DRM... EA... The future

[Adagio]

Most of you have probably seen this: Link

Spore gets more and more 1/5 ratings on Amazon because of the DRM used
Spore is getting close to becoming the most pirated game ever, so it's obvious that the DRM doesn't work

Now the same happens with Crysis Warhead: Link

My guess is the same will happen to Red Alert 3 and unless they change it in 5 months, the same will probably happen to The Sims 3'

Good to see the people fighting it
Bad to see EA ignoring it

[Colon™]

There's still a few older games I want to buy (Orange Box, Crysis...), but other than those, and at currents trends it's likely I simply won't buy PC games anymore.

[lord of the mark]

Spore was #1 across all platforms in the UK a couple of weeks running. Buzz Ive heard is its selling pretty well over here. I dont think the amazon review thingie is really hurting sales. Whether its reducing piracy, I dont know.

[DarkCloud]

What is the evidence for Spore being the "most pirated game ever" ??

[Asmodean]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Spore was #1 across all platforms in the UK a couple of weeks running. Buzz Ive heard is its selling pretty well over here. I dont think the amazon review thingie is really hurting sales. Whether its reducing piracy, I dont know.

Well it's hurting sales on Amazon. It's already off the top 10 list there, which considering the massive marketing EA has done for Spore amounts to FAIL

I would love to see this game fail, just because of the DRM. Time for publishers to see that they can't treat their customers as criminals.

Asmodean

[El_Cid]

Yeah, I've had issue with both Starforce and SercuRom messing up my system in the past

quick story: DVD-ROM stopped reading certain disks, two different DVD-ROM's infact!! So i had to buy 2 new DVD-ROM's because of this ****! Once a new DVD-ROM was in place and the DRM game was not loaded on the(re-installed) system all was fine. So no-more nasty DRM for me = no more PC games bought possibly!

Yes I know people say "thats not possible, it must be something else, I'm a tech wizard and I know" etc, BUT this kind of thing only happened when software with the two fore-mentioned DRM's was installed on my system. Now whatever the cause it cost me £80 approx and a stupid amount of hours to fix. I don't care if it was because I have Nero on my system(so I must be a Pirate!) or whatever.

No, nasty DRM simply = no sale(looking at you Medieval 2 expansion, and FM2008!! - both used secuRom).

So far that hasn't meant I go to find the de-DRM'd games, as most games these days to my mind are not essential, and i'm not a pirate.
But.......well it's kind of an own-goal from the games publishers. And no I will not become a console gamer first and foremost(been there done it got the t-shirt, moved on), I like PC gaming better.

All that happens is I will not buy your game and carry on happily playing older games(of which there are many great ones, all without nasty dangerous software on-board).

As PC gamers we really should make a stand before it gets way out of hand imho.

[FrostyBoy]

Not buying PC games is probably what they WANT.

They may want to kill that market, shift all of the focus to consoles instead, where they can CONTROL you.

And to be honest, I think it's a good thing. It means no more **** games for the PC. Just put the ****ty games on consoles where they belong.

Th good game designers of the world will develop for PC only.

[FrostyBoy]

PC = Led Zeppelin
Console = Backstreet Boys

[Adagio]

Originally posted by DarkCloud
What is the evidence for Spore being the "most pirated game ever" ??

I don't have a link, but I've read several places where they have compared number of downloads several places for a lot of games. Didn't really pay much attention to it
But based on what I've seen it has been downloaded quite a lot compared a lot of other games

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Spore was #1 across all platforms in the UK a couple of weeks running. Buzz Ive heard is its selling pretty well over here. I dont think the amazon review thingie is really hurting sales. Whether its reducing piracy, I dont know.

While Amazon reviews has close to zero effect on sales in stores, it will effect sales on Amazon, which is a big player on the online market

[Seedle]

Originally posted by FrostyBoy
PC = Led Zeppelin
Console = Backstreet Boys

Get over yourself. Both consoles and PC's have pros and cons. There are plenty of crappy games for PC, and plenty of great games for consoles.

[Seedle]

Originally posted by FrostyBoy
Not buying PC games is probably what they WANT.

They may want to kill that market, shift all of the focus to consoles instead, where they can CONTROL you.

And to be honest, I think it's a good thing. It means no more **** games for the PC. Just put the ****ty games on consoles where they belong.

Th good game designers of the world will develop for PC only.

Yeah, double post, go cry. Why the hell would EA spend money killing the market when they could just ignore it? Not that I think they want to market to die, but if they did, why spend millions marketing, developing, publishing, and shipping a game? Just don't publish for PC, boom, you don't have to worry about that market anymore.

[FrostyBoy]

Business doesn't work that way Seedle.

[DrSpike]

Actually, I think the world doesn't work the way you seem to think it does - on so many levels I've lost count.

[El_Cid]

wether it's intentional or not it doesn't really matter. The point is publishers have done quite a bit of damage to the PC gaming scene over recent years - why are you a console gamer now Spikey? You used to be quite a die-hard pc gamer a few years ago i recall? There is a perfect snapshot.

I've seen the kind of people that run AAA game publication, they are often(and nearly all) young fairly inexperienced gamers, mainly with eductaions based in marketing and sales. Some do play games outside of work, but the vast majority don't have the depth of games grounding many of us here have for example.

They do have a good life for the most part, lots of cool game related events etc, and they certainly believe in their own importance(in the publisher vs developer thing) and have the confidence to keep doing what they have been doing for the past decade(12years?) because it has been making money.

I wonder IF the wheels start to fall of the cart they will even know or understand why it might be happening? I suspect not, and when they lose their jobs they will fit back into whatever sector of the jobs market they were in before thet decided making games might be cool.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, and is painting a broad section of people unfairly - but well I think all this DRM nonsense is just systematic of the kind of people and thinking that is running AAA games production, and it will get worse before it gets better - you can hold me to that.

But i'm happy that the mainstream is so focused on consoles, i really think the best of PC gaming has yet to happen. The tech is easily in place and once we accept that 'glossy hollywood' gaming is for consoles(so go there for that), and that graphics dont=great game, then we will see another Xcom again, and it's like, and maybe better?

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by El_Cid
wether it's intentional or not it doesn't really matter. The point is publishers have done quite a bit of damage to the PC gaming scene over recent years - why are you a console gamer now Spikey? You used to be quite a die-hard pc gamer a few years ago i recall? There is a perfect snapshot.

Interesting question. I think you wont like the answer though:

In the main I've followed the games. For years this meant focusing on PC games, because there wasn't that much of the same quality on consoles. Nowadays what have people been looking forward to on PC? It's a damning indictment that the answer is probably Spore. In contrast there are lots of 360 games coming out I'm looking forward to.

The other facet is that MP gaming has only really taken off with this genre of consoles (though the back end of the Xbox had Halo 2 of course), where it has matched or in some ways surpassed PC gaming. 5-10 years ago you had millions playing Quake, CS, Warcraft & Starcraft etc and that was were gaming was at for serious players. Tellingly those games are all still popular and more so than modern day PC counterparts.