If they do this to Sims 3, there is no way in hell i am buying it. They are only hurting paying customers with this.

A good business will treat every customer well. Especially one like this.... when one single player will spend hundreds on ONE series of games (TS2 with EPs).
So they should care, Infectious, about loosing you or any of us as a customer.

I'm using this little piece of logic below.



Because of their crappy protection system I can only install the game 3 times, and according to some other information I may be able to reuse the same CD Key if I call EA to unlock it or whatever. I sure am not going to buy the same crappy game again just to get a CD key for it. Either that or I should make sure that I will not need to buy a new computer or hard drive, or that I do not need to reformat the hard drive or that I do not uninstall the game for whatever reason. If they put it in Spore, they'll most certainly put it in their other games, including the Sims3 since they have the same copy protection system for all their games. Just ask anyone around here how many times did they reinstall their sims2 games and then tell me again that a limited number of installs is the way to go for a game that wants to be popular.

You can only install it three times?
I've installed TS2 about 6 times in it's life... computers crash, new computers, got tired of having it.

That's stupid. That's like buying a DVD and it says "Can only watch 20 times".

I can't speak for everyone else but an intrusion into my system is a big deal to me

Ouch! Not nice! Just because you don't understand someone's opinion, or what they're trying to say, does not mean what they're trying to say is "illogical"!
:agree:

As for the debate, I would rather use a CD than online access. It's much easier. I will very likely purchase Spore anyway, but honestly, I might wait. I was planning on grabbing it immediately when it comes out but now... i want to give it some time. I don't like the idea of installing this thing to go along with it. But I want Spore to use the internet to bring in other people's creations, like it is meant to.

Coltraz, I said something similar and I got my message deleted. Just warning you.

And now that you bring it up... I forgot it'll be connected anyway for the content.
So personally ill probably use it online most of the time anyway
But I still think its wrong

Well I guess this seals the deal on if I was going to get The Sims 3 or not. Big fat no now. I was even thinking of buying spore even though I wasn't exactly interested thought I'd give it try, yeah no.

Funny though the first thought that came to my head was that it'd hurt the poor navy guys. My husband is ex navy and really there isn't much to do on those boats and I know a few of my friends were really looking forward to spore.

Why? It's mere speculation that this version of protection will be used in TS3. More than likely, it won't be!

I disagree if they use it in spore which is coming out very close to the sims 3 then they'll likely use it on the sims 3. Even if they don't I still do not support a company putting this type of restriction on their games especially those that aren't online games. Why support a company (EA) if you don't agree with their business tactics? If you support them it'll only encourage this type of crap. Same reason I don't buy from walmart and I don't buy from nestle.

I was really looking forward to Spore, but no longer. All they are doing is alienating paying customers and they will lose sales. Who knows how much, but it will be quite a bit.

My thoughts exactly.

Also, I would not mind still using discs at all. I've been doing so since Sims 1, which seems like many, many moons ago now; It certainly wouldn't kill me to continue using that method to play the Sims 3.

Making it mandatory to log into that site every 10 days to do the whole key reactivation thingamajig just seems like too much of a chore. If I do some light math, um...that's an estimated 37 times a year I'd have to do that just to play. The time it takes to insert a disc? A second. And the disc usually stays in my PC all week. The time it would probably take to log into that site and do the reactivation? 5 minutes...more if you inconveniently run into some sorta issue. Why should I, the innocent paying customer (one of millions who make them rich), be FORCED to do that just because of everyone else's pirating game habits.

Make it more convenient for those of us who pay, not less convenient. They need to come up with a much better system, because as HP has continuously pointed out, it will not work.

This reminds me of the several times I lost my internet connection for months at a time. Yes, it hapens, EA! If that meant I couldn't play my game until I got it back then I'd definitely not buy that game.

As for the "you can only re-install 3 times" bs...what the...? I must've installed the Sims a dozen times already. And what if you change computers or enough components for it to be considered "new"? Like Windows, they won't recognize it and will want you to buy a new version? Not until hell freezes over.

I hope to god this won't be implemented in the Sims 3.

Actually my understanding it that the game checks in automatically with no input from the user. Which really bugs me, because I don't like my computer sending info without me telling it to.

If it works like it's supposed to, I'm sure many people won't even realize it's calling home. I mean, it'll likely be in the documentation, but how many of us read all that?

Faithlove, coltraz, Actually, the logic didn't make sense since croco did not make it clear that she was talking about actually phoning up EA support regarding those (high overseas bills), I assume. Just becuase I pointed out it's illogical doesn't mean I'm not nice.

kennyinbmore, how is this scheme an intrusion into your system? It doesn't allow anything in, merely sends a packet of data out. And if you know about it beforehand....

Also, with regards to Spore vs Sims 3 - isn't Spore supposed to come out this year, and Sims 3 over a year later? That's not really that close...

Ghanima, We have no information about what will trigger the reactivation in terms of reinstalling or changing hardware. It's all conjecture at this point.

psuedonymph24, You seem to be labouring under the impression you would have to manually login to reactivate. This has been indicated to not be the case - the activation would happen in a few seconds, at best, rather than your 5 minutes estimate. You wouldn't be "forced" to do anything - it would happen totally transparently behind the scenes (maybe with some kind of quick check but I'd imagine they'd make it as unobtrusive as possible). It's already been stated that it'll happen behind the scenes.

So, the only inconvenience you would face is making sure you have an internet connection, and honestly, how often do you check that if you aren't on dialup?

Faithlove, the analogy with "buying a DVD and watching it 20 times" doesn't really fit here. You can play the game as many times as you want in one "reinstall". If you happen to try it on another PC or change your motherboard and CPU or whatever, then thats another "reinstall".

But it wouldn't limit the number of times you could play it while installed - therefore the analogy breaks down, unless of course you played it once. Uninstalled it. Reinstalled it, played it once, uninstalled it, reinstalled it, played it once, and then tried to reinstall and then got the activation error.

I'm not saying I neccesarily agree with this scheme, but everybody seems to be on the "this sucks! ea sucks! spore sucks!" bandwagon, and it's not really a debate if there is only one side.

Ah, okay, I stand corrected. I guess I wouldn't mind that, but I hope it would at least notify me when it does that. Simple courtesy. So yeah...now that I understand that better, what are we all complaining about again? I will go back and re-read...

Delphy
but once you own something, you should own it unconditionally
this would be like owning it for a limited number of computers... which might work for antivirus things, but not a game

I don't mind about the internet thing, if things get way out of hand with my internet one of the librarians is half in love with me and would let me install on her computer, reactivate it there, and be clear on that disc for 10 days.

My question about that is does the activation follow the software (so the big lump on my hard disk) or the CD (which i can use at the library)?

And I am not happy about the limited number of installs. I remember once during the years I've played sims 2 I had a massive registry error. So I tried uninstalling. Then reinstalling. Didn't work. So I tried again. 8 months, ~30 reinstalls later I figured out and fixed the problem. Given that I have two computers, and that uninstall/reinstall is my first strategy if things go wrong... not good. So its not like only being able to watch a DVD 3 times... but I don't want to waste my precious phone card (and god help me if I use my parents phone) on activating a game, or my precious $50 because the game borks itself.

Limited activations or activations tied to hardware are actually already used in software. I know some Microsoft products will require you re-activate if you change several pieces of hardware at once (I want to say XP, Vista, or maybe Office), as they are tied to your hardware. When I had a hard drive crash and I had to ghost over everything to a new drive, my Photoshop wanted me to reactivate it.

Regarding the necessity of phoning EA to reactivate if you need to reinstall more than once - I haven't actually seen (and feel free to correct me, I have only read the first few pages of that Bioware/Mass Effect thread) info that you will need to -call- to do so, merely contact EA to fix it. This may be something that you can do online rather than over the phone.

Faithlove - You don't own software. You own a hard copy of the disk, and a license to use it as the maker deems fit. That includes if their license dictates stupid schemes like this one. Most hard copies of intellectual property are like this - you own the disk if you buy a game, but the actual data on it still belongs to the company that made it, and you are merely licensed to use it in a certain manner, which you have to agree to in most installs. Movies, music, and even books are similar - you own your physical copy and you can lend it to a friend, give it away, or burn it, but the actual data contained still belongs to the original creator. In the case of movies, books, and music, the license you are given to use it is generally standard and a matter of copyright law (as opposed to games, in which it varies widely) but it still follows the same basic principle. And they already make DVDs that stop working after a period of time - disposable DVDs of movies meant as a replacement for rentals. They're good for a couple days after taking them out of the package before they break down and have to be thrown away.

FurryPanda - Your proposed fix wouldn't work - you would need to bring your computer to the library and hook it up with internet access to reactivate. It's not tied to the disk (which is not required to run the game at all) but to the particular computer it's on. The info posted by the Bioware employee seemed to suggest that some hash tied to your hardware would be generated and would be sent to their servers for your activation, along with your CD key.

First I just went "WHAT???" and panicked! The I realized I don't have to be on line and do the actual validation myself every tenth day. :doh (That would be horrifying, since I don't use my comp every day, or even every week...or month... )

Still, its like the beginning of something we have not quite seen before. Everything is getting more controlled once people and the industry learns how to protect themselves from theft, intrusion or hackers. Protection works two ways hopefully. If you have a legal copy of your game, program,music- there should not be any problems really. They say...I really hope that. 'Cause if there is (to be problems, technical or whatever), I'm gonna be just as pissed and frustrated as anyone else, and stop playing the Sims altogether, or any other game using secuROM or similar in the future.
Still, a game is just a program like any other software. No one complains when it comes to validating legal copies of other programs, because were used to that already .

I was really hoping that EA wouldn't keep using SecuRom. I got a new computer for Christmas and put my legally purchased copies of the Sims on it. In less than a week I was getting errors saying that I needed to put the original disk and not the backup disc in. The original disc was in the drive!

It took several days and complaints sent off to EA and searching the web until I found a fix. To this day I have no idea why SecuRom decided that my legally purchased copy had been "pirated". Heck, when I started getting these problems I still had my receipt from Target!

If EA is going to include this on Spore (and Sims 3) I will think long and hard about buying those games. I already had a nightmare dealing with SecuRom and I don't want to go through that again.

I do hope that after you use up your three installs that you can still have more, even if it is by contacting EA. But still, that is only if I am desperate to play the game. I still hope this doesn't go through. I never mind having to use a disc.

I'm sure I missed something obvious here, but I'm gonna post my question anyway.

I buy my copy of Spore/Sims3/whatever and, at some point the code associated to my copy is generated by a keygen and posted on the web. Suddenly my game dosen't work, through no fault of mine. What exactly is EA going to accept as proof that, indeed, I am not culpable, and how will they get my game to work again? From what I understand of them, a keygen could possibly generate a valid code even before the disk associated with it was sold, therefore making the first illegal copy of the game appear to be the legal copy (first use of that particular code) and the disk I just brought home from the store completely useless.

I don't know for sure but I don't think that keygens use actual serial numbers, but serial numbers that the crackers made to work with their cracks. But I could be wrong, because I couldn't use my serial number from my sims 2 game when i tried to register it several months ago. it said it was already registered. but not by me!! EA didn't do anything about it when I asked them.

HP
THat "you only own the physical disk" is total crap that lawyers just came up with to help company profits.
It's not even logical, when you note you can download the game from EA store online and NEVER receive anything physical.
I don't support laws I disagree with.