Agree with that.
Is this new DRM system going to mean less piracy and therefore they can reduce the price based on the supposed millions they lose from piracy not being an issue? This system wont reduce piracy, it wont help consumers, it wont bring down prices. They probably spend more in development of systems like this than they actually save from casual piracy, typical false economy.

I think that after purchasing one copy of game I should be allowed to run one copy of that game at any given time indefinitely. I should be allowed to install the game to any number of computers I want, but only one copy gets to run at any given time.

This happens to be exactly how online FPS games (e.g., Quake Wars) work, and it seems that the developers, publishers and users are all fine with this approach. The reason this works for theses games is they are exclusively online, and it's easy to automatically validate that only one copy is running when you login.

What bothers me about the Mass Effect and Spore DRM is that I effectively don't have an indefinite license to the game by virtue of the limited number of installs. I have three different computers I play games on (1 laptop, 1 home theater computer and 1 dedicated gaming machine), so I'm going to use my three installs immediately. I also upgrade about 1 machine a year on average. Now Gormoth1 argues that I won't be playing the game in a year anyway, and that'll certainly be true if the game sucks. However, if the game is actually good I'll play it for years. My current computer of instance has 1830, Transport Tycoon Deluxe, Star Fleet Command, Starcraft and Rome Total War just to name a few. All those games have existed on more than three generations of my gaming machine.

The real irony about the Mass Effect and Spore DRM is that I didn't really have a problem with the 10 day re-authorization, but rather the limited installs. So they got rid of the DRM I could live with and kept the part I can't. What I argued they should do is allow no more than three machines to authenticate in any 10 day period.

Someone will likely point out that with authentication the license is only as indefinite as the authentication server, and that's true. However, with an authentication server all users are effectively in the same boat, so if they take the server offline the largest possible number of people will complain at the same time. This is important because large soulless corporations like EA are only going care about users who already paid if there reputation is at risk, and having the most people getting upset at the same time is key to that. That's cold logic, but unfortunately true.

And keep in mind this game (Mass Effect) is planned as a trilogy. I know at the very least I'd dig out each previous game and replay it when the new one comes out, just to refresh my memory of the story as well as for continuity.

And while you all are lamenting the draconian DRM policies that EA are using, the console users are laughing like banshees as they take the disc to their friends house and fire it up - in the twelfth distinct X-Box.

I'm starting to see why my brother has been converted (and has been trying to convert me) to consoles. How much freakin' easier is 'put the disc in, push the play button, play the game' over all this doodoo caca?

True but how should a "normal" customer know that the sig.bin file is responsible for it and has to be deleted?
This might actually be a point to improve StarDock DRM a little. Like ... instead of not starting if the sig.bin is different it could just ask for a re-authentication or something like that (I assume it doesn't already since then their problem would have been solved).

They'd just ask about it on the forums, and get an answer the same day from myself or a user. As with any problem, if a cursory search doesn't turn anything up, just ask. I don't mind repeat questions, and it's less frustrating for everyone that way.

Not just that, but the support time for a game from major publishers is getting shorter and shorter it seems. This drives me crazy. A publisher creates a game, supports it for a few months, and then completely stops everything, including bug fixes.

I'm sorry, but I'm sick and tired of games that last less than a year before the publisher goes away. That is simply way too short.



Historically, this is how PC games have worked as well. As long as you have the original disk, you can go to a new PC and play it.

This is also how SDC and Steam work: As long as you're logging into the same account, you can play you games on any PC. In addition, Valve has finally got their act together, and the offline mode finally works, so you can play all of your games without connecting to the internet.



How about getting rid of that disk, which is prone to getting lost and scratched? In my opinion SDC (Stardock Central), Impulse, and Steam are the future of PC gaming. No disks to worry about at all. Just click and play.

I really think EA is holding onto a model that didn't work, is way too draconian, and frankly is going to be outdated. The future will have a much greater emphasis on providing benefits to those who are legitimate.

It's no wonder that EA is doing so poorly on PCs - it's not that the PC is not a good gaming environment anymore, it's that they're making the same mistakes over and over again.

Stardock gets it. Valve is slowly but surely getting it. EA, on the other hand, is not getting it at all. They're being too stubborn. They're not thinking outside the box. There's a better way, and they're refusing to give up their old way of doing things.

I agree that this is the best possible solution, but still . . . so few companies are getting the drift.

The more that follow suit, the better.

First, the point is pretty mute now because my friend refuses to ever touch that game again. But, when he got his new computer (including new hard drive), "everything" including windows xp and GCII was reinstalled. Using the exact same passwords to get on the forums and to write to stardock got us error messages saying "you have no accounts here". BUT, when we tried to make new accounts, we got never ending messages saying "That name is already in use", "That passowrd is already in use", or worst of all "another player is already using that email address". And every time, my friend is going "How in the heck do they know what's inside my computer, and that it's new!?!?!". He is really freaked now that people my age and youger take companies "peeking" into our computers so casually. . . . . .

Purple, sounds like you screwed up name / password -- did you try recovering them?

Gormoth, I don't believe anyone has said it's illegal for EA to shoot themselves in the foot with this idiotic system. It's just stupid.

It's an unmitigated fact that drm hasn't done a damn thing to stop piracy. It never has, and it never will. You cannot write something that can't be neutralized. Just making it hard is costing the industry a fortune, and has only suceeded in killing entire companies. They made it hard in Titan's Quest by disguising security checks as bugs. It worked, no one caught it. The security made it through the cracking process, and interested customers looking before they bought, decided not to. The best success story I've seen was Richochet. The guy was tracking the stats while making changes, looking to see what he was actually accomplishing. He saw some really nice sales increases when he disabled pirated keys. No effect on the consumer. He also discovered that despite the number of pirated versions being played, about one in a thousand actually gave a shit enough to buy the game instead of just not playing it. It's not an enigma, they know it doesn't work, they know how few of the pirates will actually buy the game. They know that even if they could create a completely hack proof game, they'd still lose more customers to annoyance than they gained by it.

There was another system that almost worked. One of the higher end versions of Starforce installed exceedingly dangerous drivers where no program should be installing anything. It degraded the performance of machines by as much as 30%, and not just when the protected item was running. It also disabled other software, purchased, legal software with legitimate uses. That by the way is a crime in the US. The intentional vandalism of ones property, by disabling hardware and software on someones computer without their permission, is that the right of the corporation? The longest running secure game, unless the record has been beaten, and I haven't heard of anything close, is Rainbow Six: Lockdown. It went months. It sold like shit. It used the previously mentioned illegal malware. Following the Starforce fiasco, Ubisoft lost customers in droves, forum riots broke out over multiple games, this little spat with EA over Mass Effect is nothing. Even if you don't mind the contempt they have for you as a paying customer, the violation of your rights to be informed of what you're being forced to use, or the destruction it will cause to your system, the most secure anti-piracy system to date didn't do a damn thing to help them sell pc games.

Mandatory online activations with a 3 pc limit wont help EA sell pc games either. They have the right to do any damn thing they please as long as they are up front about it, what they don't have are brains.

No, the name/password worked just fine "until" he got the new compter, then, somehow, the game knew it was not the "same" computer as before, and I guess thought we were pirates or some such #$&@. I have no idea; cause I prety much just gave up too.

And yes, some nice Devs on this board have told me if I send them all the new info, they'd fix it alllll up. I'm not interested; the entire process was such a huge pita for both of us, that no amount of "fun" I may get could make up for all the month+ of hassle. That's sad too, cause I'm sure my friend would have bought the newest GCII expansion had they just let him play his SOLO game on his new computer. . . . . .

Well Purple, I can understand your frustration, but I'd bite the bullet and see if you can get it going again. You've got nothing to lose.

Purple, it sounds more like something got screwed up and they'd like the info to figure out what got screwed up. Additionally, I can tell you that I've used four computers with SDC, (well, three with SDC; two with Impulse, one computer overlapping with both) and never had a hickup.

Well, I'll mention it to my friend; who knows, maybe he has another operation comming up