EA tells PC gamers to go F*ck themselves (DRM rant)

[Alyeska]

EA thought they could slip this into Crysis Warhead without telling anyone. They are even lying about having done it when questioned by people who encounter this problem.



EA actually put in a "phone home" command in Crysis Warhead. That big fiasco that Mass Effect had shortly before release? I guess EA decided that not even revealing it this time around is better. I did some googling and found enough stories to confirm this. To this very day EA denies that Warhead even does this, except people have proof of Warhead trying to connect to the internet when people used firewall sniffing programs.

I wouldn't have known if it weren't for a combination of factors myself. I went on vacation for 10 days. When I get home my internet connection was dead for some reason. I wanted to play some single player games and I figured I would fire up Warhead. I get the strangest damn error. I think to myself EA couldn't possibly have actually done that. I try again, same error. When the internet comes back up I do some research and find out EA really did do this, and yet they refuse to acknowledge it at all. Even the Steam version of Warhead has this same feature.

I'm sorry EA, but I am not buying another product from you for some time. I am not going to stand by and let you fuck me over like this. No, I am not declaring that I am going to pirate your games. That gives you idiotic justification to use more of this bullshit. I am going to find legal cracks for the games I have purchased from you. What a fucking joke. Spore was one of your most heavily "protected" games and yet its also the most heavily pirated game to date. Congratulations you fucking morons. Your not stopping the pirates, but you are pissing off your customers.

I guess you could call me the perfect loyal customer. I have 11 EA games installed on my computer right now. The oldest game being Battlefield 2, and that came out in 2005. And thats just whats installed on my computer. No more EA. Until you stop this DRM bullshit, I am not purchasing another title from you.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

Don't want to backseat mod... but technically thanks to the DCMA, cracks are as illegal as stealing the whole game in the first place...

[Alyeska]

Such enforcement is very questionable. Certain areas are illegal, and others are not. I am allowed to legally backup games that I own. And the ability to to crack a game you own to play it without the disk is one you are going to be hard pressed to counter in court. That said, I linked nothing and gave absolutely no details.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

True enough... In any case, yeah. DRM is getting a bit silly.

And that they won't even fess up to it is ludicrous. (Ya know, with their little DLer program, they could almost stealth patch it out if they're that insistent....)

Course, I've had my own issues with them recently that cost me a router... Said DLer interfered something fierce with FFXI, and cause it to Disconnect every five to ten minutes...

[Alyeska]

I refuse to install any extra crap like their shitty DL client. I can download my own patch thank you very much.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

Aye, best part is, I wasn't even logged in on it and it dominated my ports...

[JointStrikeFighter]

Thats hardly the most intrusive DRM in existence.

[Zixinus]

DRM is worthless, plain and simple. It doesn't matter how well-protected it is, as sure as the sun shall rise, there will be a crack out for the game. Perhaps it will take a few days, even a few weeks, but it will happen.

DRM isn't really there to protect the game. Its there to pretend that you can increase sales with it (yeah, right, because people would buy the game otherwise). When the publisher is puzzled why their heavily-marketed game isn't selling successfuly, they don't think that its because its bad, but because everyone pirated it. They somehow arrive to the conclusion that if they use heavy protection, then their game will sell well, regardless how shitty it is.

Of course, even if its protected enough that its somehow impossible to pirate, then most pirates will simply go play something else. Once you go pirate, you don't go back.

[TempestSong]

Of course, even if its protected enough that its somehow impossible to pirate, then most pirates will simply go play something else. Once you go pirate, you don't go back.

As we have seen countless times, nothing is impossible to pirate.

And I thought EA learned its lesson when it came to this, and that's why they lessened DRM restrictions and/or removed it in some cases. Do they really think no one would notice and spread shit about surprise DRM?

Thats hardly the most intrusive DRM in existence.

So I guess you'd rather allow programs to install DRM "drivers" in the system, and not clean up after themselves when said programs leave the disk? Not to mention the fact that one has to be online to play an offline game.

[Sea Skimmer]

I’ve played warhead dozens of times without ever seeing this error, and normally my machine is not physically connected to the internet at all. Whatever validation system it uses most certainly does not need to connect online every fucking time like say, Steam does every time you start it. Still beats shelling out money for a console to be whored to the manufacture and its higher priced games for life

[Alyeska]

I’ve played warhead dozens of times without ever seeing this error, and normally my machine is not physically connected to the internet at all. Whatever validation system it uses most certainly does not need to connect online every fucking time like say, Steam does every time you start it. Still beats shelling out money for a console to be whored to the manufacture and its higher priced games for life

Steam doesn't require an internet connection to play single player games, but you have to physically remove the network cable from the computer. God forbid Steam detects an active network it tries to connect to the internet without ever giving an option for offline play. But if you remove the connection, Steam will work offline without trouble. The problem with Warhead is that if you go without an internet connection for more then 10 days it requires validation and will never let you play until it validates.

[JointStrikeFighter]

I’ve played warhead dozens of times without ever seeing this error, and normally my machine is not physically connected to the internet at all. Whatever validation system it uses most certainly does not need to connect online every fucking time like say, Steam does every time you start it. Still beats shelling out money for a console to be whored to the manufacture and its higher priced games for life

Steam doesn't require an internet connection to play single player games, but you have to physically remove the network cable from the computer. God forbid Steam detects an active network it tries to connect to the internet without ever giving an option for offline play. But if you remove the connection, Steam will work offline without trouble. The problem with Warhead is that if you go without an internet connection for more then 10 days it requires validation and will never let you play until it validates.

OH NOES WHAT WILL THE 5 PEOPLE WITH DIALUP STILL DO

[Zablorg]

You can disconnect Steam from the internet without all this "manual" silliness, as well. You just click "Off-line mode" under File, I think.

[Alyeska]

OH NOES WHAT WILL THE 5 PEOPLE WITH DIALUP STILL DO

Nice job on the sarcasm dipshit. What if I am without the internet? In case you didn't notice, I LOST MY INTERNET CONNECTION. Yes, it was a for a limited time, but I lost it. Say I want to load it up on my laptop when I am traveling. I should be required to hunt down the internet just to play a single player game? Or what if I don't live right in town? I have a friend who only lives 9 miles out of town. The phone company refuses to provide DSL and the cable company doesn't even have cable TV in her area. Just how the hell do you get to play the game you purchased eh? Tell me that dumbass. Why the fuck should I have to jump through hoops to play a game that I purchased? How would you like it if music CDs only worked if an internet connection was required?

[Alyeska]

You can disconnect Steam from the internet without all this "manual" silliness, as well. You just click "Off-line mode" under File, I think.

Doesn't work that way. If you try launching Steam without an internet connection it gets stuck trying to update the game on a connection without the internet. It doesn't fully launch and you can never play a game. Sure you can set Steam to offline mode in advance, when you have an internet connection. But when your connection goes down Steam can only be launched when you physically remove the computer from the network itself.

[Dominus Atheos]

You can disconnect Steam from the internet without all this "manual" silliness, as well. You just click "Off-line mode" under File, I think.

Doesn't work that way. If you try launching Steam without an internet connection it gets stuck trying to update the game on a connection without the internet. It doesn't fully launch and you can never play a game. Sure you can set Steam to offline mode in advance, when you have an internet connection. But when your connection goes down Steam can only be launched when you physically remove the computer from the network itself.

You must be doing something wrong. I put my computer's firewall into lockdown mode, and every game I bought through Steam including Half-Life 2, Bioshock, Medieval 2 Total War, and World in Conflict all worked fine.

[Covenant]

Steam has worked well for me in the past as well. I'm against this kind of intrusive DRM in general as well, but copyright isn't immoral, so long as it doesn't interfere with the people who actually buy it--which is what this is doing. I do think that piracy hurts some games, especially the ones which don't depend on servers to get the most out of them, ones where you can pirate it and not ever need to have a legit copy for anything after that. DRM is garbage, but some kind of fair copyprotection would be grand.

[Alyeska]

Piracy might hurt, but DRM isn't stopping it. Spore was one of the most heavily DRM protected games ever and it was also the most pirated game ever. DRM is hurting the legitimate customer while the pirates still get what they want.

[Covenant]

DRM isn't an effective copyright protection though, which is the biggest issue. If it sucked, but worked, that's one thing. It sucks and doesn't work, so it's just a total drain. I wish we could go back to the era where a codewheel or password book was sufficent. Those were fun to play with as well as generally effective and only required you have the password book around. Nobody had laptops then, so it wasn't a big deal.

I've got no idea what the best solution is. It IS a hassle to have your games turn off just because you don't want to connect to the web, which is a pain for those times you want to bring a laptop and play some stuff in a hotel without free wifi, or on a long plane or train ride, or such. They really need to develop a more effective kind of CD-Key. I don't know what'd work, since no matter what you do you can always fix it so it won't matter anymore. Even if you install a chip on the MoBo that is devoted just to handling the copystuff in a real convenient, hands-off way, people will just rip it out and put a mod-chip in. Whatever they do they also need to combine it with putting demo versions out again, since it's hard to get my hands on anything but a carefully manicured demo nowadays that doesn't show you anything and makes purchases a completely blind affair. For 60 bucks, I'm sorry, I want to know what I'm getting.

[Zixinus]

Nice job on the sarcasm dipshit. What if I am without the internet? In case you didn't notice, I LOST MY INTERNET CONNECTION. Yes, it was a for a limited time, but I lost it. Say I want to load it up on my laptop when I am traveling. I should be required to hunt down the internet just to play a single player game? Or what if I don't live right in town? I have a friend who only lives 9 miles out of town. The phone company refuses to provide DSL and the cable company doesn't even have cable TV in her area. Just how the hell do you get to play the game you purchased eh? Tell me that dumbass. Why the fuck should I have to jump through hoops to play a game that I purchased? How would you like it if music CDs only worked if an internet connection was required?

As pointed out, you can use Steam in offline mode, if you connect to it once a month.

If you can't, well sorry. Most people have an internet connection, even in rural areas (ahoy rednecks), so its not that terribly unreasonable to have internet access occasionally to use a platform to play a game.

Consider that the average gamer has a deskup PC and is connected to the internet to all times.

Sure, it might be inconvenient to you, but for the developers unemployment is even more inconvenient.

[Sarevok]

Umm Zix did you miss the point about how all this overcomplex shit only hassles people who BUY the game while pirates are having a way better gaming experience ?

[Molyneux]

Nice job on the sarcasm dipshit. What if I am without the internet? In case you didn't notice, I LOST MY INTERNET CONNECTION. Yes, it was a for a limited time, but I lost it. Say I want to load it up on my laptop when I am traveling. I should be required to hunt down the internet just to play a single player game? Or what if I don't live right in town? I have a friend who only lives 9 miles out of town. The phone company refuses to provide DSL and the cable company doesn't even have cable TV in her area. Just how the hell do you get to play the game you purchased eh? Tell me that dumbass. Why the fuck should I have to jump through hoops to play a game that I purchased? How would you like it if music CDs only worked if an internet connection was required?

As pointed out, you can use Steam in offline mode, if you connect to it once a month.

If you can't, well sorry. Most people have an internet connection, even in rural areas (ahoy rednecks), so its not that terribly unreasonable to have internet access occasionally to use a platform to play a game.

Consider that the average gamer has a deskup PC and is connected to the internet to all times.

Sure, it might be inconvenient to you, but for the developers unemployment is even more inconvenient.

I believe the point is that yes, yes it is that unreasonable to fuck over people without an internet connection who want to play a single-player game. I'm not sure how the hell you don't see that.

[Zixinus]

No, its not unreasonable, because the game (HL2 or whatever) told us it needed an internet connection right on the fucking box. In fact, it did have a sticker with big letters on the wrapping. I recall that Valve announced this requirement before release. Anybody who brought the game knew or should have known that the game requires an internet connection, something that's increasingly common. So, how is this "fucking over" the relative minority that does not have an internet connection?

Oh, that's right, because it doesn't meet unwritten expectations, despite the fact that it gave specific warnings.

Also, online activation is one of the few working copy protection systems and Steam does compensate you for requiring an internet connection: for an account, you have auto-updates and in-built anti-cheat software, the game permanently attached to you, save games stored on-line, etc. So, its not like you don't get something for doing what the game tells you to do.

[Stark]

Turns out buying games off Steam makes you reliant on an internet connection. Who knew? Certainly, who knew these days, what, five or more years after Steam launched? Ahh, I remember HL2 launch day and the nerds saying WHUT.

This 'periodic login' thing is becoming more common, but for 99% of Steam users it's totally invisible so it's unlikely to change. Steam is a terrible DRM-packed pile of shit at the best of times, but I really can't get worked up over this example. As Zix says, account-based verification (as used on MMOs/Steam) is pretty much the only DRM system that works, so it's frankly not surprising it's becoming more common. Want to hear about stupid DRM? Go play Jutland or Sacred 2.

Cracked Steam exes are available for the game of course, but that isn't the real issue anyway.

[Ohma]

Want to hear about stupid DRM? Go play Jutland or Sacred 2.

I am lazy, please explain Sacred 2's DRM bullshit to me. (I recall my dad saying something about it being stupidly difficult to install...but don't remember the specifics)