Spore: Most Pirated Game Ever Thanks to DRM

Zillah

thelordofcheese wrote: »

That's a terrible excuse for piracy and you know it. Nobody is forcing you to buy the games, and there isn't exactly a shortage on information, reviews, discussions and often demos for you to make a reasonably informed decision before you buy something. That excuse is childish beyond measure.

Whether you think its childish or not is irrelevant. The fact remains that even with reviews and demos I have been extremely disappointed by games I've played. For example, Spore. Unfun pile of toss in my opinion and I'm very much of the opinion that they don't deserve 50 euro for me to find that out.

Please don't miss the point where I said I pay for games that I've found to be derserving of it.

thelordofcheese

MooseJam wrote: »

DRM is the baby throwing the toys out of the pram, wah wah they're downloading our stuff we have to do something, do they care that it has ZERO effect no, there's just some suit somewhere who can point to it when another suit complains about piracy, it does NOTHING to stop it , sweet fa, they are retards for using it, they are just driving more customers away

Once again, is DRM does nothing, explain how Steam games don't suffer anywhere near the same levels of piracy as other major games

Screw it, we've reached that point in the conversation where were back to where we were about five pages ago, only now i've no desire to talk in circles with you.

I maintain that anyone who cites DRM as the reason they pirate games is the very reason that DRM is getting more draconian, it's a response to the increased volume of piracy.
The cause is peoples assumption that piracy is ok for whatever reason makes the most sense to them, the increased DRM is the response to this attitude.
Companies don't spend money unless they have to, your contention that DRM is to placate the 'suits' is laughable.

zillah wrote:

Whether you think its childish or not is irrelevant. The fact remains that even with reviews and demos I have been extremely disappointed by games I've played. For example, Spore. Unfun pile of toss in my opinion and I'm very much of the opinion that they don't deserve 50 euro for me to find that out.

Tough, people make bad decisions all the time, this doesn't excuse piracy, it's just a poor attempt to justify it.

zillah wrote:

Please don't miss the point where I said I pay for games that I've found to be derserving of it.

I don't buy this excuse, i'm not calling you a liar or anything, but i really wonder how many people follow through on this, or is it an excuse people trot out. And it still doesn't excuse the ones you found lacking.

Canis Lupus

Zillah wrote: »

Whether you think its childish or not is irrelevant. The fact remains that even with reviews and demos I have been extremely disappointed by games I've played. For example, Spore. Unfun pile of toss in my opinion and I'm very much of the opinion that they don't deserve 50 euro for me to find that out.

Please don't miss the point where I said I pay for games that I've found to be derserving of it.

In fairness games aren't sold in a try before you buy way unless they give you a demo. If you don't want to risk wasting 50e you don't buy the game. It's really that simple isn't it?

Hitman Actual

monument wrote: »

Just to make it clear: The piracy of goods has a legal meaning and it will not be tolerated on this board that end users are accused of piracy.

I know there has been a lot of changes in the Irish copyright law in recent years so if you can point out the changes which has massivly changed the meaning of the word then I'll look at changing the above. A link to an Irish newspaper article, or the law its self should do -- PM me if you have one or the other.

Every definition of software piracy, which I assume is what you're talking about, includes the stipulation that "unauthorized use" is a breach. If you're saying that Irish copyright law distinguishes between "distribution" and "unauthorized use" in its definition of piracy, then fair enough. But I know from working in the silicon IP industry that unauthorized use would definitely be considered piracy. Are we just getting bogged down in semantics here?

monument wrote: »

If you would like to agree with other posters, fine. Or even disagrees with other posters and address points they have made, fine. However, slinging muck isn't really allowed here.

Apologies, that was vague alright. Regarding some of the reasons given for downloading, I can understand and sympathize with the notion that people in less-developed countries can't afford to buy full games. And as it usually doesn't result in a lost sale, then I guess it's something of a gray area regarding piracy.

But the notion of 'try before you buy' is just a lazy excuse, imo. There are plenty of demos, reviews, etc, out there to base your decision on. And the whole issue of 'sticking it to the fat cat executives because of DRM' is the most petty, disingenuous excuse I've heard.

L31mr0d

*sheesh* right i'm done :rolleyes: I'm going to bow out of this before it starts becoming as cyclical as the creationism thread.

one final note, as well as being completely just, Piracy is saving the planet

Maximilian

Yeah I agree. No sense in arguing with people.

I was re-reading some of the posts and I'd like to clarify one thing before I quit this thread. "Stealing" is a broad term that encompasses many things in law such as larceny, fraud, counterfeiting, burglary etc. There is no actual offense of "stealing" per se in Irish law as far as I'm aware, although it's a concept that goes back to biblical times and such. It's that broad general concept I was talking about really. You nick a video recorder for example and you would get charged with larceny. With piracy it would likely be counterfeiting or copyright infringement. Not sure if that clears anything up but anyway.

People were getting bogged down in the copying/taking thing but that kind of argument is only relevant when it comes to fitting a particular wrongful act to a specified crime. Some of you would make good lawyers

Also, if anyone got the impression I was accusing them of being a thief, I wasn't & apologize if that was perception.

Zillah

Canis Lupus wrote: »

If you don't want to risk wasting 50e you don't buy the game. It's really that simple isn't it?

No, I find torrents complicate the situation a lot. Perhaps you missed the rest of the thread...

monument

lenny_leonard wrote: »

Every definition of software piracy, which I assume is what you're talking about, includes the stipulation that "unauthorized use" is a breach. If you're saying that Irish copyright law distinguishes between "distribution" and "unauthorized use" in its definition of piracy, then fair enough. But I know from working in the silicon IP industry that unauthorized use would definitely be considered piracy. Are we just getting bogged down in semantics here?

It might be somewhat commonly misused to describers downloaders (opposed to uploaders etc), but "pirates", people who engage in piracy, are who sell or distribute.

The people who trade with sea pirates today (and there still are some in parts of Africa etc) or sell/distribute counterfeit of goods (which can relate to at least some "software piracy"). People who trade or buy off these people were never pirates them sell (note it's like how buying stolen goods is a lot different than selling them).

It comes down to if you call a downloader a pirate you are accusing them of a crime they have not committed. You are then opening your self to libel (which has higher payouts and is probably easer case to take than getting somebody for downloading!).

Ross_Mahon

YARRR! I'm a pirate! But i am urging everyone else to buy it so that the gaming companys can make lots of money and make even better games for me to freely download again and again...:pac:

(I am only messing)

thelordofcheese

Ross_Mahon wrote: »

YARRR! I'm a pirate! But i am urging everyone else to buy it so that the gaming companys can make lots of money and make even better games for me to freely download again and again...:pac:

(I am only messing)

YARRR!!!!!, tis international talk like a pirate day, after all.

ahoy and avast!

MOH

thelordofcheese wrote: »

I maintain that anyone who cites DRM as the reason they pirate games is the very reason that DRM is getting more draconian, it's a response to the increased volume of piracy.
The cause is peoples assumption that piracy is ok for whatever reason makes the most sense to them, the increased DRM is the response to this attitude.
Companies don't spend money unless they have to, your contention that DRM is to placate the 'suits' is laughable.

I've spent hundreds, maybe thousands, on games over the years and never even thought about downloading one. I didn't even have a clue how one would do it. Until Bioshock and the whole SecuRom fiasco. Which was swiftly followed by Mass Effect. I bought Spore, but I'd return it now if I could, purely because of the DRM bull.

I don't buy the argument of downloading games to try them out, then buy them if they're OK. If you buy a DVD, or buy a book, you take your chances that it's rubbish. But if it is, at least you can sell it and get something back.

But DRM is a different spaghetti monster. It only punishes people who buy the game legally, which as has been said makes the pirated version superior. It's often (usually?) not stated anywhere on the box that the game contains this DRM, and once you've bought a PC game you can't return it. It's installed on a user's PC without notification, and can have side effects, which while they may not be intentional, makes it malware in my book.

And it increases the price of a game: I buy new games factoring in what I'll get for them if I sell them second hand in a few weeks. Once reports get out of draconian DRM, you can forget about selling it. There's a new, sealed copy of Spore going on adverts for €15.

To me, that's the real purpose of DRM, to kill the second hand market. But if publishers think that's going to increase sales, I think they're wrong. Most people who buy games second had couldn't afford to, or just wouldn't, buy them new. And losing out on the second hand sale makes buying it new more expensive, so less people will. So now you've got both new and second hand buyers who would have played the game (leading to repeat business if it's good) who either won't play it at all, or will download it.

Which will probably lead to publishers investing in even more draconian DRM, failing to realise that there's a hell of a lot of smart people on the planet, and short of requiring some kind of biometric scan every time you load a game, DRM is only making the situation worse.

Maximilian

Angry internets work, which is a good thing.

In a statement Frank Gibeau, EA game label president, said the company was "disappointed" by the misunderstanding around its digital-rights-management software and that it would expand the installation limit from three machines to five. He added that EA is also expediting the development of a system that will allow customers to "de-authorize" computers and move the game to new machines, without the need to call the company.

Won't satisfy everyone no doubt but a step in the right direction.

ageary08

Its madness really, Id be willing to bet the normal secrurom/cd key setup games have is just as effective at deterring joe gamer who isnt in the know about methods of getting around protection. For anybody who is a bit handy with google or bittorrent though its as easy as its ever been (the cd key is a brilliant approach to stopping this for mutiplayer games at least, its does the job just as well as 3 installs and online registration.

Stev_o

Considering most of this thread the main argument is about the activation whats people's opinion about SecuRom installation of once being installed on your PC gains above admin control on your system thats what scares me more then the DRM.

ShadowHearth

thelordofcheese wrote: »

Rubbish,
You don't NEED games, they are a luxury item, you can't justify stealing them because they were expensive.
Of course you had a choice. You could have saved and bought the games legally, or you could have stole them.
You chose the second option, but don't pretend like it was some kind of horrific injustice visited upon you that forced you to steal the games.
It's not like you weren't going to die without that a copy of Doom3, now were you?

Oh dude, you should see some hard life, got nice and couzy here in ireland, your mummy and daddy was able to buy you stuff, and you had apportunity to get a jab, and live like a normal person from a minimum wage.

You should try to live 3 months by eating only potatoes. Or just think every month where to get money for rent. And did you atleast read what i said? A game cost more then half of your monthly wages. And you suggest me not to eat, live in the dumster and buy a game.

Sorry, but you should have reality check. People dont live that good all over the world like you do here. So if you have nothing to say , say nothing.

wayne040576

Copy Protection
AKA: Yes Virgnia, there’s no CD copy protection in Sins of a Solar Empire

I remember hearing at a conference that when an executive at a big publisher heard that Galactic Civilizations II shipped with no CD copy protection that they quipped “I hope bankruptcy treats them well.”

Millions of dollars in sales later as one of the top selling PC strategy games at retail (according to NPD) over the past couple of years let’s me say “Ha!” in response. And this is on a game that made most of its money on digital sales.

I don’t like piracy. I don’t like people using stuff my friends and I worked very hard on for years without compensating us. But I also can make the distinction between piracy and lost sales. That’s a distinction that most DRM and copy protection schemes ignore.

The bottom line on copy protection is that if you create a greater incentive for someone to buy your game than to steal it, those who might possibly buy your game will make the choice to buy it.

With Galactic Civilizations II, we put no copy protection on the CD. But to get updates, users had to use their unique serial # in the box. That’s because our system is backed by TotalGaming.net’s unique SSD service (secure software delivery) which forgoes DRM and copy protection as we know it to take a more common sense (I think so anyway as a gamer) approach of just making sure you are delivering your game to the actual customer.

Any system out there will get cracked and distributed. But if you provide reasonable after-release support in the form of free updates that add new content and features that are painless for customers to get, you create a real incentive to be a customer.

As I mentioned earlier, Galactic Civilizations II was success in terms of actual sales, critical reception, and most importantly, satisfaction by strategy gamers.

Sins of a Solar Empire is taking the same route. In fact, we hope to have a free update available the first week of availability with new maps, new options, and new features. We consider ourselves lucky. We get to make a game and play it and then get to update it based on talking to our customers. It’s a great system.

And I think most gamers will agree that a system that rewards people for buying your product is preferable to one that treats them like potential criminals.

http://blogs.ign.com/Stardock_Games/2008/01/29/78711/

Just a developer taking another approach.
Oh and anyone who has sins.. knows they have been producing free updates since its release.

monument

ShadowHearth wrote: »

Oh dude, you should see some hard life, got nice and couzy here in ireland, your mummy and daddy was able to buy you stuff, and you had apportunity to get a jab, and live like a normal person from a minimum wage....

As with others on the thread if you continue down this path you will quickly find your self banned.

EVERYBODY -- Play nice and stay on topic or expect to be banned.

On second thought -- thread locked. If I see the people I've warned acting up on other threads the same warnings apply.