Spore Copy Protection Q&A

[Spah]

1000 get.

Anyway, I'm surprised by what the "suits" are doing. Surely they have analysists who tell them that ALL of their security features can be cracked, so why do they even bother with new forms of DRM? Can't they just realise that piracy is inevitable and work to improve the game for the paying customer?

[NicMacc]

Originally Posted by Spah

1000 get.

Anyway, I'm surprised by what the "suits" are doing. Surely they have analysists who tell them that ALL of their security features can be cracked, so why do they even bother with new forms of DRM? Can't they just realise that piracy is inevitable and work to improve the game for the paying customer?

fail...fail again...fail better.

SecuROM won't stop the big boys, but if recent reports are true i cant just go and give my sister a copy of the game unless she's gone and bought it herself. I cant just go install it on a mates computer and get a no cd crack. it stops casual piracy. The big boys will find a way around everything, but the more they try, the more difficult it'll become, the less efficient the big boys will be and eventually (in theory) for many, piracy just wont be worth the effort.

[MetroPolice]

Originally Posted by Spah

1000 get.

Anyway, I'm surprised by what the "suits" are doing. Surely they have analysists who tell them that ALL of their security features can be cracked, so why do they even bother with new forms of DRM? Can't they just realise that piracy is inevitable and work to improve the game for the paying customer?

And thats why there is SecuROM in Spore. Because the so called glorious fat hackers. And the more you poke the dragon's eye the dragon will become more angry.

[Spah]

Originally Posted by NicMacc

I cant just go install it on a mates computer and get a no cd crack. it stops casual piracy.

That's EXACTLY what you can do for Mass Effect and Spore CC, I doubt this new SOOPER SEEKRIT version of SecuROM will be much different. I have never heard of a game that had a large demand like Spore but was never cracked. If a hardcore pirate doesn't do it, then an irate legit user who's sick of SecuROM will. Thanks to The Internet, all it takes is for one person to successfully crack the game and upload it to a torrent site for a million people to get the cracked game. I mentioned this in one of the other threads, casual pirates nowadays can get the same cracks and tools as the hardcore dudes, a lot of the time all it takes is to search for it using Google. Casual piracy as it's own classification of people shouldn't even exist, because in the end the 13 year old kids and the 24 year old 1337 college h4xx0rs have the same modus operandi.

If you don't believe me then go lurk on a certain Swedish pirate-themed torrent tracker (you know the one I'm talking about). Look at the comments posted around on torrents and stuff, and when you realise that around a 3rd of everyone who successfully pirate their games there don't even know what an .exe is then you'll see just how omnipotent copy protection systems like SecuROM are.

Originally Posted by MetroPolice

And thats why there is SecuROM in Spore. Because the so called glorious fat hackers. And the more you poke the dragon's eye the dragon will become more angry.

I don't view the pirates as the problem, even if there was no real game piracy stuff like SecuROM would be put on games just to impress shareholders, if for nothing else. I've never been robbed, ever, but that doesn't stop me from having 3 locks on my doors. I know perfectly well that these locks are as good a security feature against professional robbers as a paper bag, but I still have them in place. I imagine it's a similar ethos as with EA.

In the end, I guess, it all comes down to your own opinion. I have NEVER had anything bad done to me by an internet Long John Silver, which I can't say about EA.

[NicMacc]

Originally Posted by Spah

That's EXACTLY what you can do for Mass Effect and Spore CC, I doubt this new SOOPER SEEKRIT version of SecuROM will be much different. I have never heard of a game that had a large demand like Spore but was never cracked. If a hardcore pirate doesn't do it, then an irate legit user who's sick of SecuROM will. Thanks to The Internet, all it takes is for one person to successfully crack the game and upload it to a torrent site for a million people to get the cracked game. I mentioned this in one of the other threads, casual pirates nowadays can get the same cracks and tools as the hardcore dudes, a lot of the time all it takes is to search for it using Google. Casual piracy as it's own classification of people shouldn't even exist, because in the end the 13 year old kids and the 24 year old 1337 college h4xx0rs have the same modus operandi.

If you don't believe me then go lurk on a certain Swedish pirate-themed torrent tracker (you know the one I'm talking about). Look at the comments posted around on torrents and stuff, and when you realise that around a 3rd of everyone who successfully pirate their games there don't even know what an .exe is then you'll see just how omnipotent copy protection systems like SecuROM are.

look at gaming history. in the past, any 13 year old could buy a game, install it on all of their friends PC's, and bang, early PC piracy was born. Then DRM was slowly introduced, and the above 13 year old couldnt just walk into his mates house and install it without a serial number...pirating the game got a little more difficult.

13 year old then googles the serial. a pro software cracker guy has found the serials, not the average 13 year old. if the 13 year old wanted to do it on his own, odds are he couldnt. Pro Piracy was born.

Now piracy has been limited from every Tom, Richard and Harry being able to pirate the game to just Tom and Rich. (its going to censor the word lalala i know it) Harry cant pirate the game anymore! (and yes i know, Tom and Rich can share their pirate games, but at least the 13 year old cant just easily pirate the game whenever he wants)

eventually the DRM methods will try to make it so that only Tom can pirate the game, and Rich will be out of the equation, sitting on the sidelines with Harry.

The aim isnt to beat the pirates outright, but to slow them down, make it more difficult until new methods come out to maybe stop them entirely.

[Spah]

Originally Posted by NicMacc

Now piracy has been limited from every Tom, Richard and Harry being able to pirate the game to just Tom and Rich. (its going to censor the word lalala i know it) Harry cant pirate the game anymore! (and yes i know, Tom and Rich can share their pirate games, but at least the 13 year old cant just easily pirate the game whenever he wants)

Harry would have to be either completely lazy or a total idiot to not able to crack the game. I just typed in "Mass Effect Crack" into Google and got links to torrents with the crack. If Harry wants the game half as bad as I do, then I'm sure he'd be willing to sacrifice maybe 15 mins of his precious time to get a torrent program and find a torrent for the crack that works fine. I don't know of ANYONE who isn't able to use Google, so your theory about trying to slow down pirates seems improbable, as our modern gamer generation is learning how to carry out basic functions on the PC faster than new forms of copy protections are being created.


Look at it like this, I've known about game cracks for the last 5 years, and have been using them since then to make it easier for me to play the games I've bought. After 5 years most games are STILL cracked with the traditional "copy cracked .exe over original one". I doubt casual gamers are so slow that they would be unable to master game cracking operations in 5 years.

[VertMorta]

I believe we are talking about primary level hacking (Macking no cd cracks) not just simply downloading a crack as tom rich harry and jane can do it now, only aunt ethel may not be able to but most games aunt ethel wouldnt and wouldnt want to play.

(ironicaly Spore and the Sims may just be the games aunt ethel would blay and grany mo).

to give my take on the eveypeople involved

Tom A hacker (Tom) Tech wizard eats .exe for breakfast .dll for lunch and viruses for dinner
Rich a webbie (Rich) internet savvy been into computers so long remembers writing batch (.bat) files in the old days of dos/win3
harry a user (Harry) a good average computer user may dabble in html and knows what a driver is
Jane a Noobie (jane) reasonably computer literate just not into games and coding in any way knows what a web address is but would look at you odd if you asked for a URL
Auntie Ethel a Noob (A. Ethel) May just be able to boot up a computer to write an email not realy anything of a gamer maybe the odd game of mahjong or other "Casual" games
Grany Mo a nobody Silly young with all this computer nonsence in my day we sang songs round the piano type person likely but not always and elderly person (Also some elder "Silver surfers may be much higher names here)

[Watashiii]

Originally Posted by MetroPolice

And thats why there is SecuROM in Spore. Because the so called glorious fat hackers. And the more you poke the dragon's eye the dragon will become more angry.

So... More pirates crack games, more legitimate users will suffer and pirates won't notice the difference? I don't get it

[Sweetcornminer]

Originally Posted by NicMacc

that article states x game having no copy protection and selling thousands, but it doesnt state how many people downloaded the game illegally, and how much potential profit lost because of it

I think you missed the point of the article. The guy was saying that people who can and do pirate games are not potential customers, only users.
That's what he was saying, forget about the pirates totally, they don't feature in a companies interests so why spend time effort and money in trying to stop people who weren't going to give you any money from being a user.

Stardock is truly an unsung hero in the pc game market, the system is robust, you have excellent support and you never need CD's.

And unlike STEAM, it doesn't run in the background constantly.

Oh, and Galactic Civilizations 2 is a fantastic game, and if anyone is "jonesing" for a Spore-type spaceship building fix, I'd heartily recommend it.

[Lethn]

I think some people are missing the point of the article, I pirate my games even when I've got the legitimate version and they actually work better because there isn't any rubbishy protection software running in the background constantly and slowing things down. What the person in the article is saying is that it's not the piracy that stopped them from making a big profit it was actually more the fact that it was so difficult for them to get the message out to the general public about it because of big publishers like EA hogging all the gaming magazines etc.

Most people that I know who pirate do buy legitimate copies of games and I'm still waiting on what EA's response will be, in the end I may well just get the legitimate copy and crack it anyway just so I can have a nice flow of user made creatures on my PC, though then again looking at the Sporepedia it looks like I may well be able to get past that activation thing anyway.

[Spah]

Originally Posted by VertMorta

I believe we are talking about primary level hacking (Macking no cd cracks) not just simply downloading a crack as tom rich harry and jane can do it now, only aunt ethel may not be able to but most games aunt ethel wouldnt and wouldnt want to play.

It would be impossible to stop primary-level hacking. If a branch of the FBI that deals specifically in cyber-crime can't stop it, then EA definitely won't. Any copy protection software made by man can be reverse-engineered by man, and unless they plan to create new software protection systems at a faster rate than the old ones are cracked (impossible) then they can forget about stopping the pirates.

Originally Posted by Sweetcornminer

Stardock is truly an unsung hero in the pc game market, the system is robust, you have excellent support and you never need CD's.

And unlike STEAM, it doesn't run in the background constantly.

Hey hey hey, Steam is great. It's background activities can be justified by it being an Instant Messenger, if nothing else.

[Peteuplink2]

SecuROM is not going to solve piracy in computer games. Even the "causual pirates" will be able to get round the "protection" by use of cracks.

We see games companies up in arms about piracy of PC games... Oh it's sooo bad, and because it so bad we have to charge more for the games, and we need to take more measures to prevent it.... blah, blah

The main issue that the software compaines keep avoiding is that piracy of movies is waaaay worse than piracy in games. Even before a movie is out on DVD these days you can get a pirated copy of it from your local market (sometimes even before it's out on the cinema), and DVD companies aren't seeing fit to create new and annoying ways to "protect" their products. Okay they're copy protected, but that copy protection doesn't interfere with the legitimate buyer enjoyment of the product, unlike some of the "protection" systems on computer games.

[MetroPolice]

Hehe. It still surprises me that people here keep repeating the same thing and they actualy dont evin relize it. Funny.

[Naenia]

well protest needs to be done and they realise it alright. again if people didnt do this kind of thing...wed be practically living a life full of nothing we want....

but yeah, if they never repeated people would miss this topic basically....im gonna stop talking to the troll now.....(if only he is for this topic only >_>) dont be offended it was a joke but seriously people gotta protest what they think is unfair to the majority

[flatfroggerx]

Originally Posted by Malgor

SecuROM is the DRM in this case, but it is not the *only* DRM available - that is why I made the point that we are not against DRM *in principle*, but we are against this one. TBH, you cannot realistically expect main-stream publishers to abandon DRM altogether, as Stardock have done, because they are not run by gamers - they are run by 'suits', who are, by nature, a paranoid bunch. They will *never* drop DRM, and they should not have to - but they need to understand that buying in to the the DRM with the best sales patter in not the best option - they have to find a solution which actually works for their customers. Obviously, any solution they find will *not* work against piracy, but it should not impede their customers.

No offence i think you are mixing "copy protection" with "Digital rights management". Copy protection is there to check the version of the game I have is legitimate. Digital rights management is there to make sure that I use whatever the item is properly and don't share it or do anything they don't want me to do with it. i.e music convert it to be played on certain mp3 players, transfer it else where, etc or spore install it on multiple PC's or "share" it.

Copy protection I hold no issue with (unless its starforce). Securom (which used to just be copy protection) and now has the 3 activation DRM module, I DO have an issue with and the vast majority of people here have an issue with. Therefore I am against it and any other game which uses it.

[Peteuplink2]

Originally Posted by MetroPolice

Hehe. It still surprises me that people here keep repeating the same thing and they actualy dont evin relize it. Funny.

Well maybe you're just too thick to get the meaning of what we're saying and that's why we keep repeating ourselves.

[MetroPolice]

Originally Posted by Naenia

well protest needs to be done and they realise it alright. again if people didnt do this kind of thing...wed be practically living a life full of nothing we want....

but yeah, if they never repeated people would miss this topic basically....im gonna stop talking to the troll now.....(if only he is for this topic only >_>) dont be offended it was a joke but seriously people gotta protest what they think is unfair to the majority

Well. If they seriously want SecuROM to be deleted... why they talking here? Its like talking to a brick wall. It wont respond.

[MetroPolice]

Originally Posted by Peteuplink2

Well maybe you're just too thick to get the meaning of what we're saying and that's why we keep repeating ourselves.

Sorry that i wont waste my words to something that wont happen and didnt cause any harm for me? =/

[Peteuplink2]

Originally Posted by MetroPolice

Sorry that i wont waste my words to something that wont happen and didnt cause any harm for me? =/

I rest my case.

[NicMacc]

you yourself have repeated a few times that people in this thread keep repeatng themselves...you're not so innocent in this :P

[MetroPolice]

Originally Posted by NicMacc

you yourself have repeated a few times that people in this thread keep repeatng themselves...you're not so innocent in this :P

Omg xD You got me there.

[Naenia]

well maybe so...but at least they are trying to get to the masses by letting people at least know about it

and i guess securom is like fast food...some get fat and die and others it doesnt effect at all. to futher this the amount consumed affects this...someone could heavily eat the stuff and no harm will be done, and others eat it not so much and they get problems. then theres various types...like securom theres different levels and some say securom has done something...it may or may not have...just like the junk food lover died it may have been the hamburgers or not thats why theres a postmortem (sp?)

but still as people will find out when spore comes out that their games decide eventually not to work because of install limits and calling up ea may or may not get only one measly activation back and when thats used phoning up aaaagain of which time they could even refuse the request of the activation return if they dont see fit to do so....so some poor sod cant play his game and doesnt want to pirate so hes lost and may as well play frisby with the disk now

and the other potential problems securom is said to may cause intentionally or not

[MetroPolice]

Originally Posted by Naenia

well maybe so...but at least they are trying to get to the masses by letting people at least know about it

and i guess securom is like fast food...some get fat and die and others it doesnt effect at all. to futher this the amount consumed affects this...someone could heavily eat the stuff and no harm will be done, and others eat it not so much and they get problems. then theres various types...like securom theres different levels and some say securom has done something...it may or may not have...just like the junk food lover died it may have been the hamburgers or not thats why theres a postmortem (sp?)

but still as people will find out when spore comes out that their games decide eventually not to work because of install limits and calling up ea may or may not get only one measly activation back and when thats used phoning up aaaagain of which time they could even refuse the request of the activation return if they dont see fit to do so....so some poor sod cant play his game and doesnt want to pirate so hes lost and may as well play frisby with the disk now

and the other potential problems securom is said to may cause intentionally or not

You made me hungry. And i think its quite bad the new comers come here and read all the fairy tales told about SecuROM and now they wont buy the game. And i bet most people saying that SecuROM killed their comp is a lie. And i still havent seen any proof about SecuROM causing damage. Till i dont see a phsical/existing proof of the damage it dos or did. I will not believe any of it.

[Naenia]

thats valid, but at least the activations concern you? they may or may not be refunded and its only one at a time you can request for

[MetroPolice]

Originally Posted by Naenia

thats valid, but at least the activations concern you? they may or may not be refunded and its only one at a time you can request for

Well, i dont do anything to my comp wich wold surely use up an activation.