http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/05/15/ea-getting-rid-of-online-passes EA of all things? Get under your desk and cover your head. :tongue:
Origin had a good run under EA though, as did Bullfrog, who were really killed by Peter Molyneux leaving to become a professional bullshitter rather than EA. Also, Tiberian Sun is part of the C&C series, so it makes no sense for it be listed separately.
true not sure why listed separately ... meh, but still EA probably would have canned them eventually anyway.
It was clearly used to fight agains't piracy on the current gen. I guess the next gen have a good anti piracy protection.
Sadly, this seems to be their current logic :concern: DRM is only good if it doesn't affect legit customers at all....but we are still waiting to see that happen. Until that day arrives DRM will keep on pestering the gaming community to no end. I was hopeful when I first read the title to this thread, but I am starting to have second thoughts now that I am contemplating what their next "great" idea is.
The basic problem with DRM is that in practice the only people it affects are the legit customers - the pirate version will just have it hacked out or otherwise circumvented. I don't really think the "online passes" count as DRM, anyway - they are just an attempt to get around the first-sale doctrine that basically states that when you sell something your rights over it are extinguished and you can't go back for more money later (say if someone resells it). The whole attack on used games seems stupid to me anyway - the first place that tried to ban the resale of used games was Japan, and they abandoned it because it became very obvious that it didn't result in you selling more new product but less - it seems that lots of people were willing to pay 5800 yen for a title they weren't sure about if they thought they could then sell it on for 3500 if they didn't like it - but not willing to do so if they were going to take a total loss on the original purchase price. This didn't affect the high profile highly rated titles much, but they are only a small part of the market.
They don't want to be worst company in America for a third year. Gamers unite! Your cries have been heard! Seriously though, this is a win for us and them in the long run. Even though I am still skeptical of EA and their buisness practices, I will forever be in love with BF3 for the PS3. I can't wait for BF4... well maybe they could put it off till November so I can get the most out of all the expansion packs I bought
I think you make a great point that it only hinders legit players. The definition of a "hacked/cracked" game is one in which the DRM has been defeated to a point in which the consumer can enjoy the game free of charge and without any noticeable difference from the retail game. Hmm :suspicion:
Quite a few years ago, I remember buying a PC game and being unable to get it to run - so I phoned up customer support and spent about 30 minutes on the phone trying things. The final comment the guy made was "this appears to be a bug in the game - apparently they are working on a patch to address it, but it's not available yet. Since I work for Activision, I can't suggest you use a pirate no-CD patch to work around the problem...". So I did, and it worked perfectly
starforce and safedisk etc all horrible pains in the ass. which only impact on people who legally purchase the games. i normally no-cd / dvd patch games for convenience
:biggrin-new: That's funny! I had a similar experience with Dell customer support one day and the guy taught me how to reset the trial timer of Windows 7 so it would wait 180 more days until it asked me to activate. Before he hung up he gave me his email just incase I needed any more help. Very true. People who crack games just see these as new challenges and they put every ounce of effort into breaking them as soon as humanly possible in order to gain the reputation of "The first person to crack ____!" They are in a sense, creating annoyances for customers and a fun challenge for the crackers. Seems backwards to me :witless:
With the difference being that it is perfectly legal to extend the Windows 7 trial timer to 180 days...
