Topic: SecuROM

[CosmicD]

you don't even have to do anything to activate the game every 10 days. the game will just "phone home" every 10 days while you are asleep, having your computer on at night.

Seariously, I understand the hassle, but what I don't understand is people suddenly coming up with "what if i" situations they will probably never get into as an excuse

I read on the securom site that when the drivers disable something, they disable some low level stuff that is used to make exact copies from cd's.

WIth Starforce this was also a major dispute.

I'd also want to disable the thief as much as possible from coming into my home.

[Henqix]

Why would an average customer that has already bought the game want to make copy's of it? In what way does this stop pirates that just download a modified version of it that don't do this?
The customer isn't the thief.
This is like locking your door when theres a hole in your wall.

[Murali]

you don't even have to do anything to activate the game every 10 days. the game will just "phone home" every 10 days while you are asleep, having your computer on at night.

Seariously, I understand the hassle, but what I don't understand is people suddenly coming up with "what if i" situations they will probably never get into as an excuse

No, no... I don't think you really do understand.  Do you realize who the only people this really effects are?  It only really effects the honest people and the "wannabe pirate".  The real people pirating the software WILL break it and it WILL be pirated.

So, realistically, its only Joe Schmo that this effects.  Billy Pirate will just laugh to himself the whole way through.

I read on the securom site that when the drivers disable something, they disable some low level stuff that is used to make exact copies from cd's.

WIth Starforce this was also a major dispute.

I'd also want to disable the thief as much as possible from coming into my home.

And this proves you just don't get it.  Who owns your computer?  Last I check, you paid for it... so why should you install some kind of spyware (eg sonys rootkit) to have to use a service?

If you don't want to own your computer, feel free to send it my way... I'll give you plenty of 'value added benefit'.

[Murali]

Why would an average customer that has already bought the game want to make copy's of it? In what way does this stop pirates that just download a modified version of it that don't do this?
The customer isn't the thief.
This is like locking your door when theres a hole in your wall.

Some of us like to make ISO's of our game and use Daemon Tools to play the game... We leave the CD in the box...  This means A) Instant load times... Its not reading from a CD/DVD and B) the CD is safe and clean... so my shoddy optical drive or kid or some other weird ass occurence that people claim to happen never will.

[KL0k]

i wouldnt have been that upset, if i had less problems with games from EA plus securom... specially the EA accountserver seem to hate me, cause i cant get one single game registered without a fricken problem (theres still roundbout 8-9 games i had problems with on my shelve which i couldnt play online one time beside usiing hamachi...). plus the fact that securom likes to hate my drives in my comp... plus the possibility, that you cant play it if you arent connected to the net... i mean... helloooooo? anyone heard of uni-networks..? internet cafés? and the like? or volumeflatrate-dialup connections and the like?
forcing ppl to be online all the time just to verify that you really didnt steal it off the net, is just plain stupid. period.
and just to clarify things: the only ppl who will tear their hair out with this protection are the customers, cause the pirated games always come with a workaround in any kind, cause thats whats all about in that scene.. so guess whos pissed then.

a person who thinks that this copy protection will solve a problem instead of creating new problems -> *harsh word of your choice*
the crackers will love the challenge, and i bet it will be a crack/hack/workaround online in less then 24hours after release, if not earlier ^^
better believe it and find another way.

[Lippy]

"This new version is causing controversy due to an online verification system connected to its CD key. The system requires a connection to the internet during installation… After this the game will try to re-check the CD key every 5-10 days… If the game can’t verify the key… it will continue to try for a further 10 days, after which it will stop working… The protection will also only allow the game to be installed three times.

The stuff in bold is wrong.  They didn't do any research of their own.  They read it wrong and are making wild rumors that are wrong and don't care because they want to make as much stink about it as they can.  If you're going to be mad, know what you're being mad about.  Read the comments from the programmers at Bioware on the Mass Effect forum you would see how it works.  It will only check on days 5-10.  If you are not connected on those days, fine, but it will not run on the tenth day, and will not run again until you run the game again while connected to the internet.   

The game can only be installed on 3 different computers.  This is different than saying can only be installed three times.  Nobody knows exactly what the criteria are for what changes can be made to your computer without spooking SecuROM into thinking you installed it onto a different computers.  They just guess.  But they do have to store your system configuration on their servers to check. 

[SpaceOddity]

Spaceoddity:

how do you explain this then. If we can just reconnect and play on.


"This new version is causing controversy due to an online verification system connected to its CD key. The system requires a connection to the internet during installation… After this the game will try to re-check the CD key every 5-10 days… If the game can’t verify the key… it will continue to try for a further 10 days, after which it will stop working… The protection will also only allow the game to be installed three times.

Taken from here:
http://gamepolitics.com/2008/05/08/pc-gamers-angered-by-eas-new-copy-protection-system/

I must say I am worried that stop working means your key is gone. If disabled then it could mean you have 2 installs left...the counter is ticking.

You need to read the original thread where Derek French drops the bomb. He answers your question somewhere halfway the thread. That forum is the only official source, EA has not released a separate statement, so all speculation is based on that site. The original thread is now closed, but discussion is now in this other thread in the same official forum. Now 99 pages long! 

edit: You're allowed three installs at any time. You can also de-activate one of your installs to free it up, and use it elsewhere. So, yes, you could also sell it on after you've de-activated all of them. The buyer will get exactly what you got originally. The probelms start when you have a hardware failure, making it impossible to de-activate. This is what happened with Bioshock. After all the hubbub they made a separate de-activator solving some of the problems. Buying second hand games with this software is a risk because you have to depend on the seller to have de-activated all the installs.

[Henqix]

Why would an average customer that has already bought the game want to make copy's of it? In what way does this stop pirates that just download a modified version of it that don't do this?
The customer isn't the thief.
This is like locking your door when theres a hole in your wall.

Some of us like to make ISO's of our game and use Daemon Tools to play the game... We leave the CD in the box...  This means A) Instant load times... Its not reading from a CD/DVD and B) the CD is safe and clean... so my shoddy optical drive or kid or some other weird ass occurence that people claim to happen never will.

Which is why this makes no sense. You bought it, you should be able to make private copies. It wouldn't affect sales.

[Werechicken]

The game can only be installed on 3 different computers.  This is different than saying can only be installed three times.  Nobody knows exactly what the criteria are for what changes can be made to your computer without spooking SecuROM into thinking you installed it onto a different computers.  They just guess.  But they do have to store your system configuration on their servers to check. 

So you can only upgrade your computer twice after you buy spore?

If you bought the game, you  didn't rent it. So why should you have restrictions placed on where you can and can't install the game you payed money for? I appreciate online activation but why can't they just do what steam does? A one time online activation through an account you set up and then you can set it to remain off line after that, although I do wonder what's going to happen when the steam servers eventually close down...

[KL0k]

just an idea or example:
just a regular protection and a verification if you get online? (just remember the cp-system of neverwinter nights, so you'll know what i mean)
i mean, this game, spore, will be account-bound and got it own network like myspace, where everyone need a legit key, like in every other game you want to play online.
so why all this fuss with the verification afterwards?
that way, it wouldnt be a big drama / big deal, plus theres no "you need internet"-forcing stuff in it, for the ppl who really got problems with it and want to be able to play it completly offline (just think about the accountserver drama, i wrote about, above, just for an example beside the regular stuff)... o0

[Werechicken]

Hey guess who SecuROM's made by..... Sony!

So we have a company which has already undergone one massive scandal thanks to a DRM (specifically rootkit) that messed up peoples computers and illegally installed software onto those same computers.

[DaMuncha]

Hey, Maxis.
Or EA, or whoever the hell. I don't really care anymore.
You read these forums, eh? I've been here... what? Almost the whole run? Since GDC '05 anyway.

I told my friends about this one. And no, I didn't misrepresent the issue. They're not dumbasses.
I informed them of this rumor I'd heard. Being intelligent people, they did a bit of research themselves, or what little they could. Pretty much all there is is some tech guy from Bioware stating something along the lines of sales suicide.

So we all came very easily to an agreement: none of us will purchase the game whatsoever if this phone home BS is in there at all.
And hey, get this. We all have Steam. We all have cable internet, and we all have jobs. There really is no problem with maintaining a connection or making the purchase, at least none that we could foresee.
It's the principle of the matter really. You can't stop pirates, and this dicking around gives you enough bad press that they'll certainly want to try to crack it even more; they'll be famous after this fiasco, you idiots.
Then we consider all the folks who are going to go right ahead and pirate the game now out of spite. Well..


So go right ahead and treat the entire consumer base like potential criminals.
I think I speak for a lot of folks lately when I say, "Yo ho ho!"

Argh! Ye scurvy curr! Ill board ye ship and run off wit ye cabin boy!, he he

seriously, I was definately thinking about pirating Bioshock when the whole Securom Fiasco about that began. And ya know what? it still hasnt been fixed. I have 2 installs left and then the game will no longer work. F U Securom

Hey guess who SecuROM's made by..... Sony!

Its a scam, its a rip off, its its its... sony trying to screw up PC games so that more people will buy playstation, God I hate those jerks.

[BlueSabor]

If this link has been done, delete it!
 
http://www.fragland.net/news/Spore-and-Mass-Effect-require-regular-validation/19044/

[Yannick]

Fake? Huzzah!

[Uroboros]

Funnily enough, I only just noticed this.

Im glad I havent placed my preorder yet. To think I was hovering over that preorder button just today. Buying the retail version then just downloading a crack for it would still likely disable your ability to connect to the official servers/content databases and the like, even if it lets you play it without having to worry about getting a nasty turn from SecuROM. So it leaves me wondering what to do.

Its only really going to be punishing us legally purchasing customers. Its almost like they're trying to drop a hint. When they end up taking a big hit to their expected initial sales, and a massive drop in sales about a week or so afterwards, when it ends up pirated, you can bet they'll be screaming "THE PIRATES DID IT!".

I can appreciate their want to preserve their rightful income, but this is going to really ruin the amount of cash they make. This system, in effect, only really gives paying customers a big corporate middle-finger. Unfortunately, the collective middle-finger of paying customers turned pirate by SecuROM is collosally larger than EA's.

The sad thing is, I can see them blaming this on Spore itself, saying it was a flop, and serving as a false 'example' of how adventurous and creative ideas arent well recieved by the public. Just another step towards Yahtzee's predicted "Captain Blands Monotonous Adventures", which will likely be an FPS featuring nothing but bloom-wash in sepia and backing music by the latest rap artist.

(And to think people got ratty with Luminar for daring to expect EA is capable of something just like this. Humble pie, anyone?)