EA = SecureRom
- Thread starter imported_clockerspiel
- Start date
Anubis
No Lifer
Maximilian
Lifer
- Feb 8, 2004
- 12,604
- 15
- 81
Awesome... maybe noone will buy from them and they will go bankrupt, its about time people realised EA is the skoda of the gaming industry.
- Nov 30, 2005
- 50,231
- 118
- 116
I've yet to have any issues with copy protection of any kind in games and until I do I will not be boycotting any form of game DRM. I can't say I'm particularly fond of EA, but if a game looks fun and I want to play it, well then I don't really care who made it.
KT
KT
rivan
Diamond Member
- Jul 8, 2003
- 9,677
- 3
- 81
I haven't had a confirmed problem with mine yet, either. I strongly suspect SecurROM in some system crashes that were immediately resolved when I uninstalled MEPC, but I've got nothing more than that empirical evidence to go on.
My real worry is that, in 5 years, when I try to reinstall my totally legit copy of Mass Effect, there's going to be some issue with it. I have lots of old games that I occasionally reinstall and play. Baldur's Gate specifically, I've probably installed a dozen times or more.
Zenoth
Diamond Member
- Jan 29, 2005
- 5,202
- 216
- 106
Doesn't change much for me, in fact it won't change anything, because 1) I buy my games, and 2) I won't be loosing my Internet connection and my ISP won't go bankrupt anytime soon. But I DO know of one person, well I don't know the guy but it's just something that a college at work told me. There ARE people out there WITHOUT an Internet connection at home BUT they DO own a PC powerful enough to play recent and even future games. How do they get patches? They download them from their job, or from their school, or even Internet Cafés., put them on CD-Rom's or USB Flash Drives, go back home and they install them.
With a very deep DRM technology, one that is bound to your system's hardware ID's and one that REQUIRES On-Line activation to be able to play the damn thing CANNOT allow those persons to buy a game, come back home, insert the DVD, install the game and then play it, well yes, all of that is possible EXCEPT for the "play it" part. And why do we buy games exactly? That's right! To play them! That was almost ridiculous to type, and it is sarcasm for almost all of us here, but this sentence should be taken VERY seriously by EA and any other developers/publishers wanting such DRM on their games. Yes yes, of course, lots of people think "well, a person has a gaming-grade PC but no Internet at home?", yeah so? It's possible, even though it's a minority. The problem is that huge arse companies like EA don't care about minorities, even if they do give their money to them.
I've heard one story of a guy at work (not sure of it's true, could be, or not, who cares, the point is that it IS possible and that DRM would be the direct cause of it) who REALLY wanted to play BioShock, but couldn't, because no Internet at home, and the DRM bounds (is it still doing so after patch 1.1?) the game's functionality to your own hardware, so bring it to a friend's house to activate it there and you've basically lost one activation right away, then come back home, and what happens anyway? Still cannot play it, needs re-activation, new hardware detected. Anyhow, what the guy finally decided to do? Yes, buy an XBOX 360 and BioShock at home without Internet so he could PLAY a damn game he just bought.
It just means that the Off-Line gaming era (buying a game at the store, coming back home, and being able to install it and then play it immediately with or without Internet since Internet doesn't have a role to play in playing it right away, that's what it means), at this rate, will certainly start dying seriously on us. In the end I myself here am just trying to defend the "innocent", but as I said, I myself am not concerned much about the DRM, but there IS a point about it that bugs me, and it is indeed the re-activation limit policy, at the company's "discretion"? Can I say what the fuck is going on with that please? Why? Why limiting the number of times I can play the game I bought if I change my OS/Hardware? WHY? It doesn't make any sense, but fortunately I am not a greedy businessman, I'm "just" a gamer.
With a very deep DRM technology, one that is bound to your system's hardware ID's and one that REQUIRES On-Line activation to be able to play the damn thing CANNOT allow those persons to buy a game, come back home, insert the DVD, install the game and then play it, well yes, all of that is possible EXCEPT for the "play it" part. And why do we buy games exactly? That's right! To play them! That was almost ridiculous to type, and it is sarcasm for almost all of us here, but this sentence should be taken VERY seriously by EA and any other developers/publishers wanting such DRM on their games. Yes yes, of course, lots of people think "well, a person has a gaming-grade PC but no Internet at home?", yeah so? It's possible, even though it's a minority. The problem is that huge arse companies like EA don't care about minorities, even if they do give their money to them.
I've heard one story of a guy at work (not sure of it's true, could be, or not, who cares, the point is that it IS possible and that DRM would be the direct cause of it) who REALLY wanted to play BioShock, but couldn't, because no Internet at home, and the DRM bounds (is it still doing so after patch 1.1?) the game's functionality to your own hardware, so bring it to a friend's house to activate it there and you've basically lost one activation right away, then come back home, and what happens anyway? Still cannot play it, needs re-activation, new hardware detected. Anyhow, what the guy finally decided to do? Yes, buy an XBOX 360 and BioShock at home without Internet so he could PLAY a damn game he just bought.
It just means that the Off-Line gaming era (buying a game at the store, coming back home, and being able to install it and then play it immediately with or without Internet since Internet doesn't have a role to play in playing it right away, that's what it means), at this rate, will certainly start dying seriously on us. In the end I myself here am just trying to defend the "innocent", but as I said, I myself am not concerned much about the DRM, but there IS a point about it that bugs me, and it is indeed the re-activation limit policy, at the company's "discretion"? Can I say what the fuck is going on with that please? Why? Why limiting the number of times I can play the game I bought if I change my OS/Hardware? WHY? It doesn't make any sense, but fortunately I am not a greedy businessman, I'm "just" a gamer.
RallyMaster
Diamond Member
- Dec 28, 2004
- 5,581
- 0
- 0
Doesn't really change anything for me. Pretty much all their games nowadays are console ports anyway.
ArmchairAthlete
Diamond Member
- Dec 3, 2002
- 3,763
- 0
- 0
Yea, Spore's working fine for me over here on Vista x64.
Maybe there's someone with an agenda behind some of this flack (Activision?). It's worth seeing what kind of copy protection other companies use to compare at the least.
EDIT: Some quick searching tells me that Blizzard games like Warcraft III use Securom. But nobody made a stink about that. Maybe it's about this "three activations" thing that I wonder if anyone has really encountered in the wild.
If nothing else, their DRM will end up hurting the PC gaming market because people will just avoid the problem and get their games a console instead when available which is the case with most titles.
There are many variants of Securom out there. The system was fairly harmless until version 7 came out in some 2005 games, when it really started to become intrusive, and this latest variety with the internet activation and limited installs is even worse.
HeXploiT
Diamond Member
- Jun 11, 2004
- 4,359
- 1
- 76
Never understood why so many gamers prefer not to be honest.
SecureRom is garbage security software that nobody wants to deal with.
SecureRom is effective.
EA makes some pretty fantastic games(if this weren't true people wouldn't be so angry).
The unskilled computer user WILL buy EA games and claim to boycott them.
Get real people.
SecureRom is garbage security software that nobody wants to deal with.
SecureRom is effective.
EA makes some pretty fantastic games(if this weren't true people wouldn't be so angry).
The unskilled computer user WILL buy EA games and claim to boycott them.
Get real people.
A basic CD check, the kind that games had 10 years ago, would do that equally well. Anyone who knows how to bypass that will also get through any of these modern DRM systems just as easily.
coloumb
Diamond Member
- Oct 9, 1999
- 4,069
- 0
- 81
Nothing short of a mass boycott of ALL EA's games [including console games] will make them take notice. PC games of late seem to be console ports - so most gamers probably don't care. Why put up with all the crap installing a PC game when you can just buy a $300.00 console and not have to worry about it?
hdeck
Lifer
- Sep 26, 2002
- 14,530
- 1
- 0
Originally posted by: Perry404
Never understood why so many gamers prefer not to be honest.
SecureRom is garbage security software that nobody wants to deal with.
SecureRom is effective.
EA makes some pretty fantastic games(if this weren't true people wouldn't be so angry).
The unskilled computer user WILL buy EA games and claim to boycott them.
Get real people.
ea doesn't make anything fantastic. they just buy stuff and publish it.
Originally posted by: hdeck
Originally posted by: Perry404
Never understood why so many gamers prefer not to be honest.
SecureRom is garbage security software that nobody wants to deal with.
SecureRom is effective.
EA makes some pretty fantastic games(if this weren't true people wouldn't be so angry).
The unskilled computer user WILL buy EA games and claim to boycott them.
Get real people.
ea doesn't make anything fantastic. they just buy stuff and publish it.
At which point does funding development change from making to buying.
Some things they do just buy in (EA Partners stuff is an example of this), or they buy the studio (e.g. Bioware, Maxis, Redwood).
But at other times they might fund an external dev studio's pitch, or do in-house development (e.g. Need for Speed). There are many different ways in which games come to fruition. Does Mirrors Edge count as not being made by EA because EA bought the dev studio for a different product (the Battlefield series) and have now given them the money/opportunity to develop a new IP?
Buying in talent is always going to happen. It's called good business practice. When they buy in studios, and then allow them to develop (as they may be doing now), we see good potential, e.g. Mirrors Edge, Spore, even if execution isn't perfect (the same can be said of many many many big name non-EA games, e.g. Fable for an obvious example).
HeXploiT
Diamond Member
- Jun 11, 2004
- 4,359
- 1
- 76
Originally posted by: hdeck
Originally posted by: Perry404
Never understood why so many gamers prefer not to be honest.
SecureRom is garbage security software that nobody wants to deal with.
SecureRom is effective.
EA makes some pretty fantastic games(if this weren't true people wouldn't be so angry).
The unskilled computer user WILL buy EA games and claim to boycott them.
Get real people.
ea doesn't make anything fantastic. they just buy stuff and publish it.
I know but my point is that people will buy the games. Good games will always sell copy protection or not.
irishScott
Lifer
- Oct 10, 2006
- 21,562
- 3
- 0
If I like a game, I will buy it. Period. If in the future there is enough support to effectively boycott EA I'll gladly join in, however, doing so now would do nothing productive.
Right now everyone on internet forums screaming OMG SECUROM BOYCOTT!!!1 is about as effective as the DRM in question.
Right now everyone on internet forums screaming OMG SECUROM BOYCOTT!!!1 is about as effective as the DRM in question.
It could be effective...it is basically supporting the idea of voting with your wallet. I don't know if it will be effective enough, but I really do not see what else we as consumers can do about it if we are not happy.
Modelworks
Lifer
- Feb 22, 2007
- 16,240
- 7
- 76
I'm starting to look more and more at indie game companies.
They still care about the player.
The ones that sell out to the big publishers like EA are turning out more and more garbage that is barely worth playing, not to mention adding DRM to make it even less of a value.
I hope gaming returns to the days of shareware and the developer being the publisher. The role of the publisher is no longer needed in software, other than to provide financing. Publishers are becoming like some form of organized crime where you make a product and have to do it their way or they make things very difficult for you.
They still care about the player.
The ones that sell out to the big publishers like EA are turning out more and more garbage that is barely worth playing, not to mention adding DRM to make it even less of a value.
I hope gaming returns to the days of shareware and the developer being the publisher. The role of the publisher is no longer needed in software, other than to provide financing. Publishers are becoming like some form of organized crime where you make a product and have to do it their way or they make things very difficult for you.
I have yet to have dealt with the latest SecureRom DRM protection but it sure appears to be very flawed. The only hope I can guess is that with EA being exlusive with SecureRom, they will have funding to improve their product and service. I think that it is fair for the expectation to be that most people with a computer are expected to be connected to the internet in some form or another especially the gaming community. It is similiar to Digital signal deadline with the TV industry. People will have to upgrade get a TV signal.
I don't see why SecureRom does not have a similiar system in place much like steam where you can play games in offline mode for people who just dont wanted to be connected at all time. I think that it is reasonable to say that all people with a computer that game atleast know someone that has internet that they could atleast bring their computer over and connect to register their game and then go home and play in offline mode. That is a little bit of a hassle but that is what technology is sometimes.
In the end, I think this just presents yet one more obstacle for crackers to circumvent the security which challenge they love to have.
I don't see why SecureRom does not have a similiar system in place much like steam where you can play games in offline mode for people who just dont wanted to be connected at all time. I think that it is reasonable to say that all people with a computer that game atleast know someone that has internet that they could atleast bring their computer over and connect to register their game and then go home and play in offline mode. That is a little bit of a hassle but that is what technology is sometimes.
In the end, I think this just presents yet one more obstacle for crackers to circumvent the security which challenge they love to have.
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