cysgodi wrote:

hideflomein wrote:

cysgodi wrote:
Sigh, no Hide I'm not missing the point. I totally understand the point. But until EA either decides to end their silence by saying one way or the other, coming up with different approaches to the problem may help a few people. What is the harm in that?

The "harm" in coming up with workarounds that don't fix the central problem is twofold: 1) EA will view these workarounds as solutions to the problem and will continue to repeat them as the "solution" to cover their asses, and 2) players may take these workaround as solutions that keep them from being fired up about how badly EA has screwed up and it will hurt our cause in getting this fixed.

Dang Hide, do you always go around disparaging everything and everyone? If you really think that such a small workaround that may only help or satisfy a few people would hurt your "cause", then you are a bit more paranoid than I first thought. Feel free to keep posting your opinions as I will continue to post my hopefully helpful opinions so that maybe a few people might be able to play the game they want to.

Once again this is not a workaround. People have no choice but to share an account, or buy another copy of the game and install it on another computer. I feel the people churning in their concerns on this matter know what their options are, they don't need to be repeatedly told that, yes they can share an account, they already know this fact.

theghostship wrote:
And no offense but everyone got what they paid for with Spore... they have been fighting it every step of the way the moment they knew what was in motion. Didn't do any good what so ever I'd say to everyone if the options provided here aren't enough... take it up with EA's support. If needbe demand a refund. They're the only ones you can get a refund from at this point.

I agree - I just think EA has done a great disservice to the industry. Every time I go to buy a game I'm going to think about this experience. No multi-profiles, really strict DRM... and the game pirates got the game 2 days before paying customers could - which tells me that EA didn't want to raise the price of the game, but instead wanted to force people to buy more licenses.

EA is doing new things, it's just too bad they are the wrong things.

hideflomein wrote:The "harm" in coming up with workarounds that don't fix the central problem is twofold: 1) EA will view these workarounds as solutions to the problem and will continue to repeat them as the "solution" to cover their asses, and 2) players may take these workaround as solutions that keep them from being fired up about how badly EA has screwed up and it will hurt our cause in getting this fixed.

While I agree with the basics of what you are saying, there still should be no reaon to get worked up about it. I believe that a lot of people are terrified (at least I am) that EA will never do anything about this and we will have to live with the fact that the game we had looked forward to above almost all other games is broken.

However, look at the views this thread has had. Nearly an order of magnitude greater than any other thread!! There are always going to be people demanding that this problem be fixed, like you and myself. I don't think any body should get upset with people that are trying to be helpful. Just say thanks but no thanks.

As long as this thread still exists, there is hope the someone will do something somewhere. Keep reading and posting on this thread!

heints and cy

I think you both are fighting the same nobel cause but in different ways.

What I see is cy just trying to offer a little relief to those affected by this bad EA decision. And then I see heints, like the rest of us on the front lines trying to fight the good fight.

Let's beat up on EA and support eachother.

jjwalters3 wrote:heints and cy

I think you both are fighting the same nobel cause but in different ways.

What I see is cy just trying to offer a little relief to those affected by this bad EA decision. And then I see heints, like the rest of us on the front lines trying to fight the good fight.

Let's beat up on EA and support eachother.

Exactly. We have a common cause!

cysgodi wrote:
Dang Hide, do you always go around disparaging everything and everyone? If you really think that such a small workaround that may only help or satisfy a few people would hurt your "cause", then you are a bit more paranoid than I first thought. Feel free to keep posting your opinions as I will continue to post my hopefully helpful opinions so that maybe a few people might be able to play the game they want to.

1) I'm not disparaging everything and everyone.

2) I'm not paranoid, I'm cynical that EA will ever address this and I think it takes as many voices as we can muster.

3) As someone else said, we KNOW that we can play with a single account, but the game should functionally be able to do so, Creature Creator allowed us to do so, and the manual SAID that we could do so. We want something that it makes sense for us to be able to do. What we don't want are half-solutions or CYA solutions (the "misprint" line from EA) that don't fix the core problem.

Hahaha I don't drink but someone get this guy/gal a beer

I see the whole Spore thing from both sides from the gamer perspective and from EA's sadly EA's justification for the crap they've pulled is practically non-existant. "The advantages are you can play without the CD" Uhm as far as I know I haven't had to load a CD in about 5 years because any game I legitimately own I rip a copy of the CD in the format of a mini-image and away I go.

I had an interesting discussion with someone last week just after I got the game though. He explained to me and had very valid points that EA isn't trying to stop piracy with their DRM and tactics. They're trying to stop resale and reselling of their "goods". Second hand games are surprisingly a large portion of the market and EA being one of if not the largest multi-franchise publisher in the video game market has decided and taken it upon themselves to put forth means and methods to prevent redistribution of their software in any form or fashion. Essentially they want you to buy the game... and not be able to loan it or resell it or let your mate install it on his computer. This thread is showing that they're even going as far as making sure that a spouse or child cannot install the game without buying their own separate copies. I feel that this is the more realistic reason they put these measures in place which technically in any other medium to do this is illegal by US law because most goods are transferrable by US law. Sure laws have gotten tighter with regards to media but a customer that purchases media is still entitled by law AFAIK to transfer that media to another person provided they destroy any copy they themselves have and transfer all associated materials with it. Guess what EA doesn't want us doing? They use piracy as an excuse which is a pretty weak excuse considering like all games Spore was cracked and up for download before the game even made its international release.

jjwalters3 wrote:heints and cy

I think you both are fighting the same nobel cause but in different ways.

What I see is cy just trying to offer a little relief to those affected by this bad EA decision. And then I see heints, like the rest of us on the front lines trying to fight the good fight.

Let's beat up on EA and support eachother.

I just wanted to bring this to everyone's attention

I accidentally discovered that you CAN have multiple universes on one computer,
just make a username for each player in windows,

the sporepedia aspect is the only thing restricted to a single account, which sounds reasonable to me as it's not relating to the person, but to the specific disc that you bought,

i really don't understand why anyone but pirates would gte worked up over not being able to have 10 sporepedia accounts for their one game, and how would you expect them to reasonably avoid piracy while allowing that?

also, as someone else has said, the sporepedia isn't exactly a major aspect of gameplay, just a way to get more content, it actually makes it easier for me to get new stuff because the things my other family members make are available to me without having to deal with loading and searching for things on the online sporepedia itself

EA Games : Challenge The Consumer (to keep buying our stuff after all the ridiculous stuff we've pulled)


No more. I made an exception for Spore and clearly that was a mistake, since I did want to play it.

The incredible creative talent of Will Wright and his people are being stifled by EA and their approaches. Profit? I work for a large, large company, which sells product and has offices all over the world. I understand profit, and the motive to make it.

You do not make profit by alienating the consumer.

Gaming companies are part of service industry. They like to think of themselves as production, like people who make toothbrushes or steel I-beams or power tools, but they are not - they've in fact, chosen this route for themselves when they stopped letting us control the software that we buy, only handing out licenses.

The gaming companies are selling entertainment, an experience. The ability to experience the game is tantamount to the product that they sell. Most gaming companies, especially small start ups, understand this concept. EA Games has lost sight of their purpose, believing that there is some magical way they can do precisely and only what they want to do and leech even more money from the pockets of their customers. They cannot, and customer service fiascoes like this only prove it. EA games does not lose as much money from Pirates as it does from legitimate normal people, like you or me, that take a look at their extreme practices, put our foot down and say "Enough is Enough" and it's become time for that now.

EA Games honestly thinks that their products are so indispensable to the gaming customer that they can bandy around whatever they want in order to sell more copies and make more money. This is not the case, especially with the recent drop in quality. EA needs to realize that they are not just competing with other big name companies, but with every small gaming company who is attentive to their customers wants and needs (Shout out to Brad and Stardock here!) and they COMPETE with the pirates themselves. They have to show that their product, their service is greater than the one that the pirates provide, which is practically none. The fact that they are fundamentally unable to show this is their single greatest problem, and the most threatening thing to their bottom line. I bought Spore to support Will Wright, and I do not regret that decision. However, I can now see that the "service" of online play that Spore brings to me is more of a problem than a bonus. I will be playing my Spore in offline mode from now on, because I do not want my computer to so much as contact the servers that these people put out.

It is effectively more reasonable from a customer standpoint to pirate Spore and play it offline, without DRM, with multiple installs, with more control over the creatures you create and add to the game, than it is to play it legitimately, and that is why Pirates are a problem for EA Games - because the stripped-down, DRM free version of Spore is in effect a BETTER PRODUCT. It does not take a brain surgeon to realize that a Customer does not want to pay fifty dollars for an inferior product. A product that you can play unrestricted, without a worry of "who's checking up on me every 10 days" or "I can only have one account and my wife and I will have to share."

EA Games clearly does not listen to its customer base. I think that in all honesty it notices the pinch to its wallets and the suits they have in charge, who have clearly never been in any form of retail customer service in their lives but only crunch numbers, blame this disappearance on the Pirates who are "Stealing" legitimate customers of their software.

No.

The only thing that is killing sales for EA Games is EA Games. Oppressive policies which make the customer prove he or she is not a criminal instead of assuming that the game was purchased legitimately are killing the sales. DRM which annoys the consumer or causes their system to do funky things are killing the sales. Ridiculous policies like "Three installs, one account, one registration" are killing sales, not increasing them. Trashy, unfinished games are killing sales, not increasing profits by speeding up the release process. A patch should improve content, not add what should have been completed in the first place - by the time the patch is out, most people have made a decision whether to Buy, Pirate, or Forget.

It's time for EA Games to grow up as a company. They need to realize that the heart of any company is its customers, and the core job of every company is customer service, not what they create but keeping the customer happy. And until they realize this, I'll just take my business elsewhere. Add me to the list of people who will NOT buy another EA Game until this is changed. I took a chance with Spore to support Will Wright, and while he did not disappoint, EA did - unsurprising, but highly disappointing.

TheGhostShip,

I see what you're saying, but it's silly. Yes, the re-sale market in CONSOLES is huge, but honestly, for the PC, I don't think I've EVER bought a used game. Sounds like EA is applying console-related market issues to the PC market.

floppydensetsu wrote:I just wanted to bring this to everyone's attention

I accidentally discovered that you CAN have multiple universes on one computer,
just make a username for each player in windows,

the sporepedia aspect is the only thing restricted to a single account, which sounds reasonable to me as it's not relating to the person, but to the specific disc that you bought,

i really don't understand why anyone but pirates would gte worked up over not being able to have 10 sporepedia accounts for their one game, and how would you expect them to reasonably avoid piracy while allowing that?

also, as someone else has said, the sporepedia isn't exactly a major aspect of gameplay, just a way to get more content, it actually makes it easier for me to get new stuff because the things my other family members make are available to me without having to deal with loading and searching for things on the online sporepedia itself

This is the one saving grace I found in all of this. Thankfully, I was able to do my game separate from my wife's. She has said that, having gotten to space, she was done with the game for a while and probably wouldn't pick it back up for a long time. However, her creations and her achievements showed up on my account and this can't be undone. This is what we're taking issue with. The game itself plays fine, and there are workarounds that make this issue almost a non-issue, but it's the principle of the thing.

One last comment from me for the time being: I decided that EA will not get one more cent of my money. However, this does not mean I will not be getting Rock Band 2. Thankfully, there is more than one used game store in my area, and I will be picking it up secondhand (if I decide to get it).

jjwalters3 wrote:heints and cy

I think you both are fighting the same nobel cause but in different ways.

What I see is cy just trying to offer a little relief to those affected by this bad EA decision. And then I see heints, like the rest of us on the front lines trying to fight the good fight.

Let's beat up on EA and support eachother.

Which I agree to and have said time and time again I fully support everyone in complaining about the problem. But just because hide can't accept other people's suggestions as valid does not made them anything less. He just refuses to budge on anything and to me that just makes the situation even more untenable.

I will just agree to disagree with how hide approaches the whole situation.

Good luck everyone.

<bows graciously out of the thread>

hideflomein wrote:
This is the one saving grace I found in all of this. Thankfully, I was able to do my game separate from my wife's. She has said that, having gotten to space, she was done with the game for a while and probably wouldn't pick it back up for a long time. However, her creations and her achievements showed up on my account and this can't be undone. This is what we're taking issue with. The game itself plays fine, and there are workarounds that make this issue almost a non-issue, but it's the principle of the thing.

So really if they just released a patch that saved achievements into your separate username folders....that would fix the issue, because the creature part...if you didn't have the creatures made by someone else on your computer, the game would download them anyway, so regardless of who made what, you're gonna see things that you didn't make anyway

it just seems like everyone is being so dramatic about this

theghostship wrote:Hahaha I don't drink but someone get this guy/gal a beer

(guy).. and yes I could use that beer!