EA's new anti-consumer tactic? C&C4 to always require active internet connection.

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: Qbah

Blizzard got smart too and removed LAN both from Diablo3 and SC2. So there's no multi without connecting to Battle.net. And you can be sure multi is the biggest focus for those games (well, for D3 at least).

Which is why I will be buying neither of those games too. As I've stated in several threads, LAN play is a core feature in an RTS game. An RTS that does not have it is broken and shouldn't be purchased by anyone. Blizzard is not smart buy doing this, only showing their extreme greed and corruption.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: WaitingForNehalem
"as a nice side effect, since C&C4 requires players to be online all the time in order to prevent cheating, we'll be shipping without any form of DRM."'

That seems fair.

If you can't play the game without a live Internet connection, then I would term it as DRM. Although, if their claim is that the game has no DRM, then the DMCA wouldn't apply to anyone wanting to crack it.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: Qbah


Best thing is, a simple crack won't solve this as the game will revolve around the connection.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bnetd


Double click to start the server.
Double click to start the game.
No crack needed.

 

[BladeVenom]

Originally posted by: Qbah
So there won't no SecuROM, Starforce, TAGES and all the other shit in this one. Everything so "wrong" has been potentially removed. And yet, people still complain. How do you think they should fight piracy? Are you that naive to think that if they make a very good game, people will just buy it and not download - especially if they won't use any copy protection at all? How old are you? 10?

You think this will stop piracy? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, and LOL! Were you born yesterday?

 

[darkrisen2003]

Originally posted by: Qbah
Who doesn't have broadband today Seriously, I would say this is the best way to fight piracy - the game has been built around the fact that you need to be online for whatever reasons. Surely, there are times when your internet conneciton is down or the server is down, but there are also times when electricity is down (VERY rare, but still) or there's something wrong with your rig. So it's not like a typical game is always playable and because of this there will be times it won't be.

Best thing is, a simple crack won't solve this as the game will revolve around the connection. And to the guy writing about packet sniffing etc., all the pirating folks, who can't even type properly, surely won't know how to make it work. They have problems running a simple crack ! This thing, if it would be possible, would be so far beyond their comprehension ...

So there won't no SecuROM, Starforce, TAGES and all the other shit in this one. Everything so "wrong" has been potentially removed. And yet, people still complain. How do you think they should fight piracy? Are you that naive to think that if they make a very good game, people will just buy it and not download - especially if they won't use any copy protection at all? How old are you? 10?

Blizzard got smart too and removed LAN both from Diablo3 and SC2. So there's no multi without connecting to Battle.net. And you can be sure multi is the biggest focus for those games (well, for D3 at least).

******************************************************

While I commend you for stating your opinion I have to disagree. Pirates are not ignorant and this will be quickly resolved but as far as your question as to how we should end piracy let me give you an answer that will go un noticed as this will never happen. The companies releasing the games need to do 2 things and they will no longer have issues with piracy.

A) Place quality back in the games. I am soo sick of these high graphics games that are being put out now a days that are soo bugged that they are unplayable untill you spend quite a large amount of time looking for patches, driver fixes, manual tweeks to the options just to get the games to run. Instead of going for the eye catching graphics why not focus more on gameplay and story/character developement? Games being made today with the exception of a few typically have a playtime of about 4-10 hours to beat and thats just sad.

B) Stop charging rediculous prices for games. In my humble opinion anything over 29.99-39.99 is way too much to pay retail for a game.

It's just like the pirating of movies and music etc. Why do you think all of this started? Do you really think that everyone is doing it just because its free and would not pay for things? That's how the majority of the world views it and they are wrong. Most people are more than happy to pay a fair price for goods and services. Even the pirates however only the pirates are willing to stand up to the industry and show them when they are charging too much for things. Now most people will come back and say well look at the price hiking thats happening etc and its only hurting everyone else etc but think of this.

Take the music business for instance. Before the pirates came around and started the P2P businness music cd's were begining to skyrocket in price and everyone was complaining. It wasnt untill the music industry took notice and started putting the music online in store formats etc and started lowering the prices of music for sale online. Think about it.

Now lets think about another industry that needs to be checked that is going semi un noticed. The fuel industry. Due to them having free reign to set whatever prices they want the cost of EVERYTHING is going up and jobs are going away and the economy is tearing up. I know thats not the only thing causing all of this but in my opinion its a large chunk of it.

 

[exar333]

Originally posted by: Ackmed
A LOT of our guys sat around playing games (tons of Diablo II and DoTA) such as C&C in Iraq. There is no getting online, so they would be screwed by this then? How annoying.

Yeah, no kidding. Can you imagine the phone call from the soldier?

"Hi, this is John calling from Iraq. I love your games, but I am unable to successfully install/play the game without an internet connection. The game helps me fill time between dodging bullets and IEDs, and I would really like to play it. My son, who I have'nt seen in six months, got me this game for Christmas. What can I do to get it working?"

EA - "Ummm..." Click.

 

[EvilComputer92]

Originally posted by: darkrisen2003

Originally posted by: Qbah
Who doesn't have broadband today Seriously, I would say this is the best way to fight piracy - the game has been built around the fact that you need to be online for whatever reasons. Surely, there are times when your internet conneciton is down or the server is down, but there are also times when electricity is down (VERY rare, but still) or there's something wrong with your rig. So it's not like a typical game is always playable and because of this there will be times it won't be.

Best thing is, a simple crack won't solve this as the game will revolve around the connection. And to the guy writing about packet sniffing etc., all the pirating folks, who can't even type properly, surely won't know how to make it work. They have problems running a simple crack ! This thing, if it would be possible, would be so far beyond their comprehension ...

So there won't no SecuROM, Starforce, TAGES and all the other shit in this one. Everything so "wrong" has been potentially removed. And yet, people still complain. How do you think they should fight piracy? Are you that naive to think that if they make a very good game, people will just buy it and not download - especially if they won't use any copy protection at all? How old are you? 10?

Blizzard got smart too and removed LAN both from Diablo3 and SC2. So there's no multi without connecting to Battle.net. And you can be sure multi is the biggest focus for those games (well, for D3 at least).

******************************************************

While I commend you for stating your opinion I have to disagree. Pirates are not ignorant and this will be quickly resolved but as far as your question as to how we should end piracy let me give you an answer that will go un noticed as this will never happen. The companies releasing the games need to do 2 things and they will no longer have issues with piracy.

A) Place quality back in the games. I am soo sick of these high graphics games that are being put out now a days that are soo bugged that they are unplayable untill you spend quite a large amount of time looking for patches, driver fixes, manual tweeks to the options just to get the games to run. Instead of going for the eye catching graphics why not focus more on gameplay and story/character developement? Games being made today with the exception of a few typically have a playtime of about 4-10 hours to beat and thats just sad.

B) Stop charging rediculous prices for games. In my humble opinion anything over 29.99-39.99 is way too much to pay retail for a game.

It's just like the pirating of movies and music etc. Why do you think all of this started? Do you really think that everyone is doing it just because its free and would not pay for things? That's how the majority of the world views it and they are wrong. Most people are more than happy to pay a fair price for goods and services. Even the pirates however only the pirates are willing to stand up to the industry and show them when they are charging too much for things. Now most people will come back and say well look at the price hiking thats happening etc and its only hurting everyone else etc but think of this.

Take the music business for instance. Before the pirates came around and started the P2P businness music cd's were begining to skyrocket in price and everyone was complaining. It wasnt untill the music industry took notice and started putting the music online in store formats etc and started lowering the prices of music for sale online. Think about it.

Now lets think about another industry that needs to be checked that is going semi un noticed. The fuel industry. Due to them having free reign to set whatever prices they want the cost of EVERYTHING is going up and jobs are going away and the economy is tearing up. I know thats not the only thing causing all of this but in my opinion its a large chunk of it.

This post is so full of fail I don't even know where to start.

 

[Malladine]

no problem, i'm always online anyway.

sucks for the soldiers though, that's true.

I guess they will have to play other games. Or maybe the devs will release a military only version

 

[AstroManLuca]

Originally posted by: TehMac
This is to me the best way of doing it--CoH does the same thing. And in terms of money loss, most people have an internet connection--look at WoW's success.

No it doesn't. You can still play offline in single player mode if you have the CD to authenticate.

Unfortunately, like Starcraft II, CoH has no LAN play.

 

[Denithor]

Originally posted by: darkrisen2003
A) Place quality back in the games. I am soo sick of these high graphics games that are being put out now a days that are soo bugged that they are unplayable untill you spend quite a large amount of time looking for patches, driver fixes, manual tweeks to the options just to get the games to run. Instead of going for the eye catching graphics why not focus more on gameplay and story/character developement? Games being made today with the exception of a few typically have a playtime of about 4-10 hours to beat and thats just sad.

What does game quality have to do with piracy? If a game sucks ass you wouldn't buy it - so why would you waste your time stealing a pirate copy? Seems like it wouldn't be worth it either way.

B) Stop charging rediculous prices for games. In my humble opinion anything over 29.99-39.99 is way too much to pay retail for a game.

Bullsh!t. Some people would pirate a game even if it was $4.99 let alone $29.99 or $59.99.

And let me tell you about this little thing called inflation. I've been buying games since the late 80's. In that time game prices haven't really moved at all - serious titles (with high expectations) were released back then in the $40-50 range and that's still where they are released. Meaning that prices have actually fallen due to today's dollar having less buying power than those of twenty years ago. We're honestly just lucky they haven't jacked up the cost of games at launch - if they adjusted for inflation they would be launching at $69.99 or $79.99, not $39.99 or $49.99 like most do.

 

[darkrisen2003]

Originally posted by: Denithor

Originally posted by: darkrisen2003
A) Place quality back in the games. I am soo sick of these high graphics games that are being put out now a days that are soo bugged that they are unplayable untill you spend quite a large amount of time looking for patches, driver fixes, manual tweeks to the options just to get the games to run. Instead of going for the eye catching graphics why not focus more on gameplay and story/character developement? Games being made today with the exception of a few typically have a playtime of about 4-10 hours to beat and thats just sad.

What does game quality have to do with piracy? If a game sucks ass you wouldn't buy it - so why would you waste your time stealing a pirate copy? Seems like it wouldn't be worth it either way.

B) Stop charging rediculous prices for games. In my humble opinion anything over 29.99-39.99 is way too much to pay retail for a game.

Bullsh!t. Some people would pirate a game even if it was $4.99 let alone $29.99 or $59.99.

And let me tell you about this little thing called inflation. I've been buying games since the late 80's. In that time game prices haven't really moved at all - serious titles (with high expectations) were released back then in the $40-50 range and that's still where they are released. Meaning that prices have actually fallen due to today's dollar having less buying power than those of twenty years ago. We're honestly just lucky they haven't jacked up the cost of games at launch - if they adjusted for inflation they would be launching at $69.99 or $79.99, not $39.99 or $49.99 like most do.

**************************************************************

What does game quality have to do with piracy? If a game sucks ass you wouldn't buy it - so why would you waste your time stealing a pirate copy? Seems like it wouldn't be worth it either way.

This brings up part of my point though. Game companies are blaming pirates for crappy game sales on games that are horrible.

**************************************************************

And I can somewhat agree with you on the timeline you bring up but im not just refering to pc games. Im refering to hardware as well as gaming machines etc.

These are of course my opinions how ever they may be viewed.

 

[mindcycle]

Originally posted by: Qbah
Who doesn't have broadband today

As already mentioned, soldiers. Also people in rural area's without reliable internet, countries without widespread internet access, etc..

I didn't have internet access for a few weeks while I was in the process of moving, but still had access to a gaming laptop, which many times was without internet. If I had just bought a single player game that required internet access I would have been fairly pissed.

Originally posted by: Qbah
And yet, people still complain. How do you think they should fight piracy?

First thing would be to not inconvenience your potential paying customers by throwing up roadblocks..

 

[PieIsAwesome]

I would prefer this in place of limited installs and disc checks and whatnot. Maybe a couple of years ago this would be a problem, but I always have internet access now.

 

[AlgaeEater]

Sounds like a MMORPG authentication system. You have an account, and you can only play on live servers. If you're offline, no go.

Am I missing something else?

 

[mindcycle]

Originally posted by: AlgaeEater
Sounds like a MMORPG authentication system. You have an account, and you can only play on live servers. If you're offline, no go.

Am I missing something else?

What I can gather from reading the press release, being online offers little to no benefit to the SP portion of the game.

So what is confusing people is why EA is going to require that you're connected to the internet to play the "single player" campaign?

 

[AlgaeEater]

Originally posted by: mindcycle

Originally posted by: AlgaeEater
Sounds like a MMORPG authentication system. You have an account, and you can only play on live servers. If you're offline, no go.

Am I missing something else?

What I can gather from reading the press release, being online offers little to no benefit to the SP portion of the game.

So what is confusing people is why EA is going to require that you're connected to the internet to play the "single player" campaign?

Sounds about right. I was kinda led with the impression that this was some form of new confusing DRM scheme when I did a double check and realized it just sounds like a regular o'l MMORPG type of system. It's a shame that the single player game is going to be affected, but I guess that's just a sign of the times.

 

[Qbah Away]

Originally posted by: BladeVenom

Originally posted by: Qbah
So there won't no SecuROM, Starforce, TAGES and all the other shit in this one. Everything so "wrong" has been potentially removed. And yet, people still complain. How do you think they should fight piracy? Are you that naive to think that if they make a very good game, people will just buy it and not download - especially if they won't use any copy protection at all? How old are you? 10?

You think this will stop piracy? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, and LOL! Were you born yesterday?

Where did I write that it will stop piracy? Huh? It will fight it better than sucky SecuROM or the likes - a cracked .exe won't help here cause you need to be connected to the EA servers during gameplay and part of the gameplay is connected to have the connection. Basic comprehension ftl. Obviously, there are and probably will be workarounds for this one, but it will be more complex than substituting a simple .exe - and a lot of people have even problems getting this shit done.

Making a game better will hardly help with piracy - hell, it might probably make it worse, in a twisted way. But current DRM doesn't stop a game from being cracked - hence I don't really understand why are they putting this shit in new games - it clearly doesn't work.

This thing by EA is not new (you need to be online), but mixing it with the fact that you have to be connected to the internet even for SP gameplay due to some of the gameplay elements requiring data from EA servers is a new one. WoW showed that this can be very profitable anbd hinder piracy a lot (yes, I do know WoW in an MMO, but the basic idea is the same). Yes, I know there are/were pirate servers for WoW, but look how many people play it legally. Because it's such a pain in the ass and it's so buggy to play the pirated "mode".

Make a great game and have it require an active connection to the publishers/developers servers for whatever cause for gameplay reasons and this just might work.

And yes, I know soldiers in Iraq or rural areas have problems with Internet. Then again, you have 3G coverage in many places too with many providers having a flat-rate billing. There are ways (though yeah, the soldier thingie is not skippable). But you just have to accept some losses (as some of your customers won't be able to have a connection). And all the other people that will want to play it will have to buy it - I'm sure in the end, they will earn more $$$.

 

[Red Irish]

Originally posted by: Qbah Away
Making a game better will hardly help with piracy - hell, it might probably make it worse, in a twisted way. But current DRM doesn't stop a game from being cracked - hence I don't really understand why are they putting this shit in new games - it clearly doesn't work.

Perhaps they want to ensure that pc diehards will finally bite the bullet and move on to a console.

 

[Golgatha]

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/...gle-player-games-1.ars

Here's an Online poll from ARS Technica. Looks like 57%+ are giving EA the big F-you in response to the always-Online scheme and 33%+ more are on the edge of it. Only 10% don't care about this DRM at all. That can't be good for sales.

 

[Martimus]

Well this WAS a game I was going to get. I love command on Conquer, but if I need a constant internet connectino to play it, I will pass. I have too much trouble with my internet as it is, and when I go on trips, I would need to get a hotel with internet to play.

 

[Martimus]

Originally posted by: Red Irish

Originally posted by: Qbah Away
Making a game better will hardly help with piracy - hell, it might probably make it worse, in a twisted way. But current DRM doesn't stop a game from being cracked - hence I don't really understand why are they putting this shit in new games - it clearly doesn't work.

Perhaps they want to ensure that pc diehards will finally bite the bullet and move on to a console.

Why would I buy a console though? It costs money, and not a small amount of it. Plus I would need to attach it to a TV, which means that it would be a bother to the other members of the house. It just isn't feasible for me. I already have my computer, and it plays RTS games just fine (although it won't be playing this one, unless they drop this stupid idea.)

 

[ayabe]

Originally posted by: Golgatha
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/...gle-player-games-1.ars

Here's an Online poll from ARS Technica. Looks like 57%+ are giving EA the big F-you in response to the always-Online scheme and 33%+ more are on the edge of it. Only 10% don't care about this DRM at all. That can't be good for sales.

The problem is, I bet you could substitute any form of DRM into that poll and would come out with similar results.

People are always going to be unhappy.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: ayabe

Originally posted by: Golgatha
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/...gle-player-games-1.ars

Here's an Online poll from ARS Technica. Looks like 57%+ are giving EA the big F-you in response to the always-Online scheme and 33%+ more are on the edge of it. Only 10% don't care about this DRM at all. That can't be good for sales.

The problem is, I bet you could substitute any form of DRM into that poll and would come out with similar results.

People are always going to be unhappy.

I'd wager that Online Securom activation with revocable installs (you know, the status quo gamers fought for and was originally reauthenticate every few days and with a limited number of non-revocable installs) would be much more welcome than always-on Internet for SP and MP.

 

[Martimus]

Originally posted by: Golgatha

Originally posted by: ayabe

Originally posted by: Golgatha
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/...gle-player-games-1.ars

Here's an Online poll from ARS Technica. Looks like 57%+ are giving EA the big F-you in response to the always-Online scheme and 33%+ more are on the edge of it. Only 10% don't care about this DRM at all. That can't be good for sales.

The problem is, I bet you could substitute any form of DRM into that poll and would come out with similar results.

People are always going to be unhappy.

I'd wager that Online Securom activation with revocable installs (you know, the status quo gamers fought for and was originally reauthenticate every few days and with a limited number of non-revocable installs) would be much more welcome than always-on Internet for SP and MP.

To me it is an object of "what can you live with"? I can live with a single online activation sometimes (as long as I feel confident I will have that access, and I will play the game long enough that the first activation isn't that painfull.) Requiring an internet connection for every play is something I cannot live with. It is the reason I barely played HL2, since I had to worry about more than just the game, I had to worry about an internet connection as well. I am not worrying about it though. They won't sell that well, and it will go away. Or it will cause countless problems, will give them bad PR to the point that their future games won't sell well, and they will be forced to aggressively try to change their image to gain back potential customers.

 

[mindcycle]

Originally posted by: ayabe

Originally posted by: Golgatha
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/...gle-player-games-1.ars

Here's an Online poll from ARS Technica. Looks like 57%+ are giving EA the big F-you in response to the always-Online scheme and 33%+ more are on the edge of it. Only 10% don't care about this DRM at all. That can't be good for sales.

The problem is, I bet you could substitute any form of DRM into that poll and would come out with similar results.

People are always going to be unhappy.

And why shouldn't they be? When publishers intentionally make it more difficult play a game you bought from them then there is a serious problem. If they keep this nonsense in the game then it's guaranteed that pirates will have the better SP experience.

That's what I don't get. Pirates are the only ones directly benefiting from DRM, being that they don't have to deal with it. The paying customers are the ones who get the short end of the stick. Seems like it should be the other way around doesn't it?..