EA's new anti-piracy...thing.

[Facechild]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fUv-WY0DDo
:D

[Ad Bot]

[Zenthos]

I see no issue. We all know this won't stop piracy and all the no-CD cracks. I will still buy my games, but if worst comes to worst I will use what ever means necessary to play my games that I have spent good money on.

If you think about it, Blockland's use of a central ID system has curbed piracy for itself. No one can play online nor really play offline to the full extent without a purchased key. The system could/should be used in other games if they really want to halt piracy.

Yea seriously.


God damnit was gonna post that song literally right now but saw you did...

[Anti-Cop]

Badspot's links don't work for me, can anyone give me updated links?

[Marcem]

Look in the comments.

[rkynick]

Whatever, I'll buy Spore and then find a working version of it.


Seriously, its like they don't want you to play their games.

[Bismark]

Congrats EA,Maxis,any other company thinking of doing something like this, you have just started a new age of pirates.

[Anti-Cop]

loving love badspot.

Badspot, have you thought about making something similar to Blockland's authentication servers avaliable to other indie developers so that they don't have to purchase a liscense to use one of the mainstream DRM technologies?  I'm sure there's a few developers that would be glad to have alternatives.

I am finding that the chances of me getting my serial key for Two Worlds reactivated is pretty low... I wanted to see if I would be able to waste any of the summer with that game.  Guess all I wasted was time used trying to get it to run.

[Reactor Worker]

Wow...I just read Badspot's comments and I have to say....he seems kinda mad. Perhaps too much so.

I realize the "issue" affects developers more so than individuals but expecting every piece of software to conform a single person's philosophies is ignorant.

Anyway...people are really blowing this thing out of proportion. Only twice have I ever had trouble with getting a legitimate game to work and that was with relatively old titles not starting up because "the original disk could not be detected" even though it was in the drive. A quick visit to a site to get a noCD crack took care of the issue.

[Bisjac]

ive had problems getting win95 games to install before, even off original cds. end up cracking all the old games just to play x.x

edit: i mean play on xp or vista

[skoposh]

As a developer I don't even know wtf to do in vista. Ok I can't write to same directory that my executable is in (program files) so I guess you want me to put all my user data into the "application data" folder. But that's a hidden folder under their user directory. How are my moronic customers supposed to find that? They can't.

^I lol'd

I realize the "issue" affects developers more so than individuals but expecting every piece of software to conform a single person's philosophies is ignorant.

Badspot seems to just want a mainstream OS that works. Is it really expecting to much for someone to want the system their software runs on to work as advertised? How about expecting other developers not to screw up a users system so bad your own work can't run.

How you like it if Badspot charged you $20 per update, then only delivered building in blockland as complex series of server commands, but supplied you with a large preset collection of shiny(and laggy) add-ons, then on top of it made the building system unchangeable (outside of 'cracks') and make it so all other software you install after blockland not work right?

If that sounds good, great you just bought a fresh copy of windows.

Anyway...people are really blowing this thing out of proportion. Only twice have I ever had trouble with getting a legitimate game to work and that was with relatively old titles not starting up because "the original disk could not be detected" even though it was in the drive. A quick visit to a site to get a noCD crack took care of the issue.

Blowing this thing out of proportion? If I go out and buy something (E.g. Software) I expect to be able to use it how I see fit (Within legal boundaries of course). Right now big companies are 'winning' because they have the money to influence laws to make their rights more important that ours.
http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-digital.html

Should I as a normal consumer of their product need to go and 'crack' it so I can use it as I paid for it? No, the developers need to stop this crap. People always steal so waste the developers need to waste their time hunting down the friends, (calling them pirates makes them sound cool.) instead of mine with 'notsoSecureROM', or even better use the police (or FBI I don't care). Artists get their work copied and you don't see 'secure art' crap.

Sure now fire off some crap about not being able to regulate data as easy as art or whatever. I'd rather have to register an account with a company once and tie all programs (humm steam sounds similar) I buy from them to that account. Then the company has full control, if they determine that piracy is occurring they can then deactivate the account and take legal action if necessary.

This crap about only being able to install a program three times before I need to go ask permission to do it a forth time, if the publisher even allows this, is insane.

Do artists tell you that after you look at their work a few times you must then ask them for permission to see it another? No because people wouldn't stand for it.

Also sorry if it seems like I tried to make Reactor Worker look bad or just argue with him, I just grabbed the last reply at the time. >.>

tl;dr Secure rom needs to do die in a fire. Also lol @ Badspot's comment.

[Reactor Worker]

Companies have a right to keep their product safe from pirates. Right now they are just using the wrong methods.

You mentioned steam as an ideal solution...I disagree. Steam is a bit like communism (lol) it's great in theory, but it has a hard time working well in the real world. Steam is a "heavy" program and the load times are huge. I mean, just starting up HL2 or Gmod or any of their products requires updates and authentications and the like. To me that is more of an inconvenience than just letting the computer send and receive an authentication communique.

[Bisjac]

the whole 10-20 seconds waiting for halflife2's single playerness connect to steam angers me.
some games i like to not have internet ties. i dont care to see who sent me a message or what EA news im missing. it all just gets in the way

[Anti-Cop]

I hated that I couldn't even access the single-player of a lot of newer games without an online authentication.

I mean, I guess if it's a mostly/strictly single-player game that makes some sense, but still.

[WRB852]

Re: blah blah Sins of a Solar Empire. I don't like RTS. forget you.

[M]

Steam is a "heavy" program and the load times are huge. I mean, just starting up HL2 or Gmod or any of their products requires updates and authentications and the like. To me that is more of an inconvenience than just letting the computer send and receive an authentication communique.

Actually, really it's only sending and receiving a series of authentication packets to my knowledge. It checks if there's any updates, checks to see if your Steam account is in use elsewhere, checks to see that your Steam account owns the game you're starting, then starts. Plus, all this ensures that there is less or even no piracy on a lot of games.

Plus I see no problem with waiting a few seconds. Then again, I'm a lot more patient than most people.