Topic: How EA could ruin Spore

[Wulf]

However, you HAVE TO BE connected in order to REGISTER. I CANNOT PLAY HL2 without pirating it. Which is stupid, because I OWN it. But MY copy requires on-line activation, and I'm not on-line with that computer.

-Craig

You are going to hell.
What is wrong with you people? First, you DON'T have to go online ever to play HL2. There are so many work arounds that were written by the freakin valve dudes.
I've had no trouble with lans and steam and haven't heard of any problems either and I am going to lans with like 500 people.
Steam is a brilliant idea because it cuts out the middle man and lets the game designers a larger share of the profit which is very important. You guys need to look at it from their perspective.

[craigp]

Wulf:

You're right. There are cracks to get around it. ILLEGAL cracks that you have to DOWNLOAD. IE GET ON LINE TO GET.

Second, it 'kinda-sorta' cuts out the middleman. To me, it isn't worth it, because it destroyed any respect I had for their products. If your pirate protection is strong enough to require me to spend $40/month extra just to play your game, screw it. I won't play.

Third, I hate Big Brother. If you're going to TRACK me, I'm going to EVADE you. It's a classic tenet of geekery, because anyone who TRACKS you KNOWS you, knows where to FIND you, and can horribly abuse that information. Your game does NOT need to know what kind of motherboard I have, or how often I play, or what level I'm stuck on, or who I'm friends with. There should be an 'opt-out' option.

Because otherwise, I'm going to crack it, and there is going to be one regardless.

-Craig

[Tr0n]

I just hated the Big Brother aspect.  I regularly run a packet sniffer on my network to see exactly what a game transmits.  If it's sending info when I'm playing single player, I disable my NIC.  Now, I do understand the need for Big Brother to combat piracy, something I think is fair.  However, I think Steam took it too far.  It's just overkill, like the new HP Printers requiring 780 f**king megs to install a DRIVER.  Or AOL taking complete and total control of your computer.... it's just and ISP!  Overkill is really what irks me, it's not the concept.  THus, when games like Spore come out, I will actually buy it, check on what it's doing online, and probably let it slide.  But to me, HL2 just wasn't worth having Valve practically looking at me thru the other side of the monitor.

[syphonbyte]

Well, I never really had any problem with that, and at any rate I have 56k so I can just disconnect and then play normally after I start Steam.

[strghtupG]

Great call everyone. Still sad nothing like spore has been attempted 10 years later.

[Ultimatum]

Uh huh