there is like i said a way to set the game to offline mode with steam to where you do not need an active internet connection to play.


Maxis i got my own question. Since with steam the product key is tied to the steam account would you still need to have the key tied to the EA account as well?

first off im a n00b. I cant get steam to accept my spore key and its driving me crazy. the reason i bought spore was to socialize with others and steam has chat ,something me and my friend have tried to do using a spore creation that looks like the spore logo that we post comments on.not only does steam have chat but its live and private, javascript:emoticon(''); !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

legomitch02, you cannot register retail keys on Steam. If you want Spore on Steam you will need to purchase it on Steam.


i dont think it will be too hard for steam to setup to allow it but i dont know exactly how they work im gona be hopeful though

EA will have to do this. They need to give Valve a database of ALL CD keys in order for the game to be registered on Steam. Not surprisingly, EA like many other 3rd party publishers are a little wary of handing out such databases.

so are you saying i should buy as in use my national curency to own the game to get it to work??

Wish this had come sooner rather than later, but good move Maxis. Steam and Valve (and the wonderful people at Maxis) are the only companies keeping me in computer gaming.

I would also like to throw my vote in for getting the ability to use my EA purchased Spore to work in Steam. It's highly unlikely it will happen, but a couple of months ago, I thought it was highly unlikely Spore would ever be on Steam.

so are you saying i should buy as in use my national curency to own the game to get it to work??

The simple fact is this. If you buy Spore retail or via any other download service, you cannot add the key from that copy of Spore to Steam.

If you want to play Spore over Steam, you need to purchase it from Steam. And right now, only people in North America can do that.

All they have to do for registered users is to have use fill out a form based on our current activation thier securRom database info. Then process the registrations at thier leisure. Not everyone is going to need this done right away if they are already playing the game in the retail theatre. From there they just De-activate the SecuROM activations and give users a tool that patches the game over to Steam's system. As soon as it's used it implements Steams system and voila!. When a person re-installs from disc all they have to do is go to the steam site, download the client, log in, and have that re-patch spore to the latest version. Saves them from having todo everyone's at once, lets players decide if they want to make the switch or not, and lets them do it at thier own time.

And..

I know Steam has an offline mode, but from what I hear on THAT bit is that it cripples the game badly.

People have mentioned that alot of Steams games have very little of the game's features (even offline ones) available.

MaxisCactus wrote:In response to a few questions I've been getting, Spore from Steam does not have SecuROM. It uses the Steam DRM.

-MaxisCactus

Oh my dear God they grew a brain

The Kittani wrote:I got that part... but like with Stardock's games. I just have to have an internet connection to install (and it activates at that time) after that if the game is or has single player I can disconnect from the internet and go on my merry way able to start up my computer and play weather I have an internet connection or not. From what I gather about steam you have to login just to start the game every single time. That will kill Spore for me as my next trex is going to be about 20 days without internet (SecurRom requires re-activate every 10 or it disables the game yes?)

The only stardock game I've bought was sins of a solar empire. It has absolutely no DRM at all but you do need the CD key to register for support. I'm not sure if that's how they do all their games though. Anyway steam seems like an acceptable middle ground and I would hope that in time they abandon the use of Securom for their games altogether for something more in this vein.

All they have to do for registered users is to have use fill out a form based on our current activation thier securRom database info. Then process the registrations at thier leisure. Not everyone is going to need this done right away if they are already playing the game in the retail theatre. From there they just De-activate the SecuROM activations and give users a tool that patches the game over to Steam's system. As soon as it's used it implements Steams system and voila!. When a person re-installs from disc all they have to do is go to the steam site, download the client, log in, and have that re-patch spore to the latest version. Saves them from having todo everyone's at once, lets players decide if they want to make the switch or not, and lets them do it at thier own time.


That's not how it works for Steam. It's fully automated and based on the information being given to Valve in its entirety. It has been explained in as much detail as they are willing to make public before (and they make very little information public). There are only a small handful of games that can be registered from retail on Steam. The majority of them use either Valve's Source engine or Steam Works. The most notable exception being Prey which was prety much added to Steam only because its previous DD solution went kaputt.

As for how the Steam DRM works, it's basically as follows. If you have an internet connection and are online, Steam will authenticate your game every time you run it.

You must run a game online at least once.

Once you have run it online, you can set that game to not automatically update and then you can put Steam into Offline mode. In Offline mode, you won't need to connect to the internet in order to play your game.

However. It's important to note that the Offline mode does not work correctly. So you must ensure you do not have an active internet connection when trying to use the Offline mode. Even then, there is the slight possibility that Steam will forget that you are in Offline mode and will then refuse to run the game until you go online again. Sadly, this bug has been around for years and Valve see no reason to fix it.

And finally one other highly important point:

Do not use retail patches for Steam versions of games.

Trying to apply a non-Steam patch to a Steam version of a game can destroy that install of the game (meaning you will need to reinstall either by redownloading or from a backup. There are very few exceptions to this point.

sorry im late but thankyou!!!

They haven't done retail to Steam for Fallout 3 and Trackmania United. I do not see why they would do it for Spore and the C&C Parts Pack.

Still, they did it for Prey. I found that out only recently, but you can activate the retail version of Prey on Steam, even if you've already installed and played it independently.

We will just have to wait and see what happends, I guess. For now it's NA only, and I live in Europe...

Ok that pretty much means when I go on vacation I'll have to use a cracked executable then? Well... at least when I want to play but don't have internet... EA is checking how many activations I have left for me now. Steam seems like in my case at least (a definate minority) it would be a waste of time and money.

All this was so we could play the game without having the disc in the drive? Why not just release an exe that requires the original disc to be read (or a specially encrypted key disc they send you that works with your key number and cannot be duplicated by iso ripping) It's not that hard. We did that in some of my Information Security classes as a test of physical security using public key encryption with portable usb flash drives. Works like a champ and it gives you a key to use your copy of the software whenever and wherever you want to. I'd rather have to have the CD in the drive to start the game than have to rely on having internet to use the software i paid for. Like I said I'm in the extreme minority though so I guess I'm outta luck.

Until Retail Spore versions can be created on your steam account, i can't play spore.. I refuse to email them for an extension. I've reloaded my OS 3 times and waiting 24 hours for them to make an extension is retarded, so Spore is aining dust on my shelf until something new comes along I guess. Spore was great until i hit that 4th OS Reload. Cheers EA.. And I won't be buying Mirror's Edge either, even though i want to.

actually they got back to me about my key status within 4 hours and if I had been able to send a replay back immediately i prolly could have gotten my answer handled immediately. They do good when they can. It all depends on who you get (A helpful rep or a hurtful one) But that's the same with any company.