New copy protection comming for Spore and Mass Effect (EA)

Multianna

Join Date 10/2006

+10

New copy protection comming for Spore and Mass Effect (EA)

requires activation every 10 days

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let me quote from Source

Mass Effect uses SecuROM and requires an online activation for the first time that you play it. Each copy of Mass Effect comes with a CD Key which is used for this activation and for registration here at the BioWare Community. Mass Effect does not require the DVD to be in the drive in order to play, it is only for installation.

After the first activation, SecuROM requires that it re-check with the server within ten days (in case the CD Key has become public/warez'd and gets banned). Just so that the 10 day thing doesn't become abrupt, SecuROM tries its first re-check with 5 days remaining in the 10 day window. If it can't contact the server before the 10 days are up, nothing bad happens and the game still runs. After 10 days a re-check is required before the game can run.

on page 2 he says:

Yes, EA is ready for us and getting ready for Spore, which will use the same system.

They made a FAQ about the copy protection, heres a quote of the most relevant stuff

Q: Why does MEPC need to reactivate every 10 days?

A: MEPC needs to authenticate every 10 days to ensure that the CD key used for the game is valid. This is designed to reduce piracy and protect valid CD keys.

Q: What happens if I want to play MEPC but do not have an internet connection?

A: You cannot play MEPC without an internet connection. MEPC must authenticate when it is initially run and every 10 days thereafter.

Q: What happens if I install and activate MEPC with an internet connection, but then do not have an internet connection after 10 days? Can I still play MEPC?

A: No. After 10 days the system needs to re-authenticate via the internet. If you do not have an internet connection you will not be able to play until you are reconnected to the internet and able to re-authenticate.

Q: Does the game re-authenticate every 10 game play days or every 10 calendar days?

A: It re-authenticates based on calendar days, not game play days.

WTH is this all about??

ha, they seem to be asking for people to pirate there game so they can play without an internet connection.

And whats with the every 10 day activation?? so if your internet is gone for more then 10 days, you CANT play your legal bought game...

worst copy protection in history

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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!

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Oh look, they don't want my money. Bummer for them. Both of those games were interesting, now I'll buy neither of them. They can blame the lack of sales on "piracy" like they always do.

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let me quote from [Mass Effect uses SecuROM and requires an online activation for the first time that you play it. Each copy of Mass Effect comes with a CD
Key which is used for this activation and for registration here at the
BioWare Community. Mass Effect does not require the DVD to be in the
drive in order to play, it is only for installation. After
the first activation, SecuROM requires that it re-check with the server
within ten days (in case the CD Key has become public/warez'd and gets
banned).

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).

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Derek French says it (italics are mine):

For clarity, though, an internet connection is not required to install, just to activate the first time, and every 10 days after. You can be completely connectionless for 9 days and encounter no problems playing Mass Effect. And you don't need the disk in the drive to play.

Second page of the link, second post.

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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!

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Bah, no edit.

To sum up, this is the copy protection scheme:

- activation key required to install the game.
- you do not need the disc in the drive to play.
- five days after installation and first activation, when you fire up the game, it will try to 'phone home' to authenticate. If it fails to connect, it will try again on day 6. Then on day seven and so on up to day 10. If it cannot authenticate at day 10, the game will not run until you connect to the internet and allow it to authenticate.
- at any time, once the game has authenticated, the timer resets and you have 10 days again before it must be authenticated once again.
- you have 3 activations allowed. These are used for installing on other computers, or re-installing the game. As well, if you 'significantly change your hardware' (BioWare's wording, and so far this has not been fully explained as to what 'significant' means), you'll have to re-activate. If you use up your activations, you'll have to contact EA support in order to (hopefully) get more activations.

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psychoak

Join Date 07/2007

+225

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...

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Multianna

Join Date 10/2006

+10

Am I missing something? Where in that link does it say anything about Spore having that copy protection? It seems exclusively for bioshock.

on page 2 he says:

Yes, EA is ready for us and getting ready for Spore, which will use the same system.

Thank god for Stardock is around that knows and understands the people

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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.

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excessive copy protection will be the death of PC gaming long before consoles take us out. 8*(

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but I also believe that pirates cost a company a lot less than they make it out to be.

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.

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"Yes Sir, you need to drive by with your new Ford Widget every ten days, to enable our super free marketi...... um I mean .... theft prevention system". Just like loyalty cards in supermarkets (loyalty card is shorthand for "enable our automatic targeted marketing system"). No thanks.

I will not be driven down this road whatever the excuse. I'm not interested in an esoteric pirate debate - I am an honest comsumer who pays for what I use. They can shove this up their digital backside.

When are these guys going to learn that whilst theft is wholey unacceptable, the gains from such nutty protection schemes are far outweighed by the gains from systems such as the one Stardock employs. The problem is, these nutty schemes that surface from time to time, are driven by finance driven CEOs and Finanace Directors, who usually dont have a clue on real world use - they are so sucked into the whole Revenue/Pirate thing they cant see the wood from the trees.

This scheme will die like all the others, and future ones will as well until someone comes up with something that protects the product without tying the consumer down to ...... whatever. It would be viewed a joke if we had to drive by a Ford Dealer in our Ford Widget to automatically re-enable the "on board anti-theft system". Is the latter a parrallel? Of course not, but its pretty damn close.

The mind boggles.

Regards
Zy

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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...

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oopss sorry no edit button... not COD but COH

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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?

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let me quote from [url=http://masseffect.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=628375&forum=125]Source[/url]
Mass Effect uses SecuROM and requires an online activation for the first time that you play it. Each copy of Mass Effect comes with a CD Key which is used for this activation and for registration here at the BioWare Community. Mass Effect does not require the DVD to be in the drive in order to play, it is only for installation.After the first activation, SecuROM requires that it re-check with the server within ten days (in case the CD Key has become public/warez'd and gets banned). Just so that the 10 day thing doesn't become abrupt, SecuROM tries its first re-check with 5 days remaining in the 10 day window. If it can't contact the server before the 10 days are up, nothing bad happens and the game still runs. After 10 days a re-check is required before the game can run.WTH is this all about?? ha, they seem to be asking for people to pirate there game so they can play without an internet connection.And whats with the every 10 day activation?? so if your internet is gone for more then 10 days, you CANT play your legal bought game... worst copy protection in history

Agree.. Because the fact is, the ONLY people that will be affected by this copy protection is the legal honest customers buying the game..
The pirated version will have the entire copy protection REMOVED, hence no such problems or annoying forced internet checks.

Again honest customers get fucked over by the greedy $$-hungry anti-piracy corporations.
Its like preventing car theft by making the wheels square cement blocks.
Copyprotection is complete and utter uselessness, and they know it, but they make tons of money of it. They are the real criminals here.

Thanks securom, now i wont be buying Spore.

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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.

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I will buy spore then get the DRM hacked/pirated version once its released. I play most of my games on a comp that contains sensitive data and that, for security reasons, is never connected to the internet or any other computer.

I am just hoping, given all the player made content updates delivered via the net, I can still use such updates via transferring files using a flash drive.

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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)

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I'm not impressed at all, they've gained them selves maybe 5 days of grace (at most, probably none in reality) between releasing the game and it being cracked? And to do that they've paid someone to add phone home software to the game?! More annoyance for us and little or no gain for them seems to be a double failure on their part.

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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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Horrible comparison. Maybe someone accidently dropped their headphones, tool, etc. on the ground and doesn't realize it until later? They rush back to see if its still there, then shake their head as they realized some idiot stole it.You are enjoying for free what programmers and others have slaved over for months, maybe years. You are offering no compensation for their efforts. How is this different from me taking milk from the cow farmer who worked months to get the cows fat so they can produce milk? Please provide detailed, reasoned arguments why piracy in any form is perfectly ok and how it is different from stealing..

While the moral implications of piracy are up for debate, the physical effect it has on the property owners in often times negligible. It's easy for me to justify it for myself. I would not pay for anything I pirate; be it software, music, or games. If I couldn't pirate it, I would not pay for it to have it. Property owners are losing no money by my pirating as a individual because I would not spend money on their product if I couldn't pirate it.

On the other side of the argument however, having a scene for piracy allows anyone to pirate for any reason. That's where the harm to property owners comes from. It allows people who would pay to have something to pirate it also.

On a side note, you're just using a straw man to refute piracy by comparing it to physical theft. If I steal milk from a farmer, I've taken something and he can no longer sell it. If I steal a music track, I haven't taken away the owner's ability to sell it. I haven't even taken their ability to sell it to me away because I wouldn't have spent money on it to begin with.

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[Link removed by admin]
Really who cares.

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Indeed, to me, the simplest solution, if one is concerned enough with the copy protection (which in certain cases is entirely reasonable), is to buy the game and then get the pirated version.

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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.

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

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