Spore, Mass Effect PC require verification every 10 days

BioWare technical producer Derek French has said that the PC versions of both Mass Effect and Spore will make use of copy protection that will require online validation every ten days to continue working.

"After the first activation, SecuROM requires that [Mass Effect PC] re-check with the server within ten days (in case the CD Key has become public/warez'd and gets banned)," said French in a post on the BioWare forums.

If customers do not come online after ten days, the game will cease to function. "After 10 days a re-check is required before the game can run," added French.

The check is run when users activate the game's executable file, with the first re-check coming within "5 days remaining in the 10 day window."

According to French, Maxis' Spore will also make use of the same scheme: "[Electronic Arts] is ready for us and getting ready for Spore, which will use the same system." -- http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/52547

Mass Effect Forum


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Bioware/EA just lost an honest paying customer.

I will not stand for this brand of intrusive, insulting DRM and presumptive piracy.

I have no problem with software developers and publisher devising ways to authenticate their products. This method of verifying MEPC, however, is simply too much to bear. I refuse to be treated like a parolee.

 

Same. I am not going to buy any of the forementioned games. It's funny how the real customers are treated as the criminals; I am sure hackers will find a way to bypass this, and won't have to go through the hassle the real customers are being put through.

 

What about people without internet? I find this quite stupid.

 

Though it will be a major pain in the ass, I don't blame them. At least they are trying to counteract the piracy rather than saying no more pc games like EA or saying no more pc exclusives like crytek.

 

Exactly! Quit making sense. (Wink!)

I routinely travel to locations that do not have stable Internet connections--if any connectivity.

My view on this policy would drastically differ if I were rent the game via a digital rental service. That's a circumstance I could both understand and tolerate. But to have a developer/publisher require I "check in" -- be it noticeable or not -- a product I legally obtained and bought is overbearing.

I take equal offense to store "greeters" and security guards that ask I display the contents of my purchased goods against the itemized receipt.

 

Meh, they'll give up 2 days after the game is released and there's 2000 cracks on the internet to remove the DRM and 20 million people whining about it.

Piracy sucks, but there isn't a good solution. The companies are being smart in abandoning the computer and sticking with console only development.

 

This is just going to encourage the use of cracks, fixes, it is not going to reduce piracy by any means. Bioshock is a great example....

 

Hogwash!

EA/Bioware are presumptively labeling their honest paying customers "at-risk" pirates.

It's this illogical thinking and intrusive big-brothering policing that often leads honest customers into Internet piracy.

 

Bingo.

The check is run when users activate the game's executable file, with the first re-check coming within "5 days remaining in the 10 day window.

Jor El forbid there's a longterm Internet out in your area!

That said, I wonder about the legalities regarding this sort of intrusive on-line verification, especially since -- to my addmitedly limited knowledge on the game -- Mass Effect is not an on-line play title.

Didn't Microsoft not too long ago run into legal hassles filed by consumer advocacy groups regarding Vista's (then-perceived as invasive) activation policy?

 

Doesn't matter. It's marketed that way. You have a license that expires every 10 days if it doesn't check up. Don't like it, don't buy it.

 

Not all companies treat their customers as criminals. Stardock, if I'm correct of the name (Makers of Galactic Civ II & Sins Of A Solar Empire), has openly admitted to not putting much if any piracy protection on their games as a point to show that even when it can be gained for free people will still go out and actually buy it.

Though I'm also concerned, as others are, about those of us who don't have an unending/stable connection to the internet.

Stuff such as this, such as the little "Don't Pirate" ads before movies on DVDs, and other such things is what leads people to pirate. Not because they're out for getting something for free but simply so they dont have to deal with the extra hassle, extra trash being thrown their way when they're undeserving of it.

 

Well if you feel that way other than steam like software what is the solution for the companies? You can't employ a "if you can't beat em, join em" philosophy.

I am realist though and I know there will be a workaround probably within the first day, my point was the list of options against the piracy is growing thin.

 

We have been told that this is the protection system for EA PC titles going forward, starting with Mass Effect. Derek French, Bioware, Technical Producer

 

It's a shame EA doesn't have the balls Stardock displayed when they released Sins of a Solar Empire without DRM, or when Bethesda released Oblivion without DRM. I understand piracy is a big issue, in their opinion, but this extreme level of control is going to piss off most users.

That said, I don't think there is really that much to complain about. If you don't like their deal, don't buy the software. People who want the software anyway will be their immature little selves and 'get back' at EA by pirating the games anyway. Nobody has a right to the game just because they don't like the DRM.

I have a feeling this DRM will only be active in the first couple months of sales, as that is when the majority of the revenue is made.

 

How do you plan on having a discussion on this matter when you are, on one hand, asking me to give a solution, while on the other hand telling me what I can't say?

 

Storm, it's EA.

Would you really expect them to have the balls to do such a thing?

 

This is the internet! Say it anyway!

Well, they said they would be moving in a new direction, but I suppose that is limited to 'not turning bought out developers into flaming crap heaps.'

 

Not to forget CD Prokekt's (DRM-free) Witcher, which went on to sale an impressive one-million copies worldwide with very little marking.

 

Wow relax. You are taking what I said too literally. All I meant was that just because this method is a hassle for you, does it really justify saying "this is a pain, I'm gonna pirate the game." I rather have their mentality than yours when it comes to the issue then.

 

Simple Solution: Slide that Wi-Fi switch to the left before playing.

 

So what if I install the game and go into the middle of nowhere,without net connection? That sucks arse.

 

Exactly. And there are far more of those than you can imagine!

 

Here's my take on video game DRM, especially this highly intrusive variety: The games will be pirated, period, so obviously the DRM doesn't work. All it does is piss off legitimate paying customers. Just take a look at this screen shot for example, DRM is not slowing the scene down at all:

(Note: I am not condoning piracy, providing access to it, or even hinting at where to find it)



DRM is getting out of control and it's stopping nobody. I'm not saying let piracy have free reign, I'm suggesting that in light of how people will do it anyway, companies need to adapt to alternative marketing and sales strategies to get customers to buy their products. Trent Reznor and Radiohead (Music industry, but the concepts can be translated over) have the right idea.

 

Not quite DRM-free, the TAGES copy protection system caused quite a few problems for Vista users on initial release, fortunately the developers were good enough to help affected users play the game anyway without any problems.

 

This seems sort of crappy, but also unsustainable. Doesn't this remind anyone of the Sony/BMG DRM rootkit scandal back in 2005 with music CDs? It's just so authoritarian and bothersome that it might actually force the companies involved to reconsider it.

I'm still buying Spore. I hate DRM, and this scheme does seem needlessly paranoid and inconvenient, but it will probably be a huge headache to circumvent at first and I don't believe in sticking it to a company by pirating their software.

 

Well looks like I wont be buying Spore. Was looking forward to it but I'm not going to be treated like a crook every 10 days.

You don't fix piracy by going to war with your customers.

And as far as I am concerned this wont do a thing anyhow, somebody will write a program that does some sort of fake check and that will be the end of that bright idea. The legit customers will still feel like they are being spied on and treated unfairly.

 

I`ll buy the game if they provide me with a net connection every 10 days.

 

Is it marketed that way? Is it going to say clearly on the box that "this software will cease to function if it can not verify that your software is legit every 10 days"? I somehow doubt they're going do that.

Usually, they like to give the impression that you buy the game, that once you've bought it, you can use it as much as you like. Suddenly that's no longer the case.
But I doubt they're going to market it as such. That's just a nice little bonus most people are going to find out the hard way.

There might be a small notice near the corner saying something like "Requires internet connection to activate", which isn't quite the same thing.

And at the rate game developers are going out of business, what are the odds that, say, Bioware's activation servers will stay up for more than 5 years? In a couple of years, your software will most likely be useless.

Apart from this, it seems utterly pointless.
What is to prevent people from just cracking the .exe itself?
Usually, people do that to remove the cd check. Now they just have to do it to remove the cd check and the online verification. So it's not like it'll even gain them anything.

I just cancelled my preorders on both games. Perhaps I'll buy them one day anyway, perhaps I won't.

 

So....possible players are left with the following options....

Don't buy
Buy and deal with having to check in every 10 days
Buy and crack (which at times leads to delays when there's a patch)
Download/pirate and play

A nice set of choices. And I'm actually kind of disappointed and surprised that Spore will be doing this.

 

Seems too much hassle, maybe the horrors of DRM activation and Bioshock might return (overloaded servers, so no activation possible). I don't know why they don't select better to activate like creating an account and tie the password to it, sounds easier.

 

Then that will just be STEAM? If I am gonna do that, I will just buy my games off steam instead of going through the ridiculous 10 days activations.

 

Yes, that is STEAM, remembering also that once you have your games, you can run it (STEAM) offline basically forever without asking to log again.

 

I know, let's boycott EA.
Go Valve and Steam!

 

Lol. go Broncos

 

This is going to make me spend an extra 10$ for the xbox copy.

Only reason I have bioshock for PC is because I caught it for 20 or 25$ on black friday... With a gift card for 25$.

But the idea that they put rootkits or something on my computer pisses me off.

 

and companies wonder why no one buys pc games...

i guess i understand some of you trying to be reasonable with this tactic by saying companies are forced to take this approach when dealing with piracy, but this is downright beat. this will not prevent anything (well actually, it WILL prevent sales). these kinds of things drive people away from the pc market, as who wants to deal with all this garbage? you have spore which looks like it can turn out to be a very interesting game, but it's success is well at risk now since the company is making a daring move in order to [fully] prevent the unpreventable.

steam works great with preventing piracy (though technically it does have the easiest bypass when dealing with sharing games) and it's a nice application as the servers are fast, and you can download your games anywhere, and install and delete them as you please. though it requires an internet connection to install the games, it still is a very good product that seems to work with it's users instead of against them (though this can be argued because of the occassional problems with steam clients updating and games freaking out).

nevertheless, an online activation every 10 days is too demanding for users, which will most likely drive people away from buying the game. think of a car that you get free repair work on (... yeah right, but for the purpose of this argument, go with it!), but it has to go to the dealership weekly to get fixed. are you going to purchase this car? what if one day you're not at your home and your car breaks down (say you're on vacation or something)? how many people will purchase this car though it needs weekly repairs, and unless you're near the dealership every week, it has 0% reliability.

i see this as a terrible business move, though it may work out, it just doesn't foresee as a good investment on their behalf.

 

Hopefully this is a step forward in preventing piracy in the future. I hope even tighter/better security measures are created in the near future.

Oh and its not the companies fault the PC industry is dying, if you've pirated even one game (i never have) you have helped in killing it.

 

I really can't see them using this DRM model for more than a couple of months, after that point they will probably patch it out of the game.

Otherwise, I'm proud to say that you guys on NBR are of the variety to not pirate and not buy the game if the DRM annoys you. Most people (kids) would just pirate it because they want to get back at Maxis and Bioware and EA. Good show!

 

Just do what I usually do... wait.

1. You get the game for cheaper than launch price, often 1/2 price.
2. By then there is usually no DRM .
3. There's likely an official (or at least unofficial) No CD patch.
4. The game has been patched to fix most common bugs.

I buy 2 or maybe 3 games/year at launch because they are just too hard to pass up. Last year was Bioshock, Orange Box and Crysis. Crysis could have waited but I went for it :\

This week I just picked up UT3 CE for $30 from EB Games. I am not enjoying it any less than if I would have picked it up on launch day and I saved $40.

 

Whatever happened to the good old CD-Key?

These DRM measures will be hacked anyways within days of release, if not sooner. Just use a CD-key so casual pirates can't make easy work of it.

Heck, I remember the original Civilization game required you to enter certain text from a certain page of the manual every so often. But that wouldn't work because they never offer printed manuals any more.

The problem I see with this is in the long run is useability of the game in the future. Now that I have my Eee PC, I have resurrected dozens of games released five to ten years ago. Just have CD key activation, and many don't require the CD to play. I still own the games, bought them legitimately. Five years from now if Ubi goes under will I be able to play my game still? Probably not legitimately.

To have a game live or die by whether a company exists is asenine. It's like saying you can't drive your AMC vehicle any more because the company doesn't exist.

 

I really don't think this is an effective measure. I'm sure it won't be long before a fix is released so instead of requesting verification from EA it'll get bounced so a private domain which will automatically give it the ok, or even just off 127.0.0.1.

 

This really suck for travelers. You mean I have to make sure to launch the game before my trip and if my trip last for more than 10 days, I need to find a internet connection just to keep on playing? I know it's not that hard to find hotel and shops with hotspot in the U.S. but you'll be surprise how many country still does not have widespread internet service once you are out of the major cities.

 

As I've already said, I find this to be a terrible plan, but I'm really surprised that anyone here would have any practical problem with it (ethical and principled issues aside).

If EA is smart, the check will allow you to connect to dial-up without an ISP. Didn't some game registration forms work that way back in the 90s? That covers everyone who has internet all the time (cable and other networked users) and everyone who doesn't but has a computer with a modem and a hard phone line in the house. Don't most computers in the last year still have old modems still built in?

I actually had a thought about Spore being problematic back in 2006 when Will Wright was insisting that all living content was filtered into your world from the internet, from other users, without user input. In other words, you'd NEED the internet to play the game at all, even though it's a single player game. Fortunately, I'm pretty sure they've junked that system so that people don't have their game content pre-selected for them. This is great news, because the last thing I want is someone else's Spore creation that looks like a walking p.enis inhabiting one of my worlds.

EA's form of DRM seems to go against this fundamental change to the online nature of the game (i.e. a change to not requiring users to have a connection).

 

Is this tighter? Yes. Yes it is.

Is it better? From my standpoint, no. A better form would've simply go the way of Steam. Hell, Steam's a bit more useful too.

As to why the PC industry is dying....every industry is supposedly dying. Thing about it is, even with pirates, you still have people that're going out there and buying games, buying music, buying movies. I can understand people wanting to have some sort of protection for their products even if they will in the end be cracked one way or another, but in the same instance this act that EA/Maxis is pulling seems more negative to the legit consumer more so than to the pirates.

And Stormeffect, Ive the feeling those that're going to pirate regardless may just be laying low in that regard.

 

this will be cracked in days...i wouldnt worry about it

 

It isn't. This is no tighter security, because it doesn't fix the one hole that always gets exploited.
The client resides on the consumer's computer. If the game's .exe file is modified to not phone home, all their security measures are useless.
That is how games always get cracked anyway. Look at the number of no-cd cracks out there for an example.

What they are doing is simply making life more difficult for legit customers, without closing the holes used by pirates to play the game hassle-free

No you haven't. Piracy doesn't in itself hurt the companies in question. If hurts them if it replaces a sale, if you would have bought the game otherwise, certainly. But the act of downloading a pirated copy of a game does not in itself hurt any company.

Moreover, like I said in my first post, I just cancelled my preorders of both games. I was fully planning to buy them. I won't do it now.
How is piracy to blame for the loss of these two potential sales?

There is one reason, and one reason only for these particular lost sales. They are offering less value to paying customers than pirates get. I refuse to buy products that use a business model like that.

No doubt piracy *also* costs sales, but it's obviously not the only factor hurting PC game sales.

Now, answer me this, if you think it is such a good idea:
What when Bioware one day goes out of business? How am I going to play the game then? Their activation server won't exist.

What when I've upgraded my computer a couple of times? Because if you read the original article, they also limit you to reinstalling on two separate computers. That means I can install the game, add new hardware, format, install the game again, add new hardware, format, installl the game again, and after that, I can never again install the game on a new computer

Needless to say, pirates don't have this restriction. They can reinstall the game as often as they like, no matter how much their hardware changes.
Again, pirates get more value than legit customers.
That is why this specific business model is broken.

Other games manage to turn a profit even without any DRM. Some people pirate it, yes, but enough people buy it, which is what matters. And those who buy it, buy it because they know they're getting at least as much value as pirates do.

 

I'm still going to buy spore regardless of piracy protection.

 

Yup. I had both an extensive music & mini-game library that I dumped hundreds of dollars into from buying each individual piece over a period of time.

Sadly, I upgraded and/or formatted one too many times. I lost my "usage rights" to the material, and therefore everything that went along with it. I never spent another penny on the their stuff since.......

 

It's not. Just look at my post on the first page with a picture of all the pirated games available recently, DRM stops nobody. Take the recent release of UEFA Euro 2008, it was released officially on the 18th of April, the full game was out on scene sites on the 16th of April. These games will be pirated and they will be made available, regardless of any DRM. Off the top of my head I can think of ViTALiTY, DETONATiON, RELOADED, and Razor1911 which are release groups constantly churning out new game releases. You think DRM is stopping them?

Just like Jalf said, there is something wrong with the entire business model when the pirates get more content and freedom of features than the legitimate paying customers. That's called raping your own clients for the sins of the few vigilantes.

 

Want to makle Bioware stop with the DRM?

-Buy the game
-Ask for support 28420423749023490284092874902834430243 times on their site with a registered user tag next to your name.

They will know you bought the game AND that you just cost them more in support than they made on the game...

If you are a constant Bioware customer (multiple games listed) AND now cost them dearly in support the picture will be made quite clear.

This method is MASSIVELY STUPID.
The real customers are going to cost them dearly in support and the game crackers will deal with this for all of 20 seconds.
Crackers will not be stopped by ANY DRM model... if they can crack the cd-check they can crack the online check.

I am going to buy Mass effect, cause a ruckus on their support site, and probably crack my registered copy so I don't have to put up with their bull.

The bean counters must be made to understand... the people who crack it will NEVER buy the game ever. The game companies didn't lose anything because they won't play anything they cannot crack. Good thing these people never find games they cannot crack.
(I want to support game companies, but the truth is you have to understand... the crackers have a LOT more time than the guy you are pressuring to throw out anti-hacking code...)