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So I bought Spore on Sunday. It took me 30 minutes to get it to play, after 20 minutes of install time, because it wanted to communicate back to the "mother ship" in some special way.
Normal games prompt a "blah blah wants to access the internet, do you allow?", but EA uses some special way of doing it to try and defeat hackers. Hackers of course have already released the modified game of Spore that doesn't do any of this BS, so me, a person who is trying to support the game developer by buying it instead of downloading a stolen copy, has to hack my system.
I ended up using some archaic command line commands in Vista to disable the network security enough to allow Spore through. Other games don't have any problem, now Spore doesn't either, but I can only imagine other people giving up, trying to take the game back to the store and being told they don't refund open games.
I added my 1 star review on Amazon for Spore, its a bit too late since I already paid it, but hopefully me and the other 1600+ reviewers who have 1 starred the game will make EA listen.
http://www.amazon.com/Spore-Pc/dp/B000FK
EA isn't trying to fight the hackers, they're trying to prevent the reselling of the game. They can't stop someone from downloading a free copy of the game, but they can do a pretty good job of stopping people from legally reselling the game. Funny that they effectively have damaged some of their own ability to sell the game in the first place....
- Mood:
irritated
Comments
DRM is a tool of the devil though, I'll give you that much...
Would it be morally acceptable to, say, purchase the game legally then download a cracked version that doesn't carry the DRM? That way you are still supporting the devs...
-Dunny
Its the news articles, blog posts and the loss of sales from people who decide not to buy the game. If 10% of a 1 million dollar game choose not to buy the game because of all the negative press, my 1 star (and other people who feel similarly who post the 1 stars) could cost EA 100,000 dollars or more. Phone calls are annoying, but no one but EA would know, the negative response is out for everyone to see, and encourage others to join.
As far as downloading a cracked version after buying a game, sure, though its probably better to not buy the game at all, not play the game at all, since once again, money is what hurts them.