TSR is obsessed with pirates.  Had a whole theme going a while back.  There's a fetric muckton of pirate-related stuff on that site.  Are they not having a (pirate) booty hunt going on right now?

My nieces play 'Pirates!', with eyepatches and cardboard cutlasses.  I suppose they're filthy thieves too.  They're both six in Pescado years.

*will be posting pics of my purchased games also - still have legible receipts for the last three*

I'm starting to see it as:  don't patronize these paysites if it bugs you so much.  Community - police thyself.

What I haven't seen is:  sharing user-made content is wrong, quit it.  See officially provided user made content Exchange for endorsement even.

What EA can address with authority:  violation of their copyright or trademark.  See Securom, see All Rights Reserved statements required on fansites.

What EA won't address with authority:  paysites complaining about people sharing their payfiles.  Not EA's problem, fansites aren't affiliated w/EA.

So basically...EA has done nothing about this at all, except maybe some market research.  Reactions to these statements have shown EA that their fanbase has wised up and is not at all thrilled at the prospect of TSR or any paysite having a say about their relationship with EA.  Nothing good or happy has come from these statements, no 'yay!' from the customer base, only 'hell no, I'll pass'.  Paysites can't put the Coconut back in the bottle, and just the fact that Drea states in one of her posts that 'this is a touchy subject' shows that EA is aware of growing distaste for paysiting.  EA still wants it all ways and always will.  That means that EA will never give TSR or any paysite what it really wants:  fullblown endorsement, nor enforcement of any paysite's terms.  They would've changed the EULA to do so.

Drea's statements actually tread some dangerous ground for EA:  do they really want to throw their EULA, a questionable device of a one-sided, sight-unseen-at-point-of-purchase contract, under a bus in this fashion?  EULAs are already looked upon as 'wishful thinking' that very possibly would not withstand a legal challenge.  For EA to retain the EULA as-is while speaking out of the other side of a Maxiod's mouth...the very first page of this thread said it all:  the EULA means nothing, it's a free for all.  I doubt that's the end result EA or any publisher is looking for.

As of yet, EA hasn't come out and outright condemned nor mandated that the Booty be shut down.  I think it's because they can't.  They have no standing to do so.  That problem falls at the feet of the paysites who take issue with it.  EA's not part of the loop in that regard:  if paysites are going to claim 'infringement' on their payfiles, which necessarily infringe on EA's rights ever so ironically, then paysites are the ones that have to address it, not EA.  

So TSR, etc. may believe they have friends at the offical site, but those friends have hands tied.  Booty butthurt, like people deciding to pay subscriptions or per piece of CC, is not EA's problem, the end.

Oh cool, Kierra has detachable arms.

BEYONCE: O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count
                  myself a queen of infinite space, were it not that I have

                  bad and Chazified hair.

I bought TS1 base game while idly meandering through Tar-jay in the year two thousaaaaand.   

And I agree that game-making needs to be more widely accessible as far as hardware.  A few games for the Saks players, but more for the Walmartians, since they are teh horde.  And pricing:  you wanna go digital, make it cheaper, like the rental it really is.  Those who want hard copies will be willing to shell out (as long as you're not crapping on them w/crappity Securom or obnoxious inconveniences, dynamic ads, activations, any crappity crap that's server dependent for single player games - lemme buy it and get outta my face).

Making a good game is obviously not an exact science, and of course what does work will be emulated.  But if you take TS2 as an example - it obviously works for a great number of people.  POLISH IT!  Make it the best it can be, raid the giant comms that have sprung up and supported this game for ideas, good, sensible ideas, fixes and innovations, and employ them.  IMPROVE IT!  Shine that sucker up, release patches that matter frequently...SUPPORT YOUR PRECIOUS IP!

That's how you keep customers.  Hold dearly, in a possessive and spiritual sense, that which brings you success, like those that pay you and advise others to do the same because the game is that good and only gets better.

Ugh.  EA is so damn lazy where it counts the most.  They have the weight and the manpower to be the pinnacle of success, but throw it all away to be the pinnacle of immediate greed.  I think their moronically shortsighted business decisions disgust me more than anything else some days.

ETA:  So sorry, I feel extra rambly today...

I find it insane on all fronts that buying and playing a video game has become so freaking complicated, all because publishers want to track/control/prevent/protect/whatever the very product they want someone to buy.  It absolutely galls me that they expect anyone to follow along these increasingly labrynthine install processes (see the 20 step install for GTA4 on PC), and I am gobsmacked that some are willing to even consider going to those lengths to play a game.  This is above and beyond the flipping research one has to do now prior to purchase regarding restrictions that aren't even on a game package or description!  GAh!

As Redisenchanted said, it's a map to TPB they're drawing for soon to be former customers.

   Iz patented.   

I don't know if it would work for video games, but this guy at least seems to have a direction for his music that doesn't include suing fans for filesharing that will never go away.  When you pull down 1.6 million in about a week, even tho the music is widely available for free, you just might be onto something.

I don't want game publishers to fail due to not seeing the point in bothering to make anything anymore.  I want them to succeed by being smarter (not sneakier) about what it takes to make me feel their products are worth paying for, because I will pay for the game itself.  But not the associated DRM crap, no way.  As it stands I'd feel like an idiot for buying an EA game these days, so I'm shooting spitballs at Cala as we ride the boycott train.  I can't seem to bring myself to arr either for many reasons, including the ability to seriously screw up such processes all on my own.  And maybe I'm a bit apprehensive about the no turning back that Pes talked about.  I've snapped up some non-DRM games lately tho, like Prince of Persia - dunno if I'll play, but I'm bored, and let's face it:  no DRM is a selling point I'd like to see proven, and it felt like the good old days when I didn't know enough to care about this stuff.

New Manual Smell...I'll probably play it.   

@Devilfish:     aren't I smarty people?     Pes explained it much better - don't give people another ideological reason to pirate, especially when the Dark Side provides benefits that purchased copies don't, and for free.  I'd also add that you just plain lose paying customers by abusing them with restrictions and tech issues, either to the Dark Side or to boycott/avoidance of your products.  Same difference, you've just grown your actual losses, which is the height of asshattery.

If they're going to hew to the old property value standard for digital copies, they're going to spend most of their time chasing ghosts - digital copying makes software virtually worthless (not valueless, as in people value having the software, but, worthless as in worth zero monies due to software being easy and basically free to copy digitally once a single copy is available without DRM technology).  So publishers need to see and use the Dark Side to their benefit, as Pes said, and churn profits in other ways than depending on digitally distributed stuff that is burdened wtih crap that only affects those that will pay -  services, 'hard' goods, advantages for the customer.  Games are different from music since they're whompus efforts for one experience (instead of several songs on one CD), but they need to figure it out and change the mindset to focus on those that find it worthwhile to pay for the experience since they find value, benefit, and advantage in it, not on those that never will for whatever reason.

And that's not even getting into the whole 'USED GAMES MUST BE DESTROYED!' online only/limited activation bullshit, like you're supposed to get paid over and over for one sale...WTF?  I understand wanting people to buy new and buy more, but to attack and dismiss the inherent advantages of any used goods market is so incredibly foolish, especially when they could offer the same service themselves if they wanted - they don't so Gamestop, etc. fill that void to their huge profit.

And EA muckymucks are on record as saying they want it 'all online' - but does the customer base want this?  Part, maybe, but this is really all about what EA wants, further cementing their notorious 'ignore the customer' reputation.  They want to cheap out yet reap the same rewards and I doubt it'll work like they think it will.  ISP bandwidth caps anyone?  No more owning what you buy?  Server dependence?  No avoiding spy/bloat/adware injection?  Remote control of your purchase?  No more New Game Manual smell?  Ick.

EA screwed the Sims/Spore pooch by ruining a good thing, using problematic, paranoid and restrictive tech - that will always be broken - in an effort to 'protect' their stuff, spy on customers, and make it harder to sell on a game you bought.  EA drove paying customers away and simultaneously made those former customers aware of their fiercest competition, the Dark Side.  Preposterous considering they had such a good multibillion dollar industry thing going a couple years back with just CD checks and a largely non-savvy fanbase.  If not for Securom, lots of us wouldn't have turned our heads toward what the Dark Side had to say at all.  Now we look there to find out how publishers are out to screw us or not.  I'm very glad they provide this consumer awareness service.

Pirates use technology to give people what they want; EA uses it to give people what they DO NOT WANT and expect payment besides...

EA!  You've destroyed potential profits for an entire industry!  Take a bow so we can kick your ass!

Apologies, I've come over all blabby this morning.   

@Snarky:     Seems each successive suit hones the template.  I wonder if or when the US FTC will get involved at all.

@ Pescado:  baa.   

Seems a fairly straightforward concept:  when you repeatedly crap on the people who pay you, strictly to get at the people who never will, you have made yourself a home in a giant bucket of well-deserved fail.

Sixth lawsuit gearing up:  http://www.lawyerseek.com/Practice/Consumer-Protection-C21/SPOREs-SecuROM-DRM-P206/

It was MaxoidJason...?

Here

Me too.  Twice.

Here's what those 2 doodz had to say about it being pirated.  In a nutshell - waz pirated, but basically as much as another (comparable?) game that DID employ DRM, so what exactly is the point of bothering customers with it?

   It's a sting!  Heheee!  Thanks for the chuckle.

Ugh.  FFS, EA...

*having a moment of why I'm caring about this since it's an ever flaming handbasket from hell anymore...ever happen to you?*

Wish they'd man up and just freaking SAY what the hell they're doing in this micro-vivisection action whatthefuckall it is they're actually going to do instead of tittering away in a corner like idiots planning the lamest practical joke ever.  EA has stones in all the wrong places since they neutered their integrity.

Clown college carpool, anyone?

At first glance, Grimace appeared to have her head pasted on, and I thought:  my what terrible pasting abilities you have.

I respectfully request that Pescado and the other uber modders (and Nouk, for teh schmexay!) crash their little 'creator camp' in a fucking tank.   

*had 2 Chevy Novas, a 1969 and 1970...both ATE ROAD, both leaked at the rearview mirror, both bled oil, both cracked up by people other than me...sigh...good times...*

Oh!  That hair.  Is not hair.  Is PeggyZonian headdress.  Combined with Tarty McTart t-shirt and wee panities, we imagine witness to ceremonial sacrifice to god of monies - should be in a museum...after being buried for several thousand years.