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New SecuROM DRM on all upcoming EA titles.
Whiniest Man On Earth
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
As the new comic shows, EA has decided to publish all their upcoming titles with a new, more restrictive DRM than the standard SecuROM fare. This includes titles such as Spore and Mass Effect PC.
Here's what we know about the new SecuROM DRM:
Some common arguments in favor of this DRM scheme include:
Some common arguments against this DRM scheme include:
I'll update this OP as I get more time at work today. For now, discuss whether or not you think this will help or hurt the sales of PC gaming.
NEWS UPDATES:
Bioware has decided to drop the 10-day auth check from this system under pressure from customer feedback, and EA has decided to drop it from Spore, as well. For some details, go:
http://kotaku.com/5008452/bioware-backs-down-from-draconian-mass-effect-authentication here
http://kotaku.com/5008454/spore-removes-10+day-reauthentication and here.
Here's what we know about the new SecuROM DRM:
- Your CD-key is checked against an authentication server.
- It requires the user to have an internet connection every 10 days or it locks you out of your game.
- It performs this check automatically, in the background, once at five days, once at ten.
- You are limited to 3 activations before you have to call EA tech support.
- An "activation" is used every time you run the game .exe with a new hardware configuration.
- We are not entirely sure if an activation is used with a reformat or small hardware installs. According to a Bioware employee, a video card swap did not use one up for him, but other cards/pieces of hardware may require it.
- We are still unaware if there is a way to renew an activation through an uninstall.
- Bioware has stated that should anything ever happen to the activation servers, they would patch the activation process out of their games.
Some common arguments in favor of this DRM scheme include:
- It will help stop piracy, at least zero-day piracy, by requiring an auth check.
- Most PC users already have an internet connection, and since the check runs in the background, it's not a big deal.
- In helping to reduce piracy, hopefully it might have a positive effect on the flagging sales of PC gaming.
Some common arguments against this DRM scheme include:
- Requiring an internet connection for singleplayer content is silly.
- Plenty of gamers re-format or buy new hardware often enough that 3 activations isn't good enough.
- Restrictive DRMs like this actually hurt the sales of a game, through treating customers like pirates and further narrowing the demographic of people who can play the game. For an example, people in armed service often go very long periods of time without internet connections, and therefore would not be able to play any game using this DRM scheme.
- Games without DRM schemes this restrictive still do quite well commercially. For example, Sins of a Solar Empire.
- DRM schemes like this make the pirated version of your game an even more desirable version of your product.
- EA's support is less-than-stellar, and it will likely not be as easy as calling an automated phone number and getting new activations.
- SecuROM has a history of slowing down games and not working very well. The technicalities of this DRM may cause issues that wouldn't become clear until it's installed.
- Added hassle to the consumer without any real benefit. Steam is an example of an online authentication system that adds tons of features for customers.
I'll update this OP as I get more time at work today. For now, discuss whether or not you think this will help or hurt the sales of PC gaming.
NEWS UPDATES:
Bioware has decided to drop the 10-day auth check from this system under pressure from customer feedback, and EA has decided to drop it from Spore, as well. For some details, go:
http://kotaku.com/5008452/bioware-backs-down-from-draconian-mass-effect-authentication here
http://kotaku.com/5008454/spore-removes-10+day-reauthentication and here.
Whiniest Man On Earth on
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Your sig is a joke right?
Except for missing the demo releases, the friends lists, the centralized server listings... yeah, totally just like Steam. Oh, and the offline mode. The way that you can play the games that you've legally purchased without an internet connection.
EDIT: The point being that Steam adds a ton of features for having an internet connection and has in-system ways to play the games without that internet connection. It's a DRM scheme that requires an internet connection but gives tangible benefits to paying customers.
And yes, my sig is a joke.
Dammit, EA's making some nice stuff, too.
Careful, she's going to be a lawyer. Maybe you'll get served. :winky:
Such as?
This pretty much rules out those games being purchased for me. I travel, and play games on the plane/train. The idea that the games are going to stop running if I don't find a hotspot every 10 days makes them fairly unuseable for me.
See, just not buying the game doesn't really work. If you don't buy it without complaining, usually via the internet, as it is the easiest way to get access to both the companies and their demographic, EA won't have any idea why you're not buying it. It's not like they look at their sales vs. projected and invent reasons on their own. The thread on the Bioware forums is immense, and it makes a lot of good sense for people to clearly state to them why they won't be buying it.
Like the coming-of-age faux reality dance film or legally?
If it's passive and you barely notice it, combined with solid tech support. Whatever.
It murders the resale market though, I could see EB and Gamestop barely stocking EA titles beyond preorders as a protest.
Such as all of the ones I listed right before the quote you snipped?
As for the steam issue. I see steam as more of a digital distribution system. If you buy a hard copy of their game you are not forced to use steam. You can also re download your game for as long as Valve remains in business. If you buy a game at the digital EA store you have to pay 5 bucks extra for the privilege of being able to redownload your game for a whopping two more years. This is because EA uses Digital River....they're basically the EA of the digital distribution world, so it's fitting that they're working together.
Something like Steam meets you halfway with that, they require online authentication, but only once. After that, you can just say "I'm offline" and they say "oh okay no prob". The idea of a service that checks constantly is maddening.
I just think the majority of gamers lack the will to not buy the game. It's one thing to state an intent now, it's another thing to translate that into willfully withholding your purchase. Here on a gaming webforum, yes, we are more likely to not purchase a game based on this criteria because it obviously matters more to us, but that hardcore market is shrinking and I don't know if we're statistically relevant to their sales. Perhaps more so on the PC side than the console side, but I don't know what the impact would be unless more people boycott.
Ingame steam friends list? Check.
Shopping/Downloading via the service? Check.
Downside: patches can take a while for steam versions of a game.
Mostly I'm just concerned about performance. SecuROM used to make games unGodly slow. As in running the no-cd warez patch was advised by the developer's tech support forums.
And not only that, Steam adds a fuckton of features that make their games better through their servers.
I thought the blacklisting stuff was getting bad (X game wouldn't run because you had CloneCD or equivalent installed), but this is getting wrose imo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_sale
This essentially interferes with your ability to resell your purchase should you choose to, because of the limited number of authorizations. How would EA ask for proof of purchase from someone who bought the game second hand once their activations were used up?
Telmarine, you bring up another good point. This won't deter piracy, even 0-day piracy, much if at all. The DRM will still be cracked, and the pirates will still have a better product than the publishers.
it does. I remember when Painkiller was first released, there were so many problems with the copy protection not letting the game run (I couldn't because I had cloneCD installed). A bunch of people blasted the developers on the forums, but it turned out the publisher DreamCatcher added it in without People Can Fly's knowledge and they had a hard time trying to get that message out on the forums. They eventually got rid of the problems with a patch.
Actually, so far, Bioware has stood behind EA 100% on this for some reason. They are allowing a rather lengthy discussion on their forums here:
http://masseffect.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=628724&forum=125
But for the most part, they are standing behind EA on this one.
I do not understand the complaints. It requires net access to install and then checks once every 10 days. So does WoW, at least this (imagined) inconveniance is free.
And then the OP asked if he could make a D&D one and CT said yes.
WoW is an online only game, the entire game is online. These games are not.
Um...WoW REQUIRES an internet connection to actually play it, being, y'know, an MMO
I did, and I see the same arguments, granted they are more polite.
Yes, WoW is an online only game, and now Spore and Mass Effect are as well. But only once every 10 days. And for free after the inital purchase. I don't understand the uproar.
I don't know about you, but it doesn't take a lot for me to not buy a game. Gamers are generally in one of two camps - lots of time to play, but little money to buy games or lots of money, but no time to play. There are very, very few games that will get me to buy a new video card, console, etc just to play. Piss Me Off DRM (R) is enough to spend my time and money on another title.
Spore and Mass Effect might be enough to overcome the resistance of the PMO DRM for some gamers, others will just get something else or say screw it and find a torrent.
If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to message me. Yes, that includes you.
Maybe if you read the thread, you'd understand the uproar.
The point is that WoW is designed from the ground up as an online only game and it gets, y'know, benefits from being such. All EA games are now designed with a component that presumably adds no value to the game and at the same time makes it more difficult to play. Read the thread.
WoW also doesn't care where I play it from, I've changed what computer it's running on 5 times at this point. My account matters, not the hardware. Not even sort of the same issue.
This is interesting. Could you theoretically sue them for interfering with your first sale rights?
No. If you buy the game direct download, actually, you have to pay for the privilege of re-downloading it, because EA's digital download service is so terrible.
Makes it more difficult to play for who, people who don't have net access? Somehow I doubt that the 'no-isp-having' crowd is the one making all the noise on internet based forums. Perhaps they will picket EA.
Seriously. This thread is full of legitimate reasons that people don't want to purchase a game with this kind of DRM, and it's not just because it requires internet access. You just don't get it.