News Mass Effect and Spore DRM detailed

What if you're out of town for more than10 days?

 

Very nicely put. I think that the best way for companies to make money is to produce genuinely decent games for which customers WANT to pay.
THESE GAMES WILL BE PIRATED. As will be every major release in the foreseeable future. The people who pirate either do so because they can't afford the game or don't like it enough to support the developer, therefore in my mind they are not 'lost sales' as they wouldn't buy the game anyway.
In the meantime, customers who actually appreciate the game enough to pay for it are stuck with draconian CP methods which detract from their enjoyment of said game. This leads to the current scenario where customers who are really excited about a new game and WANT to buy it (i.e:myself) are being put off it. That's what I call "lost sales".
Wake up, BioWare! You will never FORCE people to pay for a game if they don't want to. You are better off improving the experience for those who support you.

 

what's the.... my god man. what next? lets put off the paranoia and 1984 talk for a minute and just talk logical progression. first it was a game authenticating once, now its a game authenticating every ten days.

Then it'll be a game authenticating whenever you want to play it.

Then it'll be a small fee every time you want to play, to cover the cost of the copy protection.

Then it'll be a subscription to a copy-protection 'service', that bills you for every game you have installed every time you try and play one.

Then it'll be robots coming to get you for not being authenticated enough times.


Seriously though, I'm so tired of this debate its not even funny.

 

Not this again?

People will steal what they want, when they want. This kind of nonsense only affects legitimate customers because they are the only ones with the DRM infested version. All the pirates are laughing their heads off as they install and play a DRM free version with no strings.

I can't believe publishers/devs can be so stupid and lets face it, they must be stupid if they can't see what everyone else can.

So what will happen is the following...

1. People will buy the legit game and spend hours, days complaining because things don't work properly e.t.c

2. The pirates will get their DRM free game without spending a penny.

3. The only winners are the companies providing the DRM.


And the point was?

Incidentally I didn't buy bioshock for this reason and the same will go for these two titles, they can keep their nonsense

 

it all comes down to experience and the ability to play online. Really if you make sure your game has a online presence, then people must have legit copies to play. Pirating is going to happen, hell the actual people that break the copy protection aren't doing it for profit or for fame, they probably mainly do it just because they can, and they want a challenge.

Making the game auth to the server is pointless when it just gets removed by the crackers, no matter how often it checks, will they ever learn???

 

BS, these companies have detailed data on this, Bioshock was pirated, but less then it would have been, even a matter of days can make a big difference in sales. Steam can be pirated, but, it does lower the amount of it. There is a reason oraneg box is one of the few games that sold more on PC then all consoles combined, it is called steam. Like it or not, embrace this, or stop playing games on PC, it is not near as abd as many make out. If data showed this caused headaches for large numbers and hurt sales, you can rest assured companies would stop this practice. Funny how everyone is all of a sudden a market expert. I know several people who tried to pirate Bioshock but couldn't get it to play because of the anti-piracy measures, they ended up buying the game. It doesn't stop it, but the harder it is to pirate it does deter some away.

 

The Internet connection is a requirement on the box, no excuse for complaining if you don't meet requirements. The vast majority of people playing Pc games have a constant broadband connection, millions do. If u don't, don't buy the game or complain.

 

Bioware is one of the best devs around,s aying they don't care about users is a childish response, they release great games and didn't have to release an enhanced Pc vesion at all, the only people who don't care are the pirates that are really hurting PC gaming.

 

I have no problem paying for a good game. As a poor student I usually wait until the price comes down, except for some games that I just can't wait for, due to lack of funds, but this is a huge load of crap.
Sadly I think too many people will still buy the game to make a difference, but it would be great if very few bought and made them wake up and listen.

 

A huge number of us won't be making excuses chap, we just won't be spending any money with a company as nearsighted as this.

If you think the company are right to do this then by all means continue to support them and before long you will be so bogged down in DRM you won't know if you are coming or going. The pirates........, well they will still be playing on a DRM free, no strings attached version.

Please people, WAKE UP

 

Just so you knowm it is the PUBLISHER EA who is responsible for this, not Bioware.

 

It doesn't matter who is responsible! We are responsible for where we spend our money and I will be voting with my wallet with these two games and any other content that takes this draconian and ultimately pointless approach.

And of course, nobody forced Bioware to sign up with EA

 

Just wondering, how many days can steam be offline before it decides it won't login? I thought there was a limit of around 15 days.

 

well then dev's need to think long and hard about what publisher they go through. If this is indeed a unilateral decision by EA then all it does is bring the dev's reputation right down to EA's level, which lets face it even the no body wants.

 

Im curious to know, in regards to the decision to implement CP (especially as bad as this one), is it more the game developer or the game publisher?

I highly doubt there's anything like "insurance" on game software, but as everyone has pointed out, surely the game devs *know* CP simply doesnt work. Is it the publisher then, that enforces this so that they have some form of what they wrongly assume as security in their investment? I mean, it costs them to implement it and it *always* fails to deter piracy...

Since the days of the C64, I have yet to see a CP system that actually, truly works.

I would have 1000x more respect for a dev/publisher that said, "Ok, there's no DRM/CP on this game -- we're hoping that the quality of the work itself is enough for people to pay for it". I think some Russian team did that a little while ago. And sure, it wont deter the person who refuses to pay for anything, but for the vast majority of us here, I hopefully assume, would pay for the game.

If it's good, ofc!

 

EA bought Bioware doofus, geez.

 

EA bought Bioware, gee guys, know the facts before discussing something. They never signed up with EA, they got bought out by them.

 

Woudn't be the first time all the decent staff of a dev jumped ship after being enveloped by EA.

And please try and be polite.

 

It does need to connect regulartily, doesn't cause any issues for the millions of people on it. This is an overreaction by a minoroty on a forum.

 

this is not the first attempt at copy protecting a game, far from it. And look what happened to them protections. All they are achieving is pissing off paying customers.

Valve, as usual, do things right. They give you a gaming network that blows xbl out of the water, give a huge variety of games available through nice 'can't be arsed going to the shop' downloading, no need for a CD which will only get scratched anyway, maintain low levels of piracy and cheating and they let all the other developers use it. why aren't they using it?