EA relents on cumbersome DRM for new PC games

It looks like EA has made a turn-around in response to fan outrage at its plans for a complicated DRM scheme in two high-profile PC games due out later this year.

Word came out yesterday that Spore (from Sims-meister Will Wright) and the PC version of Xbox 360 hit Mass Effect would implement a new version of the Securom DRM middleware, which not only requires you to keep a game's DVD in the drive to play it, but would need to perform an authenticity check every 10 days, which would have required your computer to be online during that time.

Electronic Arts has high expectations for its forthcoming, PC-only Spore from Sims creator Will Wright. Irritating DRM won't help.

(Credit: CNET)

Amid much fan outrage and negative publicity, it appears EA and each game's respective developer has relented and will instead implement a more benign DRM strategy. Gamer's Hell reported that Mass Effect will now require a one-time online authentication, and it will reauthenticate each time you connect to the game's download servers, but that it will no longer require constant reauthentication. Kotaku reported the same decision has been made for Spore.

On the Mass Effect user forum, the community manager from developer BioWare cited its its "many friends in the armed services and internationally who expressed concerns that they would not be able reauthenticate as often as required," as one of the reasons for the change. Considering that the forum topic in which Bioware announced its original plan generated 115 pages of comments, it's probably fair to say that fan opinion had something to do with it as well.

Copy protection remains a huge issue for PC game developers and publishers. Just a few weeks ago, Cevat Yerli, the president of Crysis developer CryTek told Hungary's PC Play that his company was abandoning PC exclusives because of rampant piracy. We certainly understand that issue, but clunky DRM is not the answer if publishers want to encourage PC gamers to buy their products.

[noahjwhite]

I'm not sure how much piracy really effects game sales, but I do know that these "Anti-Piracy" tactics only irritate people that legitimately purchased the game. Hackers will have cracked these games in a week or less. A perfect example is bioshock. The DRM prevented my legal (retail) copy from working.

[zeroplane]

I sure would love to play this game, I bought the $10 version not the demo. But sadly the software doesn't run at all. I am using windows XP SP3 on a very beefy hardware setup. I am also a very knowledgeable software engineer and have virus, process, and mallware software installed on my computer to protect it from the typical garbage that would make it unstable. To my surprise installing Spore from spore website that I bought lit my detection software up like a Christmas tree.

This software is loaded with SecureROM DRM software that is very nasty. I have heard you can circumvent the security checks it run by running the application in Window 98 compatibility mode. But regardless the software installs SecureROM DRM software. There is no mention of this software in the installation, in the readme documents or on the spore or EA website. By the way once you install the DRM software you can't uninstall it without digging deep into your registry, configuration files, and deleting files from the windows directory and programs directory directly. This is unacceptable! I am going to spend the next few days attempting to clean my computer of this vermin.

I suggest you don't install it unless you are:
A) totally ignorant and don't care that you will be monitored by EA.
B) don't mind that you computer's security and anti virus software will have been disabled making your PC even more vulnerable to viruses and mall ware.

Until the DRM rootkit is not included in this software I won't buy anything from EA from this point on.
BOYCOTT EA!

[Average_Joe_Blow]

Doesn't matter how much you encrypt and try and keep hackers from cracking and releasing games. It will continue to happen. Until all games are accessed on an external server and ran from there where each user has their own credentials, all games can be cracked.