Spore Copy Protection Q&A

[Mokkun]

Originally Posted by MetroPolice

Rebel Scum! Emperor EA will have victory by... err.. using the force of SecuROM.. thats right.. ROAR!

grin, and download services have 1,000,000s of securom avoidances.. securom are forceless, useless and overpriced junk.

[Leafsnail]

"Overpriced"? I doubt it costs anything. The money they save in piracy probably makes up for the absolutely minimal cost of it, making the game cheaper.

Actually, I prefer Securom, because it means you don't need to insert the disc to play, so you can actually share it with 4 friends.

[flatfroggerx]

Securom only costs around $200k. Not a lot.

Enjoy sharing it with 4 friends then getting screwed by useless support. Considering they only refund one per support request its going to be a constant rally of requests from then on out regardless of your issue.

Not having a disc in the drive is dumb benefit compared to be endlessly tethered to support to get your game working.

[Mokkun]

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

"Overpriced"? I doubt it costs anything. The money they save in piracy probably makes up for the absolutely minimal cost of it, making the game cheaper.

Actually, I prefer Securom, because it means you don't need to insert the disc to play, so you can actually share it with 4 friends.

Not needing the disk.. you dont need that on Stardock games either.. and they dont use securom or other drm, (Ok, they use a patchdownloading service that requires the imput of CD key to your acount, but its still not intrusive)

and, if securom is so protective, why then is Spore the NR1 pirated game? also most who pirates it complains on securom and it messing up theyr computer/limited installs as the reason. my guesstimate is they would have gotten 75% of the pirate downloads as purchases if they didnt use draconic drm like this securom.. (and my guesstimates are better than any guesstimating done my ea people)



(its a wonder I have not gotten a forumtitle like Stardock fanboy from the forum runners yet)

[MetroPolice]

SecuROM will never be removed from SPore! And it's seeds will be planted into every upcoming game to introduce it's swift rays of glory! It will grow it's tentacles around youre neck and never let go! SecuROM is the past and SecuROM will be the future! Bow down before it's might and wisdom and be cleansed by it! ... wow.. i have issues.. major ones.. oh well.. i enjoy it so ill keep it coming...

[Mokkun]

securom do not even deserve to make a footnote in history, securom is a false religion, a boil on humanitys rear end. it needs to e cleansed in fire, aswell as annyone who axept it, or made it.

[ValuJet2564]

It doesnt do anything harmful!

[The KELRaTH]

I decided not to buy any games that have a severely limited life so I was quite surprised by the new patch for Red Alert 3 that includes the facility to de-activate an install with in the game.
This means that I can have it installed on up to 5 PC simultaneously at any one time and also re-install without limitation so if I upgrade etc, buy a new PC I can still play it.

I therefore ordered the game earlier today.

If the same option becomes available for Spore I'll order that too.

[flatfroggerx]

Originally Posted by ValuJet2564

It doesnt do anything harmful!

It can do.

Not to mention the harm is doing EAs reputation and its piracy rates, oh and dont forget your consumer rights.

[Mokkun]

Originally Posted by ValuJet2564

It doesnt do anything harmful!

It harms eas reputation (and thats hard to do, whit the bad rep they allready have), it hurts some peoples computers, but giving conclusive proof that its securom is hard, it dictates what software you can use on the computer, it opens up a rather big security hole whit rights elevation, (im yust waiting for the viruses that exploits it to come) so, yes its harmfull..

[Conspiracy_Dawg]

it doesn't hurt Ea's reputation, one sided bigotry such as your's does. <__<

no matter, unless the numbers of whiners massively increase, it shouldn't scare away too many potential creators.

why do you mangy lot complain so much about securom anyway? :/

securom does nothing in the majority of cases, and if we're so focused on judging all by the minority, i think i'll become prejudiced against all norwegians, because you've shown me how lalalalalalaed they are.

except i won't, as i have the sense to realise the futile and moronic nature of such a path.

[Mokkun]

Originally Posted by Conspiracy_Dawg

it doesn't hurt Ea's reputation, one sided bigotry such as your's does. <__<

no matter, unless the numbers of whiners massively increase, it shouldn't scare away too many potential creators.

why do you mangy lot complain so much about securom anyway? :/

securom does nothing in the majority of cases, and if we're so focused on judging all by the minority, i think i'll become prejudiced against all norwegians, because you've shown me how lalalalalalaed they are.

except i won't, as i have the sense to realise the futile and moronic nature of such a path.

so, if securom made your computer crash, forcing you to format and reinstall windows, you would not complain about it?

I have had problems whit starforce, it turned so bad, i could not start the PC whitout bluescreens. securom is turning moore and moore like starforce, so i dont want that kinda lalalala on my computer.

Also this crappy 3/5 install limit makes it almost like you rent the game instead of buying it.
currently, im up to my 3rd install, 1 on my main comp. main comp is now on service (not securom related), and most likly formated. 2 on my backup machine, 3 when i get the main comp back.
That is ofcourse if i didnt loose one activation in the graphics mess when i first installed spore, and the computer suddenly didnt recognise the graphics card drivers, and those needed to be reinstalled.. so i might not be able to play the game i have payed for.
So why not complain about crappy nonefective drm when
Top 10 Most Pirated Games of 2008 | TorrentFreak
spore is at the topp of this list showing it dont work, and only bother legit buyer. and that its better to yust dont buy anny games from ea?

[flatfroggerx]

Originally Posted by Conspiracy_Dawg

it doesn't hurt Ea's reputation, one sided bigotry such as your's does. <__<

no matter, unless the numbers of whiners massively increase, it shouldn't scare away too many potential creators.

why do you mangy lot complain so much about securom anyway? :/

securom does nothing in the majority of cases, and if we're so focused on judging all by the minority, i think i'll become prejudiced against all norwegians, because you've shown me how lalalalalalaed they are.

except i won't, as i have the sense to realise the futile and moronic nature of such a path.

As Mokkun said about starforce i've lost a drive to it. Securom has the potential to do the same not to mention DRM is a bad choice all around. I could go into the physical properties of securom but I won't.

DRM is about screwing the consumer. Its like me buying you a present but putting it on a leash so when I get bored of you I can pull it so the present will come back to me.

Because thats all it takes. EA to shut down the DRM servers when they're fed up of spore and bam, you are out of pocket with a game which does nothing. Sure some people might say "well they'll patch it", if EA is in difficulty or lays staff off who says they are going to pay for more staff to patch a game which is a year or two old?

Its in EA's tradition to just slop out a new version instead of a patch if its a year old or so. What are you going to when the DRM servers go cold?

DRM is quite frankly erroding your consumer rights. How? It limits your rights to resell, It limits your freedom of choice of what you chose to do with the product.

Whether you care for them or not is for you to decide but you must be pretty stupid if you let them go.

Its better it is removed now while EA still have a somewhat intrest in it than a years down the line and they say "tough go buy our spore gold pack with spore and 2 expansions you probably already own".

Also it does hurt EA's reputation, it goes right on the list along with buggy, rushed out games, which spore happens to fall into too. Snap.

Might want to read this:

xkcd - A Webcomic - Steal This Comic

Note: I'm not encouraging piracy here i'm just pointing out that what DRM does is pretty much screws you over either way. Securoms methods are hardly legal on many grounds, so its somewhat ironic in securoms case that the DRM itself is breaching laws to pitifully attempt to stop those who would be pirating it themselves.

Also if securom was oh so holier than thou, why are EA facing 4+ lawsuits over its usage, same goes for ubisoft.

[Markt75]

Well, this is an interesting article by the BBC:

BBC NEWS | Technology | Spore at top of the piracy charts

It lists the top 10 pirated games of 2008 and 4 of the top 5 games on the list are EA games, all 'protected' by securom, yet these are the most pirated games. Just goes to show how rubbish SecuROM is and just re-enforces the point that it was really not worth all the bad PR and user hassles that it caused.

I find this quote from the article quite appropriate:

"Spore's original DRM (Digital Rights Management) limited customers to only three activations after the game was installed, preventing legitimate customers from having free use of the game and effectively killing the second-hand market.

The hacked version that emerged less than 24 hours after the game shipped came without any DRM, and within 10 days of the games launch, more than half a million people had downloaded a pirated version of the game.

EA subsequently released a "DRM-lite" version that allowed an unlimited number of installations, but the public relations damage was considerable."


I really hope EA learn from this.

On a slightly different note, I must be one of the very unfortunate few people who is now experiencing hardware related problems thanks to SecuROM. I made the mistake of purchasing Fallout 3, the version of SecuROM it installed is intermittantly causing problems with the DVD drive. Basically with the Fallout 3 disk in the drive It randomly spins up and starts reading the disk, even when I'm not trying to play the game. This causes my system to slow down dramatically and it starts logging errors in the eventlogs about bad sectors on the disk. Yet the game installs and plays from the disk fine. These problems do not occur with a clean install of windows and without SecuROM installed. I'm currently waiting on SecuROM support providing answers, not that I'm holding out much hope, but it is just further proof that SecuROM can cause problems for customers.

[flatfroggerx]

Originally Posted by Markt75

Well, this is an interesting article by the BBC:

BBC NEWS | Technology | Spore at top of the piracy charts
...

EA subsequently released a "DRM-lite" version that allowed an unlimited number of installations, but the public relations damage was considerable."


I really hope EA learn from this.

On a slightly different note, I must be one of the very unfortunate few people who is now experiencing hardware related problems thanks to SecuROM. I made the mistake of purchasing Fallout 3, the version of SecuROM it installed is intermittantly causing problems with the DVD drive. Basically with the Fallout 3 disk in the drive It randomly spins up and starts reading the disk, even when I'm not trying to play the game. This causes my system to slow down dramatically and it starts logging errors in the eventlogs about bad sectors on the disk. Yet the game installs and plays from the disk fine. These problems do not occur with a clean install of windows and without SecuROM installed. I'm currently waiting on SecuROM support providing answers, not that I'm holding out much hope, but it is just further proof that SecuROM can cause problems for customers.

Fallout 3 has a fail safe so you can SKIP securom altogether, you just run fo3.exe from the main program files, it doesn't ask for the disk or anything. Apparently it was included as a failsafe from securom. Not to mention if you chose to stick with securom you needed securoms patch for it which is pretty dumb.

I picked out the "DRM-lite" bit because i'm calling lala on it, I haven't seen or heard anything to do with a "drm-lite" version of any current DRM infested game. Is EA feeding more rubbish to the press?

[Conspiracy_Dawg]

Originally Posted by Mokkun

and that its better to yust dont buy anny games from ea?

sounds like a plan, and if your not gonna get another EA game, there's no point in you being here, cya

@flatfrogger: fair points, it does seem like a very EA-ish idea to make us pay for more, and if we have to to keep playing, other than bad sales, what's gonna stop 'em? i mean, they already release the same sports games each year with a few new features

i do like valid arguments, and yours is quite clearly one of them

[Vladan]

The Escapist : Video Galleries : de-rez : The Final Days of the Man Responsible for SecuROM

[Conspiracy_Dawg]

lol :3

[Mokkun]

Originally Posted by Conspiracy_Dawg

sounds like a plan, and if your not gonna get another EA game, there's no point in you being here, cya

@flatfrogger: fair points, it does seem like a very EA-ish idea to make us pay for more, and if we have to to keep playing, other than bad sales, what's gonna stop 'em? i mean, they already release the same sports games each year with a few new features

i do like valid arguments, and yours is quite clearly one of them

why should i stop complaining on securom on Spore? as i do own Spore..
and if they stop being brainless dolts (that would take a miracle, or a lawsuit aginst ea sucseed, good chance for that) they drop securom and the likes of it. then its fesible to buy ea games agin, but not before.

so, ill stay here, and complain..

[MetroPolice]

Lolololol... i cant wait for those "Brain-Integrated Chips" in the future... SecuROM will take over everyone's brain and turn people's head into toasters... and make peanut butter jelly of what you once called youre brain. And SecuROM will take further controll of youre bodies. It will be so cool.. cant wait. SecuROM forever! Death to resistance! ( Please flame and insult me! I havent laughed for quite awhile now )

[MetroPolice]

Originally Posted by Conspiracy_Dawg

lol :3

And.. why do you evin care? Its their problem.. if you dont bother with these anti-SecuROM folks theill just stop barking with time. This thread went quiet for a few days because... there wos nothing for them to argue over. They dont evin care about SecuROM and it's imagionary damage.. they just to it to have fun poking other's iin the eye. And it can be proved that they only talk when you say something toward them. Lets leave this jelly heads here.

[Mokkun]

Originally Posted by MetroPolice

Lolololol... i cant wait for those "Brain-Integrated Chips" in the future... SecuROM will take over everyone's brain and turn people's head into toasters... and make peanut butter jelly of what you once called youre brain. And SecuROM will take further controll of youre bodies. It will be so cool.. cant wait. SecuROM forever! Death to resistance! ( Please flame and insult me! I havent laughed for quite awhile now )

And thats the kind of future we fight to prevent.......

[MetroPolice]

Originally Posted by Mokkun

And thats the kind of future we fight to prevent.......

I have something to tell you too... umm.. if you seriously care about this SecuROM matter... than what are you doing here? Im quite sure that talking about SecuROM and how bad it is wont change anything here... on this forums. If you want to move against it.. than look for worthless petitions on the internet.. and anti-SecuROM websites.. wich i can asure.. theres quite a few of them. So.. "Enlist Today For The Full Scale Ground Fighters Unit... And Do Something Wich Will Change The World"
I think you already noticed that the only feedback you get here are from people like me.. who hate people like you. So.. scram.. get outta here O,..,o because... WE HATE YOU!!!! =3

[Mokkun]

Originally Posted by MetroPolice

I have something to tell you too... umm.. if you seriously care about this SecuROM matter... than what are you doing here? Im quite sure that talking about SecuROM and how bad it is wont change anything here... on this forums. If you want to move against it.. than look for worthless petitions on the internet.. and anti-SecuROM websites.. wich i can asure.. theres quite a few of them. So.. "Enlist Today For The Full Scale Ground Fighters Unit... And Do Something Wich Will Change The World"
I think you already noticed that the only feedback you get here are from people like me.. who hate people like you. So.. scram.. get outta here O,..,o because... WE HATE YOU!!!! =3

But, this is a frontline attack at a company that use the demonic tool securom. no better place to protest (other that ea's bord of directors meeting, but getting there is rather difficult whitout ending up arrested afterwards.

[MetroPolice]

Originally Posted by Mokkun

But, this is a frontline attack at a company that use the demonic tool securom. no better place to protest (other that ea's bord of directors meeting, but getting there is rather difficult whitout ending up arrested afterwards.

Well.. this isnt the frontline... this is just one tiny sector of EA Forums. And there is no attack... its just you and two other people. Wich cant be called an attack. Im quite sure that the staff and EA Leaders arent focusing on this site. With other words... the attention you seek here wont happen. Only forum administration is active... but thats not here either. They barely check on these wastelands called Spore FOrums Sector. Why dont you get tired anyway? The army you fought with left a week after Spore came out... and thats proly because.. they noticed that bringing SecuROM here wont affect anything.. and by than.. they also noticed that what they were protecting turned out to be bad itself ( <talking about Spore ).


But holy lalalala... im taking this seriously! Better stop talking before someon finds a vulnerable spot on my little heart =( ..