.

This "I don't approve of copy protection, so I'll pirate" mentality just hurts matters - companies need money to make games, and anyway they can't distinguish the self-righteous people who use idiotic statements to justify their piracy from the old-style pirates who admit that they just want to play games for free. They've got to stop piracy SOMEHOW, and pirating instead of buying the game just encourages them to try that much harder. You shouldn't need to install a game more than 3-5 times anyway.

I was thinking about buying Mass Effect... I guess not. Thanks EA for giving me a reason to spend money elsewhere.

Steam is what any type of DRM should be. Steam isn't intrusive, hell its a convience nowadays. I understand when Steam was new it sucked, but VALVe got its shit together with Steam and now its a very good distribution platform.

If EA either 1) Distributed its games through Steam without its SecuROM bullshit, or 2) Developed a steam-like service that didn't use SecuROM more PC games would be happy.

I've no interest in these games to begin with but I'm in agreement with everyone who is upset about these security measures.

It DOES NOT matter what security measures you put on a game. At some point, somewhere, someone is going to break through them and they're going to get a pirated version up regardless. If someone wants to crack it bad enough, they will, nothing the publisher can do to stop it.

@Those defending this security measure...

Where were you in the early days of PC gaming when security measures like this weren't available or even a remote idea to publishers? The internet was around then, much like it is still today, and I don't recall piracy being any worse then than it is now. There were CD keys to be sure but there weren't draconian measures to ensure your paying customers got the shaft. You defend the publisher but forget the consumers who -- despite what you might want to believe -- may NEED to reinstall this game several times in a short period are going to be shafted. Is it fair to the consumer? Hell no.

I don't think piracy is helpful to anyone but neither is paranoia and shafting your customers. They'll make less money with security measures like this than they would have if they weren't so damn paranoid. Piracy will persist as long as pirates continue to become better at what they do. Why should the honest consumer suffer for this though? I still play games from 10 years ago, and I would NOT be happy if measures like this were put in place back then because those games that I continue to enjoy would no longer be working today.

Also... Once that money has left my pocket, and purchased a copy of that game, I am of the opinion that that is no longer property of the corporation that is selling it. It belongs to me. I've given my money to the appropriate entity and I'm entitled to use it (or not use it) at me leisure. I shouldn't be forced to inform them on what I'm doing with MY property past that point.