Forum Home
PC World Chat
Thread ID: 93846	2008-10-03 01:57:00	Anti-Piracy Fail	pctek (84)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
709518	2008-10-03 01:57:00	arstechnica.com aming publishers use DRM to try to stop piracy, or at least that's the argument. It might do a better job of limiting resale, but above all, it does an incredibly effective job of annoying customers. How are gamers fighting back against the DRM in Spore? The Amazon reviews were one way, but the second way is much more direct: downloading the game. "Since September 2nd when Spore first appeared on BitTorrent, it has been downloaded a little over 500,000 times across various BitTorrent sites according to our most recent statistics," TorrentFreak reported. "This download rate exceeds that of any other pirated game in history, and in a week or two from now it will be the most pirated game ever on BitTorrent." EA downplayed these numbers when talking to GamaSutra. "We've talked to people that made several unsuccessful attempts to download the game and ended up with incomplete, slow, buggy or unusable code. In one case, a file identified as Spore contained a virus," said Mariam Sughayer of EA's corporate communications department. "To say that every download represents a successful copy of the game—or that there’s been more than 500K copies downloaded—that's just not true." The "pirated copies are riddled with viruses" argument is the same scare tactic police used to tell schoolchildren during D.A.R.E. class: you shouldn't buy drugs because you never know what's in it. The truth is that people who create the pirated versions of these games and the groups that spread them live and die by their reputations, and are sophisticated enough to make sure nearly every file is clean. The counter-logic is the true one, in that you know that a dealer spiked your drugs because you paid more for them. You can tell your copy of Spore is clean of secuROM because you pirated it.	pctek (84)
709519	2008-10-03 02:24:00	"You can tell your copy of Spore is clean of secuROM because you pirated it." heh nice. If anything, torrents are safe. It frustrates me when magazines say things like 'torrents are bad as they infect your computer with spyware, malware, trojans, viruses, worms etc'. Torrents are self cleansing. Or if there are over 100,000 peers, you can be certain the file is safe. Its only when you choose the torrent which has 20 peers instead of 100,000 that you are asking for trouble.	utopian201 (6245)
709520	2008-10-03 03:31:00	I just gave up on PC games. I assume that's what their intention was.	Metla (12)
709521	2008-10-03 07:06:00	If you're going to copy the text, copy all or non of it, not just part of it.	the_bogan (9949)
709522	2008-10-03 07:14:00	If you're going to copy the text, copy all or non of it, not just part of it. No. The links there for those who want to read further, and the text explains the point without going on and on.	pctek (84)
709523	2008-10-04 12:14:00	I tried it out for a while, but got bored . It was a disappointing game anyway which did not live up to the hype . I imagine it would be very fun if you are 8 years old, though . I remember when the creature creator came out, and the full version finally appeared on bittorrent there were viruses in some of them What amused me the most was one where the 'cracked' executable you had to copy over was not the actual file, but a self-extracting archive, complete with a really bad quality icon, and a description something like 'MS self-extractor cabinet' It contained both the real cracked executable and also a dropper for the vundo trojan virus . The scary part is, I don't think it wouldn't have taken much at all to make it look just like the real thing . From my observations, it seems that the rate of virus-infected pirated software has grown considerably recently . A lot contain trojans are integrated into the setup files, or inside the serial generators/cracked executables etc . Bottom line, if you want a guarantee that you'll be clean then whatever it is: BUY IT! (yeah I know about disks and hard drives that have been shipped with viruses on them in the past)	Agent_24 (57)
709524	2008-10-05 01:46:00	i was actually intending to pay for spore, even despite the game being significantly worse than what they showed us in 2005 as EA pulled content to later release in expansion packs then i heard about the 3 install DRM restrictions then my brother bought it anyway. 1st, there is a typo in the manual that says you can have more than one online user account per cd key, when that is not the case 2nd, the game is really crappy software, crashed a lot and takes longer to patch than install, as i have come to expect from EA 3rd, the game itself was a letdown, though i do still like it finally, since installinga few weeks ago i have had over 5 instances where my PC suddenly becomes completely unresponsive, and several bluscreens (not a common occurance for me). happened on friday morning and even the printer stopped printing my assignment. 15 minutes later i finally get the thing to boot again, now running 10 minutes late for my assessment worth 10% of one of my papers. this is thanks to EA sneaking non-uninstallable secuROM software into my windows kernel, intended to take control (ie lock me out) of my computer "under certain circumstances", and similar complaints are coming up all over the place. this wouldn't be an issue if it didn't crash my pc, i was told it was there, and i actually knew exactly what it was meant to achieve so, seeing as I've got a receipt for the game, where do i put my name on teh class action lawsuit? and yes, the pirated product is now officially better than the legal one	motorbyclist (188)
709525	2008-10-05 04:03:00	finally, since installinga few weeks ago i have had over 5 instances where my PC suddenly becomes completely unresponsive, and several bluscreens this is thanks to EA sneaking non-uninstallable secuROM software into my windows kernel ] Hmm. Actually I have never had a problem with Securom. Try Starforce if you want nasty. Securom is uninstallable.	pctek (84)
709526	2008-10-05 08:57:00	Hmm. Actually I have never had a problem with Securom. Try Starforce if you want nasty. Securom is uninstallable. Agreed. Although I'd rather have neither.	Agent_24 (57)
709527	2008-10-05 10:04:00	EA make really bad games to be honest I purchased C&C3 kane's wrath and had desyncs which cause the game to disconnect in the middle of game play.It took 3 months for Ea to patch things up and there is still desyncs in the game There are so many bugs in the games that they make and so many changes in each patch they release that I have this hatred against this company The games in the old days were a bit better.They were small companies but they made great games that is until EA took every small company	Ninjabear (2948)
1 2