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Geek Culture / Mass Effect PC

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bitJericho
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Posted: 11th May 2008 22:40
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Quote: "People are more angry over this because it's EA "


No, I'd be angry if any game company would do this. People are angry with EA because they were arrogant enough to propose such an idea.


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Jeku
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Posted: 12th May 2008 06:23
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But it's not arrogant. People are thinking this is the absolute worst idea ever--- but why? We're connecting to this forum a hundred times a day, surely if the game sent a few bytes over your line one every 10 days you wouldn't even notice.

If EA shut the servers off in the future they'd just release a patch or a hacker would remove the protection. Boom--- no need to get so agitated over something so small. I reckon in 5 years all games will have this kind of protection. It's all our own fault for making these companies do this kind of thing


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bitJericho
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Posted: 12th May 2008 06:41
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Quote: "But it's not arrogant. People are thinking this is the absolute worst idea ever--- but why? We're connecting to this forum a hundred times a day, surely if the game sent a few bytes over your line one every 10 days you wouldn't even notice. "


Because EA isn't my big brother.


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Jeku
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Posted: 12th May 2008 10:20
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Quote: "Because EA isn't my big brother."


If it were Big Brother it would be spying on you in some way. The information sent to EA would be nothing more than your key and your OS, nothing more (as stated by Bioware). Wow, tinfoil hat?

If you download a patch from a company you will be sending them the same information, yet nobody cares about that? Tsk tsk, doesn't anyone care about privacy anymore? </sarcasm>


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Darth Kiwi
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Posted: 12th May 2008 21:24
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Quote: "We're connecting to this forum a hundred times a day, surely if the game sent a few bytes over your line one every 10 days you wouldn't even notice."

I wouldn't mind in the least as long as I could guarantee that it would work every single time I want to play it. But when I tried to install BioShock which has an online registration thing, it had trouble finding the internet. (I have a wireless network and it just dies for a few days each month which is infuriating.) I eventually connected my machine to the router manually with a wire which was annoying because the router's downstairs and my room's upstairs and the wire only just reaches. Sure, it doesn't kill me, but it can be irritating for me and other consumers who've not done anything wrong.

I'm not actually a Kiwi, I just randomly thought it up one day.
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Jeku
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Posted: 12th May 2008 23:16
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Quote: "But when I tried to install BioShock which has an online registration thing, it had trouble finding the internet."


Well that would be Take 2's technical issues, not a technical issue with transmitting data over the internet.


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Darth Kiwi
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Posted: 13th May 2008 00:32
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Actually I think it was because my internet was in one of its "dying" times - it just refuses to pick up a signal for days at a time - and once I plugged the wire in it connected without too much hassle. But I'm just worried that I won't be able to *always* rely on the internet, which means that I won't *always* be able to rely on my games working.

I'm not actually a Kiwi, I just randomly thought it up one day.
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Jeku
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Posted: 13th May 2008 00:47
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But here we are again, then, at the same part of the discussion being that the Internet portion is a requirement, much like a video card. If your video card was crapping out and randomly glitching, you might be disappointed playing a top-of-the-line 3D game, right? You couldn't blame the game when on the box it has very specific video card requirements.


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Darth Kiwi
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Posted: 13th May 2008 01:01
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Yeah, I just wish my internet was more reliable... I just feel this copy protection is sort of like how I see Steam: no problem at all when it works, but when it doesn't you just wish they hadn't gone in for it.

Of course, everybody will probably start discussing Steam now which was not my intention...

I'm not actually a Kiwi, I just randomly thought it up one day.
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Chenak
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Posted: 13th May 2008 01:05
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Except you don't NEED an internet connection to play a single player game. Online anti-piracy doesn't work anyway. If anything it makes it easier, bioshock didnt take so long to crack because of the online stuff, it was the new encryption method.

Again, I don't mind internet verification because I have a fairly decent connection with no ports blocked and it is very reliable, however if online registration doesn't work like bioshock did how do you think customers would feel? They are all excited they have this new game, but oh no it doesn't work because they have a DVD burner installed or their verification servers are down for weeks. If its for a multiplayer game I wouldn't mind as much but all that trouble for a single player game? I'd rather crack it myself
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Jeku
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Posted: 13th May 2008 01:41
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This Bioshock thing is NOT the same issue. A lot of new games out there require an initial validation, and if the user wants to patch the game, he will probably have to validate again.

If the servers are down, then that's the company's fault. People are blaming the wrong thing, here. Like I said before-- as long as the box says something like "requires an internet connection every 10 days", and the servers are online, then the customers absolutely can't complain.

Everytime a new anti-piracy method is invented people get up in arms. I remember explicitly people hating to have to put the game disc in the drive every time they wanted to start it up. Hell, even DBP used to ask for the disc every X amount of times.

Now that EA has essentially lifted that requirement, I say it's a good thing. TGC has lifted the disc check for an online activation system too--- did you people have a problem with that? It's not like EA is asking you to submit a copy of every file and folder on your hard drive It's a few kilobytes here and there, you won't even notice it.

After all, I'm not going to buy a Vista game if I don't have Vista, right?


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Chenak
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Posted: 13th May 2008 02:39
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Quote: "This Bioshock thing is NOT the same issue"


Yes it is, its an example of how online verification can really screw up and how some games with online verification go completely overboard to the point of crazyness. Again I don't mind it if it works, the TGC one works fine all the time and is very quick. Compared with the TGC cd checker which was insanely slow and didn't work half the time it was great.
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Jeku
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Posted: 13th May 2008 03:02 Edited at: 13th May 2008 03:03
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But again, that's the fault of the developer, NOT the verification method.

I guess we'll just agree to disagree


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Osiris
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Posted: 13th May 2008 03:18 Edited at: 13th May 2008 03:21
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That and the fact that its all moot anyways seeing as its cracked before it even comes out.

RIP Max-Tuesday, November 2 2007
You will be dearly missed.
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bitJericho
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Posted: 13th May 2008 03:46 Edited at: 13th May 2008 03:46
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Quote: "But again, that's the fault of the developer, NOT the verification method."


I just find it funny that the video game developers want me to do them a favor after I've already bought the game.

I should just start pirating games out of spite.


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Jeku
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Posted: 13th May 2008 03:50
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Quote: "That and the fact that its all moot anyways seeing as its cracked before it even comes out."


I think every week the crackers take to crack the game is an extra thick wad of cash for the devs.

Quote: "I just find it funny that the video game developers want me to do them a favor after I've already bought the game."


Think about this logically. Would it be preferable to have an EA exec come to your house and visually verify you own the game? There's obviously no way for them to know your game is legit when you're playing.

Anyways, devs have had anti-piracy measures incorporated into their games for decades. Remember the old code wheels? Or the manual lookups? They treated us like criminals back then too.

If anything the new method proposed here is more convenient because the user has to do absolutely nothing. I just don't see what the issue is


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BiggAdd
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Posted: 13th May 2008 04:02
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To be honest if you don't like the way the game works, just don't buy it.
Developers should be able to do what they want with a game.

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bitJericho
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Posted: 13th May 2008 06:31
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Quote: "Think about this logically. Would it be preferable to have an EA exec come to your house and visually verify you own the game? There's obviously no way for them to know your game is legit when you're playing."


I didn't realize us paying customers were all criminals.


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ionstream
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Posted: 13th May 2008 06:48
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Quote: "I should just start pirating games out of spite."


What is this, the Kotaku/Gamespot/IGN comments section? How DARE EA try to make sure they get paid for the stuff they make. It's not Orwellian, its not Draconian, its effing justice.

Is it watching you? I don't know, does Blizzard watch you when you log into WOW and it verifies your code? Stop using commercial software if you can't handle the whole "login" idea.

Quote: "Developers should be able to do what they want with a game."


Damn effing straight. If you don't like it you don't get to have the game. That's capitalism, so suck it.

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Jeku
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Posted: 13th May 2008 10:14 Edited at: 13th May 2008 10:15
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Quote: "I didn't realize us paying customers were all criminals."


Why do you keep saying things like this? Feel free to debate more if you'd like but it's useless saying this kind of thing-- it's not a good argument

http://www.gamingsteve.com/archives/2008/01/pirates-plunder-pc-games-call-of-duty-4-and-crysis-feeling-the-pain.php

Let's see, on day one Crysis was pirated over 14,000 known times, and as of January had legit sales of just over 80,000. You still wonder why companies treat us like criminals? The majority of PC gamers are pirates. This is the reason Crytek and others are switching from PC to console development.


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Darth Kiwi
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Posted: 13th May 2008 12:16
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Quote: "Remember the old code wheels?"

That's the solution! Mass Effect 3 dimensional grid-based tri-encrypted uncopy-able codewheels!

I'm not actually a Kiwi, I just randomly thought it up one day.
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RalphY
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Posted: 13th May 2008 12:48
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Quote: "The majority of PC gamers are pirates"


I think this brings up a point in that article I linked to earlier in this thread. I don't think the majority of gamers on the PC are pirates, it's the majority of the audience these games are targeted at are pirates. I don't pirate games and I didn't buy Crysis simply because it didn't appeal to me. Honestly I don't see how games like Crysis could appeal to anyone other than people that would have no problem with pirating it.

If Crysis had some amazing un-hackable protection system that made pirating impossible would they have better sales? sure, but I'm not convinced it would be amazingly better. The majority of the people that pirated it just wouldn't bother, their not the sort of people that buy games.

Oh boy! Sleep! That's when I'm a Viking! | Super Nintendo Chalmers!
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bitJericho
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Posted: 13th May 2008 20:13 Edited at: 13th May 2008 20:15
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Quote: "Let's see, on day one Crysis was pirated over 14,000 known times, and as of January had legit sales of just over 80,000. You still wonder why companies treat us like criminals? The majority of PC gamers are pirates. This is the reason Crytek and others are switching from PC to console development."


And you honestly believe some 10 day calling home feature would stop pirates? If crysis called home every 10 days, there would still be 14,000 known pirated copies.

And if all games end up being made exclusively for consoles, then you'll find all the pirates move to that platform.


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Jeku
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Posted: 13th May 2008 20:34
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Quote: "And you honestly believe some 10 day calling home feature would stop pirates? If crysis called home every 10 days, there would still be 14,000 known pirated copies."


What do you propose then, sell the games on a donation basis?

Like I said before, every single extra day it takes the hackers to remove the protection is extra cash for the dev. Obviously no protection is perfect, and anything can be removed, but as long as it makes it more difficult (i.e. try getting a recently patched version of HL2 on a torrents site), it's the most the devs can do.

You are *seriously* arguing that putting the DVD in the drive every time you start the game is *more* convenient than something that is otherwise invisible to you?

The company is free to do what they want, as long as it doesn't including installing a root kit on your system like the old Sony copy protection did. If they state on the box that the game requires an Internet connection, then the customer can buy the game based on that. If he plans on living in North Korea where there's no internet access, he will have to *not* buy the game. Why is it so difficult to grasp?


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Chenak
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Posted: 13th May 2008 23:37 Edited at: 13th May 2008 23:39
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Quote: "But again, that's the fault of the developer, NOT the verification method."


Of course, but bioshock is a popular game, if people had a bad experience like I did, wouldn't they think online protection is awful?

Quote: "Let's see, on day one Crysis was pirated over 14,000 known times, and as of January had legit sales of just over 80,000. You still wonder why companies treat us like criminals? The majority of PC gamers are pirates. This is the reason Crytek and others are switching from PC to console development."


How do they even know this? They look like random statistics they made up. Unless they had some sort of tracing thing built in to their games that hackers didn't notice and block there is no way it is a realistic number. Even if there were that many downloaded who's to say they would have bought it if downloads were not available? The figure may be more or less but I can't see any real evidence of an actual number, it seems just to be an estimated value based on their own estimated sales.

Some games companies base these statistics on the combination of the amount of game patches downloaded for one patch compared to the amount of sales or "invalid" multiplayer entry. Some even go as far as to say there must be pirating because we didn't meet with estimated sales... what the hell?

I'm sure pirating is an extremly bad problem but I don't think companies should be throwing around random statistics like that. Have they considered it to be because the game is too expensive or too rubbish or just that very few people can afford a computer that will run the bloody thing?
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Jeku
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Posted: 14th May 2008 06:32
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Argh, for the 37th time, they're not "random statistics".

No use discussing this anymore because we're running in circles

If it's such a big deal, DON'T BUY THE GAME. Honestly, nobody is putting a gun to your head and forcing you to buy Spore.


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Osiris
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Posted: 14th May 2008 06:46
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Quote: "Like I said before, every single extra day it takes the hackers to remove the protection is extra cash for the dev."


That means then money is taken away from the devs because it is cracked before they release it.

RIP Max-Tuesday, November 2 2007
You will be dearly missed.
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bitJericho
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Posted: 14th May 2008 08:01
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Quote: "No use discussing this anymore because we're running in circles"


At least we can agree on something!


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Chenak
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Posted: 14th May 2008 13:57
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Quote: "Argh, for the 37th time, they're not "random statistics"."


Where are they from then? You can say it 37 times but I was asking for actual proof, a link to an article that says they were monitoring downloads or getting packet information from pirated games will do. I am really skeptical when organisations quote numbers with no statistical evidence.

I did not say they "definately did it", but from what they said it "seemed to me" because they either don't say where the stats come from or they come from a set of statistics which is not imo any evidence whatsoever.

I've only seen some articles state which get these from the amount of downloads of patches and some other things which are random statistics because they can't possibly know if these downloads are legit or not.

Again I know piracy is a problem and I don't mind online verification if it works and I agree with all copy protection unless it is a hinderance to the customer which some I think are. I want to know how they can post such stats?
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