EA has been SUED 5 TIMES MERRY CHRISTMAS EA MUHAHA ARR!

[Obnoxicon]

I wonder if five lawsuits are enough to knock sense into EAxis. Knowing them, no amount of drama or bullshit ever stops them from doing stupid stuff.

[Paden]

Fa la la la la, la la la la! Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of assholes. No, really, I mean it! I hope they all get a bunch of flaming goose shit in their stockings, would serve them right. Vengeful? Me? You bet your sweet ass, I am!

[eph]

Just slightly related, but maybe interesting nonetheless:
Ubisoft used Securom on Farcry2 too, and they recieved massive protests and large amounts of pirating as a result.
So as a test they now released Shaun White Snowboarding and Prince of Persia without any copy protection at all. No cd key, no online registration, the cds don't even have to be in the cd drive to play.

They want to see if people really buy the games legally if there's no DRM, and they don't believe in a success. In their opinion Securom is most likely just an excuse to pirate a game.
So if you want to make a statement against Securom, maybe think about those games and show at least Ubisoft that no DRM is the right way...

This info is from a German gaming portal:
http://www.spieletipps.de/n_15962/

[Saraswati]

  I loved that.. and I'll be buying Prince of Persia once I heard that..

[Pescado]

Even if DRM didn't anger anyone, it does nothing to stop pirates. If anything, based on how the scene works, DRM is counterproductive: If there is no DRM, there will be no major-player scene release: This means the piracy will be based on ISO-rips made by random people with no reputability, and people will shy away from it due to fear of virii and lack of reputation. Slapping DRM on it, however, paints a big fat target on the title, and results in a reputable scene release: You get one of the major groups involved and their name on the release lends it immediate reputability (and thus seeds). It stands to reason that DRM, and possibly even copyright at all, may be counterproductive to piracy prevention and possibly even sales volume: How many pirated copies of Ubuntu Linux do you find on TPB?

[Saraswati]

Pescado, you've never said a truer word.. The same thing happened with the Sims community. We used to tear strips off people for using NoCD patches and tell them to go buy their game and use their disk.. If someone gave someone the "it's your own fault you can't build" lecture these days, they'd be laughed out of the room in most places.

[Pescado]

Well, piracy has largely been brought into the public view over this entire SecuROM thing. In the old days, anyone using a NoCD and asking about it in public was viewed as a dodgy pirate. Nowadays, the behavior is accepted and supported in many outlying communities and buying the game is sometimes seen as a foolish decision.

[SoggyFox]

While I don't play those titles, I -will- encourage the resident pirate to go and buy those rather than arrquiring them.  I do agree that good behavior should be rewarded.

[Devilfish]

They want to see if people really buy the games legally if there's no DRM, and they don't believe in a success. In their opinion Securom is most likely just an excuse to pirate a game.
So if you want to make a statement against Securom, maybe think about those games and show at least Ubisoft that no DRM is the right way...

Excuse me for being suh a sceptic, but this sounds like a real low move to me. They know the game's going to get pirated anyway. This way, after it happens, they can take the moral high ground, say "Well, we gave it a shot and clearly people just like being EBIL" and slap a brand new version of SecuROM on their next title, while waving away any complains they get about it with a hearty "Don't whine, we gave you a chance and you betrayed out trust."

Not saying that's what they're doing here, but I wouldn' be surprised. It's actually sort of cunning, if it's true.

[Piratey]

There's another game, which I can't remember the name of at this moment, that had no copy protection whatsoever on the disc and was quite successful. Rather than trying to treat everyone as a potential criminal, they instead rewarded their customers with much success. Basically, legitimate copies contained codes and stuff, so they could get DLC and things like that.

[SoggyFox]

See that's the thing that EA fucked up.  They said 'If you buy the game and play connected to the interwebz, you get more from it.  That's why the resident pirate actually bought it.  But as far as I can tell, it didn't.  All it did was open it up for an invasion of other folks creations into your world.

And then they dump Securom on it too.

And we see how well it worked.

[neriana]

There's another game, which I can't remember the name of at this moment, that had no copy protection whatsoever on the disc and was quite successful. Rather than trying to treat everyone as a potential criminal, they instead rewarded their customers with much success. Basically, legitimate copies contained codes and stuff, so they could get DLC and things like that.

Galactic Civilizations 2, and all of Stardock's games. Their head designer says they've been pirated, but they've also been very successful and while piracy bugs them, they make games thinking about consumers, not about pirates.

Also, World of Goo looks like a totally awesome game that I think should appeal to pretty much everyone. It's by an independent company and has no copy protection, there's a demo, and it only costs $20. It's been pirated a ton, which is pretty disgusting. This is basically a couple guys in a basement making a really cool game with no drm. I'm getting it for Christmas.

[Quinctia]

I've seen people pirate Audiosurf, which is a whole whopping $10.  However, I think some of that is because that particular game is only available on Steam, which some people have an issue with.  That doesn't make it any less silly, though.

[Lorelei]

I bought World of Goo precisely because of the lack of copy protection and "two d00dz in basement" thing.

I, too, have issues with Steam, which means no Portal for me. BASTARDS.

Also, had no idea Lemmi had quoted my EA correspondence spoof here. It's a bit off-topic for a serious (SRS!) thread about actual lawsuits and useful documentation of actual correspondence. It's based on several true stories of my frustration dealing with EA, BUT is certainly noting a lawyer or advocate could ever use.

SecuROM ate my CD-DVD burner functionality, too. I have a Sony VAIO laptop, and Sony's SecuROM broke the hardware functionality of their own laptop. WTF.

I have, but never installed, BV, and have refused to pay EA a penny since. I use my lappy primarily for grad school thesis work, so I can't risk a tainted ARRRR! file, nor do I have a lot of free time to do recreational things anyway. EA's arrogance in installing malware without my permission on my machine, denying it, and then being asshatty about it and DOING IT AGAIN with even more virulent strains of SecuROM has permanently lost them my patronage, and I have a fair bit of expendable income they won't be getting a percentage of, ever.

[JFederated]

I bought World of Goo precisely because of the lack of copy protection and "two d00dz in basement" thing.

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?