tyger42 wrote:Your forum account is attached to your game account. Don't want to lose your game account? Don't act like an idiot on the forums.

Actually, my forum account is different than my game account. I can see my game account, but when I registered for the forum, I must have mistyped the name ( oops ) Never the less, my forum account is different than my Spore account ( At least I think it is lol )

cysgodi wrote:Muss, has there been any mention of a cost for an expansion? Why does everyone just assume that any expansion will cost money? I'm not saying it will or it won't but you don't know either now do you?

Again as everyone else on here has said, stop jumping to conclusions.

Well, to be honest, we are talking EA here. The first Sims game had what, 6 paid expansions? At least that, might have been 8. The second one has... heck if I know, I must have seen at least 10. Possibly more. The last couple SimCity products have had at least one each (well, last couple I have, which is 4 and Societies), possibly more as well.

So basically, EA has a long (and profitable) history of doing many paid expansions. And to make matters worse, they have a continuing outgoing cost with this game (the Spore servers), which their other games lacked. So, I'd have to say, thinking that we are going to get much (if any) free content is somewhat naive. And in the long run, as much as I hate to think it, counterproductive to us being able to keep the whole online aspect up and running.

Which means yeah, it's possible that they could issue us endless new content. It's also possible that we all might win the lottery tomorrow, right before a world-killer asteroid hits the planet. But the far more likely outcome is non-free expansions.

...all of which is totally off topic, really. At least there are not so many concerns now about the "talking about DRM will get you banned" issue now.

dreamshifter wrote:Well, to be honest, we are talking EA here. The first Sims game had what, 6 paid expansions? At least that, might have been 8.

I believe the Sims had the game then 7 expansions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sims

jalf wrote: I am so close to returning my copy of Spore.

Good luck with that..

most places don't let you return a game, just exchange it for the same one. Your double beat with pc games since they won't even do that.

Face it, your stuck with it. Now go take your ritalin.

acideyone wrote:

dreamshifter wrote:Well, to be honest, we are talking EA here. The first Sims game had what, 6 paid expansions? At least that, might have been 8.

I believe the Sims had the game then 7 expansions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sims

Well, on average, I was right!

Actually to be honest, the legal status of EULA's in general is highly dubious. The reason is that in contract law, you have an opportunity to review all of the terms before you enter into the contract. Indeed, that is why those terms take effect, because you, knowing their contents, have agreed to them. A contractual term which gives too broad a discretion (such as "You'll let us make whatever terms") is void for uncertainty, and as such, has no effect. some jurisdictions have ruled that software undisclosed terms of service may operate, but others have ruled differently. the game is sold in jurisdictions of both persuasions.

As if that wasn't enough, many jurisdictions have legislation which imposes obligations on consumer contracts regardless of their terms. These include prohibitions on deceptive and misleading conduct, unconscionable dealing

In other words, don't assume that just because it's in a fancy document and uses long words that it actually has any legal effect.

Oh by the way, yes I am a trained and practising lawyer.

Has a game EULA ever actually survived in a court? I don't think they're very binding when nobody in the history of gaming has ever actually read one while the gaming companies are fully aware that nobody does and thusly have put any and every ridiculous notion that takes their little heads into them.

It's gone case by case in courts, IIRC. Some have held up, others haven't.

I'd hope that a judge would view a game EULA slightly different from one for business software, in that a business expects to use the software in the process of generating profit.... and that business software is generally a lot more expensive.

Game EULAs tend to ask a helluva lot in return for something that's entertainment. The buyer isn't expecting to gain any additional income-producing ability as part of the purchase. I don't think you could argue that people have the same expectation of being legally bound by entertainment products.

I don't see how any EULA could be binding. We have to pay for the game before we ever even see or agree to it, and almost noplace will give refunds for opened games in the event we don't agree. We don't like the EULA, we're out $50-60.

Not that Spore's matters to me at this point. EA's shoddy treatment of it's legitimate customers has soured me on ever buying from them again.

But we’re hoping that everyone understands that DRM policy is essential to the economic structure we use to fund our games and as well as to the rights of people who create them. Without the ability to protect our work from piracy, developers across the entire game industry will eventually stop investing time and money in PC titles.

They still don't seem to have noticed that it was a complete and utter failure. Good job, EA, for the wonderful irony that your anti-piracy nonsense has made Spore the most pirated game ever.

Hello everyone,

Just a friendly reminder. Avoid personal attacks, insults, cussing and other things that generally are against Forum Guidelines. Spirited debate is fine as long as it is civil.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

I agree with Kaliena. Venting is okay, just don't be threatening anybody or being vulgar about it.

and now for my opinion. I'm an animator on a tv series in Canada. One thing i've noticed in the tv and film industry to fight against piracy, has been to put the conent up online themselves. Like Comedy Central for example. Veoh is a great palce for broadcasters to post their shows. the reason it's okay, is because they include ads in the clips so they can still earn money. Completely legitimate.
That being said, i know it cant really work that way for video games, but there has to be a better way.
I personally feel that DRM has been proven to not work, and Spore is the cherry on top that proves that.
The DRM was hacked within the same day the game got leaked early. It seems like it was easier to hack then most games. So keeping the hackers away didnt work. The only people dealing with the SecuROM stuff has been the people that purchased the game. And if torrent files are any indication, 100K or more people downloaded it in the first week. Of those, 80% probably only did it to play the game early. However, once they found out more about the DRM issue, that percentage started to shift in favour of not buying the game.
Putting DRM on the game made it feel too much like going to dinner at a restaurant. You order your meal, but you arent gonna be allowed seconds or thirds. Fair enough in the food industry, but how is it fair in the gaming industry? I understand there are studies saying that people dont install on more then a couple machines at most in the games lifetime, but the it's the fact that you wont be allowed to if you so choose, is what is bugging people. I have games from the 90's, that i'll pop in and play from time to time. means i've installed the game on at least 5-10 machines already, and i'm sure i'll install it again on another few machines in the future. If it had DRM, if i were to call the dev to fix that, I wouldnt be able to. Partially because the dev is no more, but also becuase they wouldnt have support for the game in their system anymore. I think the big question that gamers really want to ask is how long will you be supporting this game? because once you stop, there wont be the option of re-installing it anymore.
Anyways, I've rambled on enough. Despite the DRM, i still bought Spore, supporting the Maxis devs for all their hard work. I do hope that things will be learnt from how people reacted to the DRM this time round, esp since it's clear that more and more people are getting on the anti-DRM band wagon.

dreamshifter wrote:

cysgodi wrote:Muss, has there been any mention of a cost for an expansion? Why does everyone just assume that any expansion will cost money? I'm not saying it will or it won't but you don't know either now do you?

Again as everyone else on here has said, stop jumping to conclusions.

Well, to be honest, we are talking EA here. The first Sims game had what, 6 paid expansions? At least that, might have been 8. The second one has... heck if I know, I must have seen at least 10. Possibly more. The last couple SimCity products have had at least one each (well, last couple I have, which is 4 and Societies), possibly more as well.

So basically, EA has a long (and profitable) history of doing many paid expansions. And to make matters worse, they have a continuing outgoing cost with this game (the Spore servers), which their other games lacked. So, I'd have to say, thinking that we are going to get much (if any) free content is somewhat naive. And in the long run, as much as I hate to think it, counterproductive to us being able to keep the whole online aspect up and running.

Which means yeah, it's possible that they could issue us endless new content. It's also possible that we all might win the lottery tomorrow, right before a world-killer asteroid hits the planet. But the far more likely outcome is non-free expansions.

...all of which is totally off topic, really. At least there are not so many concerns now about the "talking about DRM will get you banned" issue now.

I very much agree with you, BUT what is really annoying is that people post here on these forums in such a way that it makes it look like they know beyond a reasonable doubt that is the way it's going to be. And we just do not know. I'm all for expressing opinions but say it's your opinion and don't act like you know what is going to happen UNLESS you have proof. Because one person getting all bent out of shape about something that is not clear, just results in a bunch of others getting all paranoid over something that, well....no one really knows the right answer.

I mean even after we were told by someone with authority that certain things weren't going to happen, people kept going on and on and on and on.

Please just stop inducing panic by posting information that has no validity.

traffichazard wrote:I'm not so sure about that being "perfectly legal" I'd like to think that any reasonable court would examine the terms of the "contract" and decide that EA should be the ones paying us to accept the rubbish in their EULA.

I believe also that EA throws their claim to enforcability out the window where they basically refuse to have any responsibility to uphold their end of the deal. Oh, and where they offer the "contracts" sight-unseen to people with no legal capacity to agree to legally binding contracts.

Actually, it's pretty standard IP law that the owner of said IP can revoke the license to use it at any time. And about the "sight unseen" part, When *I* installed Spore the EULA popped up at the very beginning of the install process...

When I said "sight-unseen" I didn't mean the EULA. I meant EA has no idea who they're forming contracts with - children, drunks, aliens, illiterate folks who just click things randomly 'till the game installs...

I'm certain EAs lawyers have lengthy explanations of how it doesn't matter and everything's all fine and above-board though.