I dont see anything wrong about copy protection. Its their game and they can do whatever they want and i'll be happy to buy it with or without copy protection. If you dont like it dont buy it!

Can I please ask everyone above where in the above-quoted post it says anything about having to check with an authentication server every 10 days?

It doesn't say anything like that. All that is mentioned in that quote is that an initial activation is required, and it re-authenticates within ten days following that to ensure the CD-Key has not been black listed (I imagine this applies mainly to catch-all the initial batch of pirated keys).

It doesn't really sound that onerous, considering it'll let us play without the DVD (I think that's the real winner there).

Well, if that is the case, I and many of my friends wont be getting Spore (or bioshock for that matter). I think I'm done with EA products. Its time for a company like that to crash and burn. The old way of doing business is dead (Ferocious IP protection at the expense of the customer). Stardock and Steam have the right idea. They get their money, we get our product, all are happy.

EA (Microsoft and Blizzard to an extent as well), milk the customer for all they are worth and make sure the product doesnt work in 5 years as the tech changes. Mediocre games with grand titles. Games with great graphics, but are only fun for a week or so.

Anyway, lets hope these other companies come around to the idea of doing business like stardock does. Or, lets hope stardock grows and keeps pumping out the quality, fun, and best of all DRM free games! Then I can keep throwing my money at them

Thanks!

If you read the thread, it was explained. Repeatedly too, you're not the only one that didn't immediately see it...

The specifics.

On install, the software counts down, five days in, it attempts to authenticate, ten days in, if no authentication, poof, no work till authenticated. On authenticating, the timer is reset, giving you ten more days. Assuming constant connectivity it will re-authenticate every five days.

The problems, aside from the obvious one for someone that doesn't have internet at home.

Your isp is down, the server crashes, whatever. Shit happens and you can't authenticate when you go to play the game. It's been ten or more days since you last played the game, not exactly an unusual occurrence that. Authentication is, at this point, mandatory to play. Oops? You get to wait till you can authenticate to play.

You go on vacation/work related travel to a place with no wi-fi hotspots or land lines, assuming you authenticated right before leaving, you can play it for ten days unless you find internet connectivity somewhere to restore it.

Someone gets your cd key through a keygen(not impossible, not unheard of, very unbloody likely, but shit happens) and your authentication fails. You then get to call EA tech support(weep for humanity at this point) to straighten out your problem, it may or may not happen. The joys of having verification and disabling abused keys that may or may not have been abused by their owners.

If it's an encrypted authentication, I'd have been cut off for a couple weeks when my isp started blocking encrypted traffic for me and refused to admit it. I had to spend two full days on the phone with those pricks before I got that one past the tier 2 tech support that was still a bunch of morons reading from manuals in India. I was one step away from being sent to the executive tech support for big wigs before someone in the engineering department realized that they did indeed have a NOC controlled firewall and I wasn't full of shit when I read them their own information and told them it was shown as enabled. Tech support in India blows. Now you might be thinking big deal, play something else, but what? If this became the norm, there wouldn't be anything else. All your other games would be disabled for the same reason.

Playing without the dvd is a real winner, but I think I'd prefer to use the dvd over having it phone home every five days because I'm a thief and at any moment could up and steal the product I already bought!

It's brilliantly stupid. I'd come up with a comparison, but I honestly can't think of anything comparable.

OMG!!! THE EDIT BUTTON WAS THERE!!!

Damn you for posting before I finished typing my book! I'm such a windbag...

I've been looking forward to Spore like no game since perhaps Civ IV, but this is just plain totally infuriating.

On my computer and the seven or eight others on our network, nothing "calls home" on its own, ever. Keeping tabs on outbound network traffic is basic security; if something does compromise one of my computers, I don't want to contribute to the problem by allowing it to spread outwards to the rest of the world.

Going back to my first Amiga 1000 twenty-two years ago, I've never once pirated a game, and I'm getting too old to start doing that now. I resent the hell out of any game that would put that much effort into annoying me because it thinks that I am some kind of warez kid, and I absolutely hate the thought that these morons are going to stop me from buying Spore.

I am wondering about the costs associated with a copy protection scheme: How many copys must be sold to break even the costs of licensing/installing/supporting a specific protection scheme.

damn... is this BS(bioshock) all over again? man...


WTF is the use of monitoring your activity? needing internet connection to play the game... WTF... worst than frakkin' BS(Bioshock)... it's not MMORPG... why don't they just stick their product on console...(i'm just sticking the obvious it's hard for the consumer calling techsupp or anything that brings hell to a simple gamers life who legally bought the game)...


playing without the cd is nice but at least they should allow playing without internet connection with the cd like on COD...

To whoever said, that it wasn't a damn thing to have to go online every ten days, to authenticate somethin you already own: How about less fortunate people who don't ave a flatrate connection and have to pay for the minute? Will they get a refund from EA for the costs? And what if the servers are down in like 10 years? Think Starcraft, but without the great support from Blizzard (meaning = EA)Wouldn't it be better for a game like Spore to use one time auth like Sins to get pollinated content?

What bothers me is the principle of ownership behind it.

When I goto the library and get a short-loan book out, I could potentially keep it forever as if it was mine. But what gives me the feeling that its not actually my book is that the fact that I have to go online and renew this book every 10 days inorder to keep it forever.

If this DRM is making you renew this game , then its almost like you have payed good money to borrow the game. The moment I decide to play the game , and its at non-internet location (happens alot) , and its been 10 days...and the game doesnt work , the game would feel like its not part of my laptop , only something borrowed.

If I buy something, I want full control over it.

too many issues always being in the favor of the evil lawyers and power hungry corporations... and hurting good honest consumers... maybe the fact is there are some gamers who will still buy this game... i got to be honest... i am waiting for frakkin' Mass effect and got no frakkin' choice for it...



BS ME SPORE... lol



BioShock, Mass Effect and Spore...


if they do this with C&C then i really hope that "there will be blood"... lol (i'm a fan sorry)

I go camping with my friends, nearly every year. These camping trips can and do take more than ten days. And yes, we are not anywhere near an internet connection. This year, for instance, we're going to Yellowstone National Park for two weeks.

This sort of copy protection seems to scream to me "Don't go camping or you'll be sorry." I suppose I could leave my computer on for days at a time, but that's an awful waste of power.

Ugh.

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Really who cares.

Sadly, correct you are. Because you're not buying the game itself. You're buying a license to use the game. The library analogy is more apt then you think.

-HM