Guineh wrote:

markiem32 wrote:What would cause them to believe that? What would cause them to believe you had 15 installs?

Here's my guess:

Each time he attempted to run the game after initial failure counted against him. Just opening to check if the game was reactivated was enough to count as another "install"

Quite honestly, this whole thing is sickening. Not to mention the "A change to ANY hardware counts as an install" Which means, when I finally buy a new machine next year, I might need to go through the same Customer Service Hell the OP went through.

I honestly don't think I turned it on 15 times.

Regardless; if that is the case, then this whole situation is even more sickening to me.

And THIS is why I chose NOT to buy Spore but instead find OTHER ways to obtain it.
I live in Macedonia, in Europe, international calls here are expensive and people make $300-$400 a month on average, I would've spent more money trying to reset my installs than buy a new copy of the game and only a completely brainwashed person would spend over $150 on a game just because the company lets you only install it 3 times

The bottom line is that the casual gamer is where the almighty dollar is and EA knows well that the casual gamer won't even know or care or bother to remember who published the game.

The fact is that EA can be a complete SPORE to their customers and it's not going to matter one whit, because casual gamers and soccer mums are still going to buy their games. Their target audience aren't the people reading this forum, or people who would ever visit a gaming forum, or even know what DRM stands for. They're not the kind of people that do extensive research about a game before buying it.

EA will continue to thrive, just as GameStop continue to thrive despite blatantly ripping off their customers, and McDonalds continue to thrive despite selling horrible food that makes you fat.

The average person is stupid, they will believe advertising and won't bother to research.

There is no way hardcore gamers are going to convert a big company like EA, so threads like this are pretty pointless. But all is not lost, there are still companies out there which make games for gamers, and that don't pass the burden of piracy onto their paying customers, the best we can do is support these companies until they get bought up by EA and other small companies take their place. Because there will always be independent game makers making great low budget games, just like there will always be great film makers making cult films.

Wargizmo said it and I agree 100%, they just don't give a ****(I got modded for this once here) about us serious gamers, they just want to rip non-gamers off and they're doing a SPORE good job at it too.

Also keep in mind, the point of the DRM is NOT to prevent piracy, it never was since they knew full well that it would be removed by the pirates with ease, the DRM is there to prevent the sale of used games and to prevent used games being passed down from person to person, the DRM is there to rip YOU off.

If I knew an EA or Maxis employee personally, I would march right over to their house and punch them in the genitals.

This is SPORE unacceptable.

Ban me. SPORE you EA.

ShinigamiKiba wrote:Wargizmo said it and I agree 100%, they just don't give a ****(I got modded for this once here) about us serious gamers, they just want to rip non-gamers off and they're doing a SPORE good job at it too.

Also keep in mind, the point of the DRM is NOT to prevent piracy, it never was since they knew full well that it would be removed by the pirates with ease, the DRM is there to prevent the sale of used games and to prevent used games being passed down from person to person, the DRM is there to rip YOU off.

You are right about that. Here is a link to an interview/article about EA and Second hand/used games http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/ea-second-hand-sales-are-a-critical-situation

Boy, I feel stupid for caving and buying the game. I should have just waited until the patch crack came out and playeed it online with the rest of the pirates.

Silly me, wanting to own a game... I don't have the receipt for the game NOW, let alone forever from now.

That article inspires me to buy all of my EA console games second hand from rental places.

I actually do buy a majority of my EA games from amazon or from used game stores. I play more console games than pc games. Plus I just hate giving EA money when they so often slap their customers in the face. Especially when so many of their games are filled with bugs and glitches which remain unpatched or unfixed. They really are not worth the full price. I really try not to buy EA games at all, but if there is something I REALLY want, I buy it used.

Although with spore, that is something I just couldn't do. If EA continues with this kind of install limits and DRM junk, then they won't get my money for anything. I will just completely boycott them.

SnuggleFairie wrote:I actually do buy a majority of my EA games from amazon or from used game stores. I play more console games than pc games. Plus I just hate giving EA money when they so often slap their customers in the face. Especially when so many of their games are filled with bugs and glitches which remain unpatched or unfixed. They really are not worth the full price. I really try not to buy EA games at all, but if there is something I REALLY want, I buy it used.

Although with spore, that is something I just couldn't do. If EA continues with this kind of install limits and DRM junk, then they won't get my money for anything. I will just completely boycott them.

good for you...

I just bought NHL 09' second hand from Blockbuster.

I feel proud.

Got to give us what we want, gotta give us what we need. our freedom of speech is freedom or death, we got to fight the powers that be, lemme hear you say - Fight the power!

how does it make you feel, having to deal with a 3 installation limit and securom just so you can play the game nice and happy at home knowing that there are no pirates out there stealing the game?

O WAIT!

the game was pirated 4 days before release in America! wow! nice job.

and releasing a expansion barely a month after the game came out is just pouring salt in the wounds.

we all know who win here- the pirates. wow i don't think EA could have made that more obvious if they had tried. especially when spore was pirated over 500k times after the first week it came out. i can bairly think of a more sucky DRM.

monofuel wrote:how does it make you feel, having to deal with a 3 installation limit and securom just so you can play the game nice and happy at home knowing that there are no pirates out there stealing the game?

O WAIT!

the game was pirated 4 days before release in America! wow! nice job.

and releasing a expansion barely a month after the game came out is just pouring salt in the wounds.

we all know who win here- the pirates. wow i don't think EA could have made that more obvious if they had tried. especially when spore was pirated over 500k times after the first week it came out. i can bairly think of a more sucky DRM.

They are not trying to stop online piracy. The system does not allow for that though with Spore it does to a certain extent with online content- but that is the game design.

It is a disc copy protection system which tries to stop giving out the game to friends and family members non stop- which is a problem.


You must read posts here on the board where people state all the time how they installed it on their brothers and girlfirends and cousins and next door neighbour and whatever ... without any thought that this is wrong to do?

it doesn't stop that either though. Just download the cracks and then give that to your friends. Voila!

on a side note, buying things from D2D are helpful in DRM situations, because you don't have to waste your time, they waste theirs for you. You talk to their customer support and they say they'll handle getting new activations for you.

At least that's what they did in my case with Neverwinter Nights 2, took 2 days to get additional activations and All I did was send 2 Customer service tickets in - 1 to ask for me, and a 2nd to provide required information. All done That was actually very pleasing for me, I was expecting somthing horrendous like this.

The forums depress me. This is disgusting SPORE. I am never buying another EA-published product, SecureROM or not. I will be thinking VERY long and hard before I purchase another Maxis product. Since the second day of my play of Spore, when I realised with MUCH disappointment that this wasn't the game I was lead to believe I paid for, I have not spoken a word about Spore to anyone. I will be telling everying else I talk to that shows an interest in this game NOT to buy it and citing the metric craptonne of issues, lies, incompetence and disinformation propogated by and associated with this product and it's respective companies.

EDIT: Just to reply to above: I'm also hosed by the people who buy a game and then think it's OK to install it on their brothers', girlfriends' whatevers computer. THIS is breaking licensing you bloody fools! What kind of ignoramous nerfball thinks that doing this isn't pirating? Seriously. Some peoples' children...