Spore + SecuROM = Death

[Braidedheadman]

What's worse: The use of SecuROM to lock up our games with activation limits? Or the people who are willing to sell their individual rights and freedoms away for a mess of pottage?

[Kameira]

Wow, I have seen a lot of drama on the internet but I don't think I've seen a crusade quite as immature as this one.

If you're all in a huff about SecuROM, then don't buy Spore and leave the people on the forums alone. If you have some intense, unrelenting gripe with the almighty moneygrubbing corporation, EA, then take it up with them. But some people aren't going to make a bloated, all-encompoassing deal out of the mildly annoying "threat" that is this anti-piracy device and just enjoy playing the game.

Also, research stuff before you throw a fit. Thundercloud has valid points. If SecuROM was as bad as you make it out to be, someone would have outed them by now and they would be in deep trouble.

[Wishbone77]

Originally Posted by Kameira

If you're all in a huff about SecuROM, then don't buy Spore and leave the people on the forums alone.

Wow, another one. Listen, Mr. I've-Got-2-Posts-Already, it looks like we're the people on the forums, and you're the one who should leave us alone. You obviously just fell into a discussion that's been running for months. If you have nothing to contribute other than "the world is a perfect place, an nobody would ever think of taking away our rights as consumers", then kindly go away. Your opinion is as valid as anybody else's, and consider it noted, but it doesn't really bring anything to the discussion.

Also, the way you come in from out of nowhere and tell us we are foolish to even discuss these things, make you seem like an obvious EA plant.

[Braidedheadman]

I no sooner mention it and one of these lalalalalalalaes crawls up from out of his cave to speak. How sad. Truly.

Please, go be EA's fuzzy white sheep some place else. This isn't about anit-piracy. This about consumer rights. Our rights.

[Kameira]

Oh boo hoo, god forbid someone doesn't agree with you.

I'm no more EA's sheep than you are. I'm Maxis' sheep and have been for ten years, before EA came along. Fairly different world.

I'm just saying the way you're going about this is incredibly stupid. You run around and moan at the moderators on the EA forums that this is all their fault when all they're really doing is moderating the EA forums. You put "I'M NOT BUYING SPORE" in your signatures. Spam topics that have absolutely no relation to whatever you're trying to preach with "OMG SecuROM is the DEVIL quick put this in your signature" like some kind of religious fundies. Spread exaggerated tales about what evil the software is. And you call anyone who DARES to call you out on it a "lalalalalalala". A lot you're going to accomplish, I can tell. I'm sure EA will bend right backwards to serve you lot.

Obviously I'm an EA plant because it's not like I've been lurking on the forum for two weeks or anything.

Anyway, try growing up. Then maybe you can actually hope to achieve what you want. Or not... and I can just sit here and shake my head in utter disbelief.

[Braidedheadman]

Grow up? Be sure that you are not too hasty tossing terms like these about. In the three posts that you've made, you haven't shown yourself to be the most mature poster these forums have seen either and are not off to a good start. I do think you need to put the broad-handled brush away that you've been using to paint us all with and try a different approach yourself.

Also, if you think that forums like these don't hold some sway on issues like these, you may want to turn your attention to articles such as this one:

Electronic Arts Responds to Copy Protection Outcry, Removes 10-day SecuROM

[Watashiii]

Originally Posted by 777788889999

The problem is that I dont think cracking the game will work. Sure you can play and install as much as you want but I seriously doubt that you will get connected to the server, so you will not get all the online features...

Why not? If I buy the game and have the serial number, I don't think it should matter if I crippled their spyware so I could install a new graphics card or reinstall windows or whatever without having to call EA and asking their permission to play my game again

If that does not work... Well, then we don't have to buy the game at all, do we?

[Watashiii]

Originally Posted by Kameira

Anyway, try growing up. Then maybe you can actually hope to achieve what you want. Or not... and I can just sit here and shake my head in utter disbelief.

Well, we can try. Some people get a little "too active", but that will always be the case if people are protesting

[Kameira]

You called me a lalalalalalala. I have every right to be miffed. I was already annoyed when I made the first post in this topic, but you guys just built on that.

My point, and my only point, is if that you have a gripe with EA's choices, please don't follow through with it in unrelated topics in the forums trying to get people to post things in their signature. As well as making fun of them for being sheep just because they think that this great game would be worth all the lalalalalalaery that comes with it. It doesn't bother EA half as much as I would think it bothers the readers, so you're not really doing much except annoying people who just want a game.

P.S. What the hell. I spent four years worrying that this username was too girly, and yet everyone still seems to refer to me as male.

[Kameira]

Originally Posted by Watashiii

Well, we can try. Some people get a little "too active", but that will always be the case if people are protesting

Thank God, someone with common sense. Thank you!
I just don't understand how calling people names is going to get EA to quit using SecuROM. Sadly, EA doesn't give two cares about the concerns of the people because they're pretty much the cold and ruthless corporation everyone claims them to be, so unfortunately none of this will change, most likely. Not that I don't hope it does. But running around on the forums harassing people is going to do nothing.

[Braidedheadman]

We shall do precisely as we please. Thank you. And just because you did not use language as precise as mine ("lalalalalalala") doesn't mean that you were not equally insulting. Spare us the sob story.

[Edit] And who are you to be lecturing us about harassing other people on the forums after all this? Your first post was inflammatory! And did you even look at that article I linked to?

[Kaiysith]

Meh. I will be purchasing Spore and currently have it on pre-order Direct Download. If SecuROM gives me any trouble, I will remove it by whatever means necessary and grab a cracked version if I have to. Either way, I -will- play the game I paid for with no ill effects.

For evert piece of anti-piracy bull that comes out, there will be plenty of gamers with the drive and skill to remove it, cripple it, or ghost it. This SecuROM nonsense is no different. Stop the nonsense, and the piracy rates will drop like a rock.


"P.S. What the hell. I spent four years worrying that this username was too girly, and yet everyone still seems to refer to me as male."

Heh... Everyone seems to assume I'm female, for some reason. Doesn't bother me though.

[Wishbone77]

Originally Posted by Kameira

My point, and my only point, is if that you have a gripe with EA's choices, please don't follow through with it in unrelated topics in the forums trying to get people to post things in their signature.

If that was your point, you concealed it well. Right now, I think you are posting in an unrelated topic. Yes, 5xksw (or whatever the hell his name is) has chosen a very poor strategy for pursuing the anti-SecuROM issue, but this thread is in fact about gripes with SecuROM, so coming here and talking about posting in unrelated topics is, at best, unrelated

Originally Posted by Kameira

As well as making fun of them for being sheep just because they think that this great game would be worth all the lalalalalalaery that comes with it.

So, because you are willing to put up with having your rights suspended simply because this one game is so great, nobody should take steps to rectify the situation? Do you think Spore is the first game ever to use SecuROM? Do you think it'll be the last? If noone draws a line and says "enough is enough", do you think EA won't continue making their misguided copy protection schemes more an more aggressive?

Originally Posted by Kameira

It doesn't bother EA half as much as I would think it bothers the readers, so you're not really doing much except annoying people who just want a game.

People who just want a game can go out and buy one. And if they do read forums, and are offended by criticism of said game, they can just read the threads that hype it. There are plenty of those.

Originally Posted by Kameira

P.S. What the hell. I spent four years worrying that this username was too girly, and yet everyone still seems to refer to me as male.

I think the natural explanation here is that gaming forums are still pretty much male dominated, so if there is any doubt as to the gender of a poster, the default assumption is that it is a male. For people to assume otherwise, you need a nick like GamerGirl123 or something.

[Wishbone77]

Originally Posted by Kameira

Obviously I'm an EA plant because it's not like I've been lurking on the forum for two weeks or anything.

What an incredibly worthless comment. It was your second post ever, Kameira! And you have the gall to start talking down to forum regulars who have been discussing these things for months. When you've asked 10 questions in the Q & A thread, which the moderators created, and have had no response, not even an "I don't know", for more than two months, then you can come here acting calm and saying "oh well, it'll probably be allright".

[Wishbone77]

Originally Posted by Kameira

My point, and my only point, is if that you have a gripe with EA's choices, please don't follow through with it in unrelated topics in the forums trying to get people to post things in their signature.

Please explain where in your post you made that particular point. It's quoted, in full, below.

Originally Posted by Kameira

Wow, I have seen a lot of drama on the internet but I don't think I've seen a crusade quite as immature as this one.

If you're all in a huff about SecuROM, then don't buy Spore and leave the people on the forums alone. If you have some intense, unrelenting gripe with the almighty moneygrubbing corporation, EA, then take it up with them. But some people aren't going to make a bloated, all-encompoassing deal out of the mildly annoying "threat" that is this anti-piracy device and just enjoy playing the game.

Also, research stuff before you throw a fit. Thundercloud has valid points. If SecuROM was as bad as you make it out to be, someone would have outed them by now and they would be in deep trouble.

[Harrison1992]

Can someone please explain in full the socalled 'Threat' of Securom.

And i do not think Kameira was posting off topic they were asking the people to not spam other threads and tell you that in his/her opinion you were not going to change anything

[Thundercloud]

Originally Posted by Harrison1992

Can someone please explain in full the socalled 'Threat' of Securom.

And i do not think Kameira was posting off topic they were asking the people to not spam other threads and tell you that in his/her opinion you were not going to change anything

Certainly. And I think if a neutral party such as myself explains it it may be less... fervent? :P

Okay, here's the craic, and before I start let me make it perfectly clear I am not defending SecuROM in any way, shape or form. I am simply presenting the facts, and trying to stop any FUD that people may be spreading about it. SecuROM is a piece of software which companies such as EA and Sony (Who made it in the first place) use to try and prevent piracy of games. This software follows a slightly more radical approach than usual in its later versions, as it installs itself at game install time (Without you knowing) and runs constantly in the background as what's called a daemon (No religious jokes please, that's a srs computing term! :P). The main purpose of SecuROM is to prevent you from pirating the game or trying to circumvent it's protection. To this end it employs a number of means to prevent you from making copies of the game, as well as to limit the usage of the game somewhat in the name of protection. It's a silly system, one which can and has been circumvented in the past I might add (See Mass Effect, that game can be cracked to run without SecuROM). Spore presents a slightly more difficult challenge with regards to SecuROM mind, as Spore has extensive online features and it's unknown as to whether they'll work without all the SecuROM shenanigans.

Anyway, the percieved threat. Since most of the crusaders on this topic seem to be using that video as their flagship somewhat, i'll go through each point of what she says and break it down a bit.

1: SecuROM does not allow administrators full access to their PC. Not only this but it blocks the administrator from editing certain parts of the registry as well.

What she means by this is that usually adminstrators can change and delete ANY part of the system. SecuROM changes that by making sure you can't delete itself. Same thing with the registry. That's all. I admit it's a circumvention of administrator privileges but it's not denying total access to the PC. This can easily be circumvented itself anyway.

2: SecuROM can interfere with the operation of hard drives. Specifically disc drives.

If there's one thing I hate it's people going on a technology crusade not knowing what they're talking about. SecuROM does not interfere with hard drive operation at all. That's akin to committing suicide, as if you interfere with the hard drive you're running on the computer will crash very quickly! It has been known to temporarily disable CD/DVD/Blu-ray drives on a software level in order to prevent copies of a SecuROM game being made however (Note: THIS IS NOT A PERMANENT HARDWARE FAULT). Again, it's not purposely going to interfere with the day-to-day operation of your computer, unless your day-to-day activites involve making copies of games

3: SecuROM can interfere with the proper operation of software.

Not much record of this going on. The biggest example of this is that sometimes SecuROM can interfere with Anti-virus programs. The biggest reason why I can think this happens is that the way in which SecuROM works can be considered by many to be the same as spyware/malware. Admittedly, SecuROM hasn't got a devious hacker at the other end pilfering ur dataz, but it's the same principle. Hence SecuROM would probably flag on AV software as malware, so SecuROM takes steps to stop that from happening. Again, very silly SecuROM, very silly. Why do you need that much administrator access anyway?

4: The manner in which SecuROM runs can interfere with security and could possibly be abused in the manner that would allow others to gain access to private data.

First off, see question 3. That explains part of it. Secondly, you mean like every other application that's out there? Exploits can exist for ANY piece of software ranging from internet explorer to Apache Web Server. The difference of course is that SecuROM doesn't patch itself up to account for any exploits. Then again, i'm not actually aware of any exploits for SecuROM. Yeah it's a rootkit, but as i've previously mentioned if EA was going to start trying to look at your sensitive data (ooh er), they'd be found out very fast by the large number of windows nerds running packet sniffing software out there (Packet Sniffing: Checking where data packets are going to in the internet from your computer)

5. The uninstallation of the game which came with SecuROM came does not (Or at least up until now, has not) allowed for a seperate installation of SecuROM (Or, at least not uninstall without third party support)

Same argument. It's a rootkit trying to prevent "unlawful" use of the game. Of course it's going to do this. Do you really think people would keep it on their computer if they had the option? Which, I might add, they do! The big man screwing over the little man is nothing new, it's been going on for CENTURIES, the point is the little man always finds ways around this, and as it even says right there, SecuROM can be uninstalled! However, I might add, if you uninstall SecuROM, none of your SecuROM "protected" games will work.

6: SecuROM uncontrollably runs in the background of your PC.

I believe i've already covered this. It's worth noting that a LOT of things run uncontrollably in the background of your PC as well though. Admittedly this is worse than others though :P

7: The manner in which SecuROM runs on your computer is similar to that of viruses and malware, and, in fact, is so similar, that it is considered by many to be malware.

Again, i've already covered this. Not defending SecuROM at all though, but just because they could, doesn't mean they will. Just because it COULD be a virus or malware because of the way it operates, doesn't mean it is one... or at least not in the traditional sense! This is like saying everyone who owns a gun is a mass murderer.

8: Upon the installation of SecuROM the user is granted very little information on the fact that the software is being installed at all.

Yeah okay that's ethically bad. Slap on the wrists there. Again, this isn't the first time a piece of software has done this though! See: Pretty much every laptop ever built and sold by HP, Dell, Acer, etc.

9: SecuROM only allows for a maximum of three installations to take place on different machines, or on a single machine that has had some hardware replaced before you must call EA to reactivate your CD.

Oy vey. SecuROM really screwed up when they did this. In an ideal world this would actually be a good idea, but the main problem is this: When you uninstall the game, you don't get that activation credit back. And that's where the real bugbear comes into it. EA's customer support is known to be rather shoddy from what I hear, so reactivating your CD isn't always as simple as they make it out to be. So basically you get three installs until you have to start pestering EA a lot. That's it. It's lalalalalalaed, I agree. This is the major problem I have with SecuROM. However, it IS solvable. Bioshock, which also uses SecuROM, got modified to refund activation credits on uninstallation, which solves that. Agreed it's not perfect but it's a damn sight better, no?

10: And finally, SecuROM has, in the past, even caused the games that it was supposed to protect to malfunction.

Again, Oy vey SecuROM, what you doing? That's just silly, however it's again worth noting that this is mainly with The Sims 2. Again, it's not unsolveable. Plus, remember the EA downloader that comes with the Spore CC? That crashed the game quite a lot :P

So that's it. In a nutshell, SecuROM tries to limit your lawful usage of the game through a number of methods designed to try and stop piracy. Some of these methods are incredibly half baked such as the three activation limit and the disabling of CD drives. However, it's not an absolute system and it's not the absolute pain that some people on this forum believe it to be (Including some people who seem to believe that it'll cause your computer to blow up before you even reach the tribal stage of the game). In my opinion EA is not going to turn around and go "Here, take it without SecuROM! Wheee!" or anything of the sort, but as i've said, it is fixable. It has been fixed in the past (Another example! Mass Effect and Spore were originally going to have to reauthenticate every ten days or the auth would expire, a nightmare if you're in the armed forces or going on holiday. That got removed.), and compromise IS possible. That's all i'm going to say. Hopefully that clears everything up.

And if you really don't want to take the risk that SecuROM will start looking at your seekret shizzles, do what I do. Make sure there's nothing there. Use linux, and just keep windows for games. Admittedly it's a huge lifestyle change, but you get to enjoy the best of both worlds.A stable desktop in linux, and you get to enjoy Spore! Yay!

[Watashiii]

I had no problems with SporeCC secuROM, but I could have if I went on the impulse and reinstalled the game after it din' want to start. That would cost me another activation. The next time I changed something (like a network card), I wouldn't be able to play it before EA bothered to renew my activations. I don't want this to happen to my full game and judging by the sowtware made by EA itself (like their downloader), it might happen

Besides, I'm not really happy with a toy compromising my system. A lot more important and expensive programs don't do that, I don't know why anyone thinks that a game should.

[777788889999]

Originally Posted by Watashiii

Why not? If I buy the game and have the serial number, I don't think it should matter if I crippled their spyware so I could install a new graphics card or reinstall windows or whatever without having to call EA and asking their permission to play my game again

If that does not work... Well, then we don't have to buy the game at all, do we?

Well, yeah, I think that if you are going to crack the game you may as well pirate the whole thing. And my reason for believing so is that if you are not using the correct exe and you try to download content from the Spore server and you cant validate your copy because you are running a crack, then I think you will not be able to download anything. You may not even be able to install patches or expansions without having the original exe in place... Some games are like this. It will just give you an error message saying that you cant install the patch because the exe doesnt match. Then you will have to have saved the original exe so you can change it back, but if you are in a situation where you dont have any activations left anyway, you will not be able to download. For sure, there will be patches that you can download from other places but it will not get you the online features... I dont believe so, but please tell me if Im wrong.

[HainLeKes]

Thanks for that Thundercloud, It doesn't seem to bad to me. Im still buying Spore, it's too great not to buy.

[5xkwsk]

This is what EA had to say when I contacted one of their staff:

Me>Please can you simply confirm whether the three activations or SecuROM will be included in spore, I know you said that you have no information, but please find out. The people of this forum are fed up, they simply want EA to give some confirmation, otherwise I fear it may result in EA losing vast sales. Once again I ask you, please can you confirm what the situation is with the DRM Copy Protection. Thank You.

EAUK_Aurora>I am afraid that is not something that I have the knowledge on to inform you of.

I have continually passed on the concerns of the community regarding this issue in Community Reports.

[Watashiii]

Originally Posted by 777788889999

For sure, there will be patches that you can download from other places but it will not get you the online features... I dont believe so, but please tell me if Im wrong.

All it needs is some hacker to "convince" the program and the site that there in fact IS a secuROM on your computer and that there is no problems with it.

Somebody will probably do that soon enough. Then, we can freely buy the game without fearing of the "protection" shutting down our CD burners or locking the game for installing new hardware

Speaking of which, I hope it doesn't eat activations whenever you plug or unplug a USB device

[BenVdd]

Originally Posted by Watashiii

Speaking of which, I hope it doesn't eat activations whenever you plug or unplug a USB device

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[dannnnnnnnnnnnny]

Hullo
Umm im still gonna buy it, but i don't like what EA is doing either. I think that thundercloud knows what he's talking about and i trust what he says which is thats securom is bad, but not the end of the world..
Lots of people should ask EA about this, maybe they will realise if lots of people talk to them about this issue.

[Lethn]

I can understand wanting to buy Spore, hell even I want to buy it and I haven't bought a game from EA since C&C3, what I am MOST concerned about is this stealth they're pulling on us with this SecuROM garbage, they have barely mentioned just what the software does and their EULA is so bloody vague it takes someone who's knowledgeable about PA speak to read through it.

What I want is an honest answer from EA so they can at least let us make a fricking informed choice instead of messing us about like this.