Buying Colonization, Spore, Both, or Neither?

[Becephalus]

Just as a side note why is everyone so pissed off about DRM? I play with a lot of gamers, we are all friends, and none of us has ever had the slightest problem with it. Perhaps are the complainers are just pirates complaining because the games don't work? But I doubt that is true as I think SPORE was hacked pretty quickly...

So what exactly are people complaining about. I know it SEEMS draconian to only be able to install in on 3 computers, but I don't know a single gamer who uses more than 2 for playing...

 

[ColPaladin]

My sister got Spore for my neice. It would not work on their computer (one). They ask me if I could put it on my machine; if it worked, my neice would play on my machine (two). My neice and I don't like it, and if/who I give it to someone else, or even if I keep it, there is ONE more install ever for the game. And if I ever have to change my email, get a new computer, or have to reinstall windows, that's the third install right there.

 

[Sir Ralph]

Just as a side note why is everyone so pissed off about DRM? I play with a lot of gamers, we are all friends, and none of us has ever had the slightest problem with it.

Oh, "I don't have a problem" is the same as "the problem does not exist"? Nice logic.

Perhaps are the complainers are just pirates complaining because the games don't work?

A pretty wild assumption, borderline to an insult. Thankfully rendered void by the next statement:

But I doubt that is true as I think SPORE was hacked pretty quickly...

Right, and because pirates likely use the hacked version, they wouldn't complain about DRM but just bypass it. Normal users, for which it is an annoyance, however would complain. Hence people complaining about DRM are unlikely pirates.

So what exactly are people complaining about. I know it SEEMS draconian to only be able to install in on 3 computers, but I don't know a single gamer who uses more than 2 for playing...

Again, "I don't know a single gamer..." does not mean "There is no one...".

And as far as I understood, you can install it only 3 times (and not simultaneously as you insinuate), then it ceases to work. There are actually a lot of people who keep old games they love, and reinstall them again and again just for a few weeks nostalgy trip and delete them afterwards. I know I do so, with many games from the 90's. Civ2, original Col, Ultima series, Baldurs Gate, NWN and so on. You can bet I would get seriously pissed off if it told me "You can't have your Civ2 nostalgy trip because you already have installed it 3 times and you can use your disc now as beer mat".

 

[T.A JONES]

Why by both? Your better to spend the money on computer upgrades so Civ runs faster made more a refine version of perfection (akak 3rd xpak type mod)

Having Civ3 or Civ4 is like owning a seprate console that releases new games quite a bit but ..
In order to maximize the enjoyment instead of buying new games you should be investing in these 'games' working at peak performance. That means having to buy a new(older) refined monocore aka P5(P4 'cedar mill,) but this time with a new Dualcore motherboard bring faster frontside bus + videocard updates and the 3- gigs of memory is a must

New games are a waste of capital. You don't see chess playeres waiting for the new chess . They refine their craft. Ive done that with Civ3 an boy its not easy. Like try findin where ram stops benifiting (512mb) and where you need L2 or ghz to make addition upgrades. Wher does L2 benifts stop? How about bus speed over ghz?
With civ4 its even harder becuse the V-card is added into the eqaution. Lets just say that its a game in itself, finding the best combo without losing to overclock incidents or overpayment for useless upgrades (civ4 gets nothing from 4 cores as example )

When you finnaly 'beat it the '"endgame story" has you triumphantly linking a youtube video on a Civfanatics thread titles "This game is to slow"" on it plays 34 civs on a megahuge map lategame with no deley interturn. Booya!

 

[Becephalus]

Again, "I don't know a single gamer..." does not mean "There is no one...".

You are right anecdotal evidence is in and of itself not very strong, but even when I see people complaining about DRMS (not just SPORE ones), they are almost always talking about problems they "might" or "could" have. I see almost no one saying that it broke anything for them. I do remember once having to spend 5 mins reading some forums for a patch to make some DRM work, but as I buy maybe 20 games a year and that was over a year ago so I do not even remember which one.

Same thing with Vista, lots and lots of complaints, no problems that cannot be fixed by 3 mins of googling.

I see A LOT of complaining about the DRM in nearly every forum post release if there is one. And very often in the games that tie registration in the forums to your CD Key, from unregistered users. I know piracy is a huge issue for computer games. I know people conceive of EA and Activision as these big impersonal entities that care nothing for them, and that is exactly right. But they do care about maximizing sales of their games and apparently feel the huge backlash is worth it so it must be a sizable problem.

I know in college I was really pretty horrified by how many people were stealing games, fewer people buying them than copying them. Anyway obviously this debate has been thrashed out 5,000,000 times before, but to this day I still don't understand why paying customers would complain about what appear to me super reasonable restrictions aimed at saving an entire industry. Maybe I feel so strongly because I just don't like consoles and strongly prefer strategy games, so I couldn't run to consoles if the non-MMO PC market dried up.

You do realize console games are tied not even to a single "installation" but even a single operating platform/system. A 10 times more restrictive DRM than anything PC games sport.

 

[Sir Ralph]

I know in college I was really pretty horrified by how many people were stealing games, fewer people buying them than copying them. Anyway obviously this debate has been thrashed out 5,000,000 times before, but to this day I still don't understand why paying customers would complain about what appear to me super reasonable restrictions aimed at saving an entire industry.

I am not against DRM per se. I am, however, strongly against DRM that messes up my system (Starforce) or limits the number of times I can install something.

You do realize console games are tied not even to a single "installation" but even a single operating platform/system. A 10 times more restrictive DRM than anything PC games sport.

I do, and that is one of the reasons I don't own a console and never will. A notable other reason would be, that console games tend to be dumbed down, see CivRev.

 

[Jeckel]

You do realize console games are tied not even to a single "installation" but even a single operating platform/system. A 10 times more restrictive DRM than anything PC games sport.

Installations and operating platforms are not anywhere near the same thing. Sure I can only play my Xbox360 games on 360s, but I can play it on ANY 360 ANY time, AS MANY times as I want, for AS LONG as I want. How is that in anyway more restrictive then being able to install a PC game only 3 times?

Whats next, when I buy a DVD I can only watch it X number of times and then it won't work anymore..

 

[Onionsoilder]

Whats next, when I buy a DVD I can only watch it X number of times and then it won't work anymore..

If you have any interest in foreign DVDs, you can run into this problem. Every DVD has a regional code tied into it. You can not watch DVDs with a code different from the one your player is set to. This was set up to prevent bootlegging, but it can easily hurt honest customers. For example:

I live in the U.S., which has a region code of 1. My sister in Japan sends me a Japanese DVD, which has a region code of 2. I can't watch it on my DVD player, because it's hardcoded to only play region 1 DVDs. So I set my computer to region 2, and watch the DVD. Well, now I go on a trip to Australia, and buy a DVD down there. It's in English, so I can watch it just fine without subtitles. However, when I get home, I can't play it. It's region 4.

So I can either buy a Australian DVD player, and pay $50 to ship it to my house, or set my computer to region 4. However, I can't watch that Japanese movie anymore. Computers can only change the region code up to four times. That means after I switch it to Region 2, Region 4, then back to Region 2, I can change it one more time, then it's stuck there. Once that happens, it can't be changed anymore, at all. Even reformatting the harddrive won't reset the regional coding. The only way around it? Download a crack that breaks the regional coding. In essence, this system encourages piracy, the same way that DRMs do.

 

[Becephalus]

Installations and operating platforms are not anywhere near the same thing. Sure I can only play my Xbox360 games on 360s, but I can play it on ANY 360 ANY time, AS MANY times as I want, for AS LONG as I want. How is that in anyway more restrictive then being able to install a PC game only 3 times?

Whats next, when I buy a DVD I can only watch it X number of times and then it won't work anymore..

You do realize that uninstalling one of those installations gets you back that install?

 

[Kranden]

Spore

Also known as paying to put spyware on your computer.

Last I checked spyware was free WTF!?

 

[Adam7Eight]

Spore... Ugh.

I actually wasted my money on this piece. I find it ironic that a game that took this long to develop can be so simple and elementary, and completed so quickly. I was through the first 3 stages, doing the absolute minimum in a day. And to be honest, I was bored after just a couple of hours. Total crap.

I'm telling you, most over-hyped game of all time, seriously... of all time.



Epic Fail!

 

[.Shane.]

Won't buy Spore due to the DRM-crippleware.

 

[Bluetooth]

I was planning to buy both but I’ve decided not to buy Spore due to its DRM. Now my only problem is that I can’t find Colonization in any of my local stores.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Buy Spore if you like designing things with a clunky design engine. If you're in it for gameplay ... avoid!

The thing is, I find Colonization with all it's balance issues and design flaws being still quite a bit of fun. Question is, will there be a patch to address the major issues?

 

[Becephalus]

Spore... Ugh.

I actually wasted my money on this piece. I find it ironic that a game that took this long to develop can be so simple and elementary, and completed so quickly. I was through the first 3 stages, doing the absolute minimum in a day. And to be honest, I was bored after just a couple of hours. Total crap.

I'm telling you, most over-hyped game of all time, seriously... of all time.



Epic Fail!

This is the problem with Spore is it simply is not a deep game, it is like a really really well done flash game...it is not some silly DRM 99.9% of legitimate customers would never notice if a few pirates hadn't made such a big deal about it.

 

[Kranden]

This is the problem with Spore is it simply is not a deep game, it is like a really really well done flash game...it is not some silly DRM 99.9% of legitimate customers would never notice if a few pirates hadn't made such a big deal about it.

Yea well if it weren't for Pirates I doubt there would be a way to remove the DRM

 

[Becephalus]

Yea well if it weren't for Pirates I doubt there would be a way to remove the DRM

If it weren't for pirates there would not be DRM's and why on earth would you want to remove it? What functionality is that adding for you?

 

[Jeckel]

If it weren't for pirates there would not be DRM's and why on earth would you want to remove it? What functionality is that adding for you?

The point is that it doesn't stop pirates, pirated copies just remove it anyway, it only effects legal, paying customers.

 

[Sorceresss]

Just as a side note why is everyone so pissed off about DRM? I play with a lot of gamers, we are all friends, and none of us has ever had the slightest problem with it.

There are non-damaging forms of DRM programmes, and on the other hand, potentially very damaging forms of DRM programmes.

I have a lot of games & music-files in my computer which are protected by DRM. I don't mind.

The issue, here, is the very intrusive & (potentially) damaging form of SecuRom that EA has inflicted on its customers -- specifically for the SPORE game.

You & your friends might be in the lucky majority who have not suffered from that form of SecuRom's nasty interference with normal operations of a PC (outside of the protected game).

For the past 4 weeks, I've read hundreds of posts on 3 major forums dedicated to SPORE (two of them being officially linked to EA). A "big" minority of EA customers have noticed that since installing SPORE, their computers have sometimes become dysfunctional in their game-related & non-game operations -- some customers even complaining that the erratic & chaotic problems are really nightmarish.

I'm NOT at all refering here to the limited number of SPORE "activations", which SecuRom keeps track of.

I'm precisely targeting the "advanced" type of "deep" SecuRom that EA has imposed with the SPORE installation. That specific type of DRM programme is potentially very dangerous -- according to dozens of forum posters who have been its victims.

Even if it is only a "potential" threat that might only affect less than 10% of the people who purchased SPORE, I don't intend to put my whole PC at risk to play any game.

I really wanted to buy SPORE. There is only one reason I've not done it (and possibly won't ever do it) : its SecuRom malware.

StarDock games have no DRM protection whatsoever, and that developer & publisher has seen its sales strongly rising in 2007 & 2008 ... whereas EA doesn't trust its paying customers and punishes them -- without being able to stop pirates, anyway ! (In September, SPORE has been illegally downloaded well over ½ million times, according to websites which track bit-torrent stats !)

In conclusion, I don't mind legitimate, non-abusive forms of DRM ... as long as they are not of a root-kit type of malware which cannot be uninstalled (requiring one to format the C:\ drive to get rid of it & to re-establish the healthy operation of one's PC).

 

[Thonnas]

I'm kind of appalled that so many people actually voted "both." The consensus of posters are clearly against Spore, and after playing it, I can't blame them. It is by far the most disappointing game I've seen in quite a while.

As a full grown adult, I would recommend a pad of paper and a box of crayons over Spore. It would be cheaper, more versatile, and far less mind numbing, not to mention potentially fun.