Official Survey: They're going to sell individual downloads!?WTF?!

[Ruloi]

Thanks once more, calalily. I am totally awesome at inadvertently pissing people off. I consider it a gift and a curse.

I never once mentioned the BBS. Don't go to the BBS, don't know anything about the BBS. I'm sure there are lots of great people there. I don't know them. Prior to your post, I'd never even heard of it. That's my point: there are people who play Sims who don't do the whole internet community thing. I would put money on this being a majority of the players--casual gamers who pop in the Sims, play a bit, scour a bit for some CC, and that's the extent of it. Internet communities are where people get their information on the game, and without that resource, people...don't get information on the game. It's not willful ignorance. People just assume that a game is a game and that there's not going to be huge drama flaring up behind the scenes. I was surprised as hell to learn of it myself and I'm not a stranger to fan communities and the game industry itself. The Sims is sort of a happy, wholesome game and no one's going to expect that EA is piggy-backing eerily 1984-esque software along with it.

Re: SecuROM--I don't know a single person who knows about it and says "YES PLZ VIOLATE MY PRIVACY AND BREAK MY COMPUTER." The problem comes in when people don't know about it. And a lot of people don't. Like I said above, if you're not active in the community, you're not going to hear about this stuff. I'd heard whispers that evil had a name and its name was SecuROM, but I didn't really know about it until the shit really hit the fan over Spore, where it was discovered that they were going to be forcibly installing malware on your computer that phones home every couple of days and locks down your game if it can't. I had no idea that BV was packaged with SecuROM or that it was causing such problems. I've actually got a game on my computer (NWN2) that came with SecuROM and I had no idea. I consider myself a relatively hardcore gamer and pride myself for being fairly up to date, and I'm much better informed than any given casual gamer; there are thousands and thousands of people out there right now who are sitting ducks.

I wasn't saying "people are sheep" like it's a bad thing, it's just the nature of people. We tend to trust that if there's something bad going down, someone will tell us. Companies like EA know this and therefore do everything they can to fuck us under the radar. That's all I'm saying.

[calalily]

Thanks once more, calalily. I am totally awesome at inadvertently pissing people off. I consider it a gift and a curse.

Tis certainly a curse - 9 posts and 2 misinterpretations. 

Perhaps I should now argue with you over your opinion on necklacing, so inherently unmentioned in your post. 

[Ruloi]

I'd better not post my opinions on necklacing. They would enrage you, this board, at least fourteen different organizations of angry mothers, and the entire Catholic church. I would be exiled.

[falln_angel]

You watch what you're saying about the Catholic church!!


(  )

[calalily]

It's what Ruloi said about Anglicans that's got me riled! 

[Saraswati]

Ruloi

Apologies for my crabbiness.. I've just seen other posts that use the word mass of simmers=sheep=bbs in one fell swoop and I read your post and went "oh, not another one".. It does make me weary to a degree because we've managed to successfully engage/have a dialog with a large number of Simmers on the BBS within a month. This doesn't mean they absolutely won't go out and buy another EP, but at least they're aware of the risks. (I usually try to encourage them to at least WAIT)

The trouble up until now has been that most people haven't understood what the heck people are talking about when they talk about Securom, and considering I work in a Helpdesk and it's taken me a month to start to understand this properly, it's not hard to see why. If you've got a mum and she sits down for half an hour a day to play her game and has fifteen minutes to check the BBS when her game is malfunctioning, she's not going to have limitless patience. This is why every single article on the site is no more than a foolscap page and a half long. I get crabby because I think if someone had bothered to explain it to people in terms they understand, we could have been further down the road by now. Like someone could have gotten a Class Action together and scared the hell out of EA. (it's possible)

I'm off on holidays tomorrow morning (Supanova in Sydney) so I shouldn't be biting anyone by the time I get back.

Kath

[uknortherner]

Speaking of selling individual downloads, it looks like EA aren't stopping there.

I had the pleasure of receiving an email from EA this afternoon about Spore, advertising its Creature Creator. And they want £5 for it. Or at least for a version that actually does something.

Yep - Ignore the fact that the full bloody game will include the Creature Creator anyway - let's charge the muppets... Erm, sorry, "customers" for individual components too.

It would be a bit like selling Body Shop for a fiver and then discovering that it isn't compatible with the final version of TS2.

Next thing you know, they'll be charging for game demos too.

[redisenchanted]

Be careful, demos will have SecuRom on them too. A lot of people will get caught with that.

[nekonoai]

PAY??!?!!

[Zazazu]

Be careful, demos will have SecuRom on them too. A lot of people will get caught with that.

This is why mine will be ARRed. Unfortunately. I've had a lot of fun playing with the leaked 25% demo and would give them $5 for the creator. But I won't pay for SecuROM.

[missangelica]

This is why mine will be ARRed. Unfortunately. I've had a lot of fun playing with the leaked 25% demo and would give them $5 for the creator. But I won't pay for SecuROM.

UKnortherner used the pound sign so that would actually be a little under $10 ($9.77) for us Americans. :/

[Tabby]

 

[Panthpirate]

omg lyk ya i am so tttlly goin 2 buy dat creatur ting 4 Sporez n im also gunna by teh dwnldz 4 my simz cauz i lubz EA <3<3<3

I can't believe EA thinks we're that stupid

[uknortherner]

Be careful, demos will have SecuRom on them too. A lot of people will get caught with that.

One reason why I haven't yet downloaded the cut-down Creature Creator. It's probably infested with that crap.

This is why mine will be ARRed. Unfortunately. I've had a lot of fun playing with the leaked 25% demo and would give them $5 for the creator. But I won't pay for SecuROM.

UKnortherner used the pound sign so that would actually be a little under $10 ($9.77) for us Americans. :/

Yep. Although it'll probably be something like $7.50 + tax, which means you'll get a slightly better deal than we do in rip-off Britain.

There's taking the piss and then there's EA. Who else would charge separately for components that will end up being packaged with the final game anyway? Unless that's the whole point. Any and all future modding tools supplied by EA for Spore and The Sims 3 will have their own price tag attached.

[JFederated]

Spore creator does contain Securom v7.36.  I think even the demo has it.  I can link later, haz to watch telebision w/Hub right now.