EA - losing it's way?

[Traffic]

I am concerned about the additional programmes that load with the security software. As a Steam user, I am used to an advert in my face once in a while. But this EA ‘Security’ software sounds appalling.

As a company EA need to understand a good product alone does not keep a customer buying. Hassle free purchase, good customer support and not treating us like goldfish in a bowl and shooting us with malware go a long way.

I have always been happy with BF2 and other EA titles this is a radical departure. I wonder how many people EA have who are not accountants and finance men on their Board of Directors. Please wake up EA, you are a great company don’t let that slip.

I was intending to buy ME, but after all the issues I am sitting it out and waiting for some resolution on both the security and bug fronts.

[EAUK_Omni]

By security software can I assume you mean the DRM ie only installing on 3 machines?

[Traffic]

That is not my main concern; the installation limit could be raised, say to 5. More importantly this software gives itself administrator rights and then wants you to uninstall or not use any software it does not like. This is intrusive and prone to error.

This sort of behaviour in software is classified as malware. The fact we have bought it does not change that.

I do realise that a lot of the whining I am seeing on the internet is from people who are tacitly supporting piracy or those who are over zealous about their PC privacy. But do a google on Securerom Malware, Mass Effect . 588 returns, just for ME alone, this shows it is causing a genuine issue.

EA needs some way of copy protecting it’s games. Can some thought be put into a less intrusive method that does not conflict with other software?

[Braidedheadman]

His concern may not be the limited activations, but it is for a great many more people, including myself. He does raise a number of excellent points, however. I support measures taken to protect a company's intellectual properties (IPs) in so far as they do not infringe upon my own basic rights and freedoms; I do not support piracy, but I also do not support malware and/or limited installs.

That said, I disagree with the notion that people can be over zealous about their privacy. No agency, not the government and certainly not some mega-rich, international organization like EA and its satellite companies, have the right to invade our privacy in the least degree without due cause and without court-ordered documentation to support their actions. It may be different for people who post on international forums like these, but where I am from, my rights to protection from these things are enshrined in law.

Anecdotally, just the other week, as angry as it makes me, the courts in my area threw out all charges against a group of criminals involved in a drug-bust/weapons seizure operation that the cops botched on account of improperly served warrants, even though millions of dollars worth of contraband was found on the premises. Go figure.

With that in mind, assuming that their customers "might be pirates" and using that as an excuse to preemptively install malware (or worse) that deactivates certain other legitimate products is an attack on those rights. It smacks of unlawful search and seizure and should not be accepted by anyone.

[Traffic]

Well the law only works with people who want to stay within in. It is very easy to fine car drivers for offences as an example.

However, the law is an *** when it comes to chasing people who don’t want to get caught. But don’t worry our lawyer class is making a fortune out of the system they preside over.

Privacy is important, but you need to prioritise what is important. Is privacy more important than illegality and so on? When an officer flags down your car, is he not invading your privacy by asking you to wind down your window and check your details? By asking you to step out of your car and check your trunk? What I am getting at here is there are no absolutes; our concept of privacy is an intellectual construction, just like what we decide is legal or illegal.

On the one hand you could say what is EA’s problem? They are making a huge profit out of the games they sell piracy or not. Why cause these consumer problems when they are making a profit? But piracy is getting easier, so companies feel they need to do something now to stem the tide. In an ideal world authentication would not invade privacy, but it may have to if its going to work.

What I am arguing for is for EA to wake up and think about alternatives in copyright protection. The road they are going down involves them becoming more and more invasive of privacy and micro managing the software on our PC’s. They must realise in the long term people are not going to put up with this, I think they are just gambling on the hope we will.

[Remora Wraith]

But the difference is that you can't kill someone with bootleg software, but you can with a car. A drunk driver can kill innocent pedestrians and passengers, the car could be stolen or carrying illegal items and the POLICE have the right to pull the car over if they have due reason to, and even then they have no right to search the car without seeing evidence of illegal activity, even if they smell cannabis unless they see it they can't actually search the car unless you give them permission which most people do because they assume the police can search their car.
However software companies seem to think it's justifyable to put surveillance software on peoples computers, paramount to searching them and they're not the police nor do they have a warrant, and 9 times out of 10 the software is only installed with legitimate copies of the game anyway. A pirate copy would have the software removed as half of the point of pirate downloads is that you can have the game without invasive DRM software, and not to screw the company out of money as they would have you believe. I have downloaded micro disc images and DRM free versions of software that I have already bought for my convenience, I use micro disc images so I can use a 100kb file to trick the game into thinking the disc is there without modifying the game itself and so I don't have to take all my game discs to uni every time I go there.