**SPORE**

bee said:
http://www.edge-online.com/news/spore-a-hit

1 million sold in a little over 2 weeks
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I knew it'd sell phenomenally, just a shame about the DRM etc. :)

Addition: I actually emailed SecuROM (Sony DADC) today after uninstalling Spore. I'd basically finished the game anyway, and I felt some remorse about feeding EA's DRM machine, so I didn't want it on my computer.

Once I'd uninstalled the game I set about seeing if it does actually install SecuROM into your system, as opposed to just in the game files, so I did a bit of research reading some guides to removing SecuROM and sure enough it was in my registry and all sorts. I found myself mentally apologising to people I said had "cried wolf" about it being a rootkit, because this thing is extremely difficult to get rid of. I even downloaded the official "SecuROM uninstall tool" from their website only to be greeted by errors.

I sent the following email to them at about 7pm, requesting help: -

Me said:
Dear sir/madam,

I recently purchased 'Spore', a game protected by SecuROM technology,
and have decided to uninstall the game from my computer. The game was
removed successfully but there were traces of the SecuROM technology
itself left behind afterward.

I searched on your website and found the SecuROM uninstaller that is
linked to in your support F.A.Q. Unfortunately, upon running said
uninstaller, I was greeted by an error that says: "The DRM data could
not be vacated because the application or other applications require
it for proper operation." This is quite puzzling to me as I already
removed 'Spore', and to my knowledge I have no other SecuROM protected
games or applications installed on my machine.

If it helps, I'm running an administrator account with user account
control (UAC)enabled on Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit. Also, if it
is possible, I would appreciate it if you could forward me a list of
software that uses this version of SecuROM so that I may double-check
that none of the software I'm using requires it.

Sincerely yours,
[Me.]
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They replied very quickly, about 9pm, but with horrible news: -

SecuROM said:
Hello.

The registry entry is needed to save the digital rights information. If a demo
software is protected by SecuROM then it should only work for, as an example,
30 days. The necessary license is stored in the registry. Therefore, please
understand that it is not possible to delete such a entry.

Best regards,

SecuROM Support Team
SecuROM on the web: http://www.securom.com
or via e-mail: [email protected]
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So, basically, if you install any SecuROM 7 game since Bioshock the only way you're going to get rid of all the junk they secretly install into your machine (by which I mean it's not specifically named in the EULA, nor is how permanent) is by reformatting the hard disk. Had I known how permanent this would be I wouldn't have bought Spore, and even though I hate DRM I thought I'd buy it anyway because I really enjoy the game (having previously 'demoed' it).

Thanks a lot EA, and you too Sony DADC / SecuROM.
 
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Sleepery said:
There's a class action lawsuit going on in the US (where else?) about this now :

http://www.edge-online.com/news/drm-lands-spore-court
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I can't say I have much hope for that as EA will just throw an army of lawyers at it until they win. That said, the plaintiffs aren't helping them either by quoting some of the more ridiculous Amazon ratings (e.g. the one that said SecuROM disabled their firewall and antivirus), but I hope they can smooth out the edges of their claim a bit and make it more factual with the aim of winning.

I really want a precedent set against draconian DRM, I want to watch it get burned.
 
Angilion said:
EA appears to be a little annoyed about people being annoyed about the DRM on Spore. If you talk about it on their forums, they might disable your copy of Spore. The one you paid for.

http://forum.spore.com/jforum/posts/list/3869.page

Are game companies trying to encourage piracy? Because they are doing so, by making legal copies inferior to pirated copies.
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found to be completely false, they would never ban your game account for discussing drm, its just part of the lame campaign against securom same as the amazon "reviews"
 
Tefal said:
Didn't last you too long did it? :confused:

I've had some games on my pc's scince the late 90's pretty much constantly :/
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I'm not sure what you're getting at, exactly, with this comment. I've been playing the game since about three days before it came out and I've played through it multiple times but, for now, I only feel need to see the actual end-game once. I'll no doubt go back to it again in the future.

I still love the game as much as when I first bought it, but I have too many games to play at the moment and I just don't keep games on my machine that I'm not playing at the time. I'm still playing Fallout 1 & 2 from GOG.com and have yet to go beyond Act II in The Witcher, which I hope to complete before Fallout 3 comes out.

It's funny though, I don't understand why I feel as if I'm being asked to explain myself uninstalling a game.

Tefal said:
And there may well be a less than legal way of removing the DRM
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I'm not going to bother TBH, EA and SecuROM win this round as I don't especially feel like wasting an install just to keep their crap out of my computer. I don't "just format" these days like I used to, and I'll no doubt be reinstalling Spore at some point in the future.

bee said:
found to be completely false, they would never ban your game account for discussing drm, its just part of the lame campaign against securom same as the amazon "reviews"
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It's not some "lame campaign" and it's not completely false, a moderator on the official forums actually did say that. Luckily, both for the Spore forum users and for EA, EA have stated that it was just an overzealous volunteer moderator, and that people don't need to worry about being banned.
 
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Boring, boring, boring. Can't say more than that about Spore really. Tried a couple of times to get into it. The first few stages are over too quickly and not that much really happens, then you get to space stage and its not any better. More to do, but its not exciting or interesting. The controls and navigation around the universe aren't very good either.
 
bee said:
found to be completely false, they would never ban your game account for discussing drm, its just part of the lame campaign against securom same as the amazon "reviews"
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It wasn't false and the campaign isn't lame. If you understand what you're calling lame, feel free to present a counter-argument here.

EA have temporarily retreated to a less extreme position regarding the discussion of drm in response to a lot of customer complaints, just as they did with the drm itself. That is not the same as "found to be completely false" and I've no doubt EA will get more extreme again in the future, as they are committed to ending the second-hand market for PC games (if their position makes any sense) or to greatly reducing piracy (if their position is irrational, because drm doesn't do so) regardless of how much of a problem it causes for any legitimate customers (because EA rightly assume that most of them have no idea what's happening).
 
Angilion said:
It wasn't false and the campaign isn't lame. If you understand what you're calling lame, feel free to present a counter-argument here.

EA have temporarily retreated to a less extreme position regarding the discussion of drm in response to a lot of customer complaints, just as they did with the drm itself. That is not the same as "found to be completely false" and I've no doubt EA will get more extreme again in the future, as they are committed to ending the second-hand market for PC games (if their position makes any sense) or to greatly reducing piracy (if their position is irrational, because drm doesn't do so) regardless of how much of a problem it causes for any legitimate customers (because EA rightly assume that most of them have no idea what's happening).
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it was false in that EA themselves never threatened to ban an account for discussing drm on their forums and of course they never would

funny that securom 7 has been used for around 2 years but as soon as they modify it and completely stop clones and temporarily stop cracks ( see alone in the dark) then suddenly a campaign starts around it and all sorts of misinformation starts being spread about it
 
bee said:
it was false in that EA themselves never threatened to ban an account for discussing drm on their forums and of course they never would

funny that securom 7 has been used for around 2 years but as soon as they modify it and completely stop clones and temporarily stop cracks ( see alone in the dark) then suddenly a campaign starts around it and all sorts of misinformation starts being spread about it
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Why wouldn't EA do so?

Quite a few people are annoyed about paying full retail price for a limited-use game with no resale value and no guarantee of being allowed to play it (as the publisher retains the right to allow or not allow you to play it). That is not the same as "completely stop clones and temporarily stop cracks".
 
bee said:
it was false in that EA themselves never threatened to ban an account for discussing drm on their forums and of course they never would
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Sigh. It wasn't false because the forum moderator who said it was volunteering for EA, practically being a representative between them and the forum community. EA has stated that he or she just got a bit overzealous anyway, and that they don't agree with what he said, so it's not really an issue anymore.

Which isn't to say it wasn't an issue at the time, just that hindsight is always 50:50.

bee said:
funny that securom 7 has been used for around 2 years but as soon as they modify it and completely stop clones and temporarily stop cracks ( see alone in the dark) then suddenly a campaign starts around it and all sorts of misinformation starts being spread about it
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[Ha_ha_oh_wow.jpg] Are you seriously insinuating that it's only "pirate scum" who are complaining about DRM, is that what you're hinting at? You might as well just say it instead of hinting at it, hinting at it doesn't make it less incredibly stupid. As for people "suddenly campaigning when it stops cracks", Spore was cracked almost a week before it came out, so why would pirates complain about Spores copy protection?

Angilion said:
Quite a few people are annoyed about paying full retail price for a limited-use game with no resale value and no guarantee of being allowed to play it (as the publisher retains the right to allow or not allow you to play it). That is not the same as "completely stop clones and temporarily stop cracks".
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Bingo, we feel we're being treated badly as paying customers and we feel we're being treated as criminals.
 
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