Thread: No SecuROM on Sims 3

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    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    No SecuROM on Sims 3

    DRM | GamePolitics

    No SecuROM for Sims 3 according to EA. In fact no DRM except for the good old input your code and off you go. No hidden ring 0 DRM apps, no authorization limits, no annoying hardware issues, no phoning home to EA to report your activities, nada...nothing. This is probably because of the class action lawsuit EA was hit with over SPORE. Here's to hoping DRM's like Steam and SecuROM die a horrible painful slow death so we can get back to gaming instead of diagnosing problems caused by harmful DRM apps.

    Steam is less intrusive to be sure but it is still DRM. If they would just digitally distribute the game and let us put in a code to play instead of having to phone home to Steam all the time I'd be much abliged. Perhaps companies are finally starting to see how DRM is not stopping the pirates and is hurting legitimate sales. If you pirate games you are a thief and a detriment to the PC but it is nice to see that EA is getting back to the business of publishing games for those who will buy them rather than punishing them to catch those who will never buy them. I know, I for one, will be buying many EA games in the future if they remove the DRM from them. Serial code's are fine for me and are so non-intrusive as to be a non-issue.

    Hats off to EA for finally coming around. They have also released a DRM de-authorization tool so you can manage the authorization limits on any game released after May 2008. I guess this means that any game I buy for myself can also be used on my wife's computer. That is good news indeed.

    Consumer - 1
    DRM - 0

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    Good news. Last game I bought I had to download a crack for to make it work as my gaming pc did not have a internet connection.

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    Actually, I saw an article once that pointed out how DRM was necessary and how it would hurt companies much, much more if there was none.
    We are PC games so pirated, you may ask? Is it because of DRM? No! In fact not! It's because they CAN pirate the game that they do it.
    In fact, DRM mostly prevents zero-day downloads, which is the biggest and most important date for the game companies.
    Compare DRM to your door locks. You need to lock and unlock your door every time you leave your home. Inconvenient? Sure. But we're used to it. So we have to suck it up and get used to DRM. So long as it works, I'm happy.
    And screw those pirates who pirates game just because. They can go to the abyss.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

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    Dr Dipshi++ mike_g's Avatar
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    Elysia: I know you say a few silly things once in a while, but this really takes the cake, lol

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    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    In fact, DRM mostly prevents zero-day downloads, which is the biggest and most important date for the game companies.
    SPORE was cracked in an Australian release 2 weeks before the release in the USA. That pretty much shoots your theory right in the foot.

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    That's Spore - not other games. Especially not ones with brand new protection.
    And by the way, it's a means to try to prevent zero-day piracy, not a tool that always works!
    I want to find that article again. Damn, it was too long ago, it's difficult to find!
    ...If I ever will find it.

    EDIT:
    I FOUND IT!!
    http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html
    There you go. Excellent article on DRM (or piracy).
    Last edited by Elysia; 05-17-2009 at 03:22 AM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

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    If someone is so crazy that they will go get the game on the first day it's out with long lineups, do you think they will get a pirated copy even if one is available?

    IMHO, pirates don't mind waiting a few days, and no game so far has not been cracked within a few days.

    DRM is just unnecessary inconveniece for legitimate users, and pirates will get them anyways.

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    C++ Witch laserlight's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cyberfish
    DRM is just unnecessary inconveniece for legitimate users, and pirates will get them anyways.
    How would you address the points made in the article that Elysia linked to? In particular, Elysia paraphrased from page 8:
    It's common knowledge both within the gaming industry and outside it that piracy cannot be stopped completely. If properly motivated, and given enough time, pirates can and will break through virtually any software or hardware-based defence mechanism. The rationale behind the use of copy protection and DRM is much the same as the rationale behind the use of physical locks: to increase the complexity, time, effort and risk involved in attempting to overcome the protection, in the hopes of discouraging 'casual' pirates and thieves. In other words whether a physical lock or a digital lock, the aim is essentially to keep honest people honest, not to present an impenetrable barrier.
    Quote Originally Posted by Bjarne Stroustrup (2000-10-14)
    I get maybe two dozen requests for help with some sort of programming or design problem every day. Most have more sense than to send me hundreds of lines of code. If they do, I ask them to find the smallest example that exhibits the problem and send me that. Mostly, they then find the error themselves. "Finding the smallest program that demonstrates the error" is a powerful debugging tool.
    Look up a C++ Reference and learn How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

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    But most pirates don't need to crack the protection themselves. They just need to google "[name of game] crack", and ready-made, easy to use cracks will turn up.

    For a casual pirate, this is really not much more difficult than just a serial number. They need to google the serial number, too.

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    Reverse Engineer maxorator's Avatar
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    The big difference between DRM and physical locks is that DRM only needs to be broken once, every physical lock needs to be broken separately.
    "The Internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it." - John Gilmore

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    C++ Witch laserlight's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cyberfish
    But most pirates don't need to crack the protection themselves. They just need to google "[name of game] crack", and ready-made, easy to use cracks will turn up.
    Ah, I see that I did not completely understand the arguments presented here. This seems to be related to your earlier point:
    Quote Originally Posted by cyberfish
    If someone is so crazy that they will go get the game on the first day it's out with long lineups, do you think they will get a pirated copy even if one is available?
    which is a counterpoint to:
    However the SecuROM, StarForce and Tages protection methods in particular have presented a strong barrier against being cracked, and the end result has been that proper working pirated versions of some games have not been available prior to the game's official release, and sometimes not even a week or two afterwards. This delay and the resulting uncertainty in the availability of a pirated copy, however brief, can drive some impatient gamers to actually purchase the game rather than wait for a working crack to appear.
    However, that does not quite square with the article's quote of 2K Games' Martin Slater:
    We achieved our goals. We were uncracked for 13 whole days. We were happy with it. (...) As soon as you're gone, you're gone, and your sales drop astronomically if you've got a day-one crack.
    If Slater is to be believed, then "if someone is so crazy that they will go get the game on the first day it's out with long lineups", they may still "get a pirated copy even if one is available".
    Quote Originally Posted by Bjarne Stroustrup (2000-10-14)
    I get maybe two dozen requests for help with some sort of programming or design problem every day. Most have more sense than to send me hundreds of lines of code. If they do, I ask them to find the smallest example that exhibits the problem and send me that. Mostly, they then find the error themselves. "Finding the smallest program that demonstrates the error" is a powerful debugging tool.
    Look up a C++ Reference and learn How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

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    Ah I see.

    But modern games are all at least a few GBs, and will take at least a week or 2 to download (even more for new releases, since the uploader:downloader ratio is very low).

    If it's still easier (faster) to get it by downloading than purchasing... that's something they need to work on.

    Even if the game is cracked on day 1, people won't start getting it until at least a few weeks later.

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    That can depend on the connections of most people. Lines with several megabits is not uncommon in many countries (myself, I have 50/10, so if there were enough seeds, I could get a game in a couple of hours, maybe even a half, if downloading at max speed.

    And DRM is mostly for the kiddos know absolutely nothing about torrents or whatnot.
    But this here discussion is just one of many why PC games are failing.
    Companies have to protect their games with DRM somehow, yet so many people think it's an evil attempt by the companies to get control over their legally purchased games, and thus loathe it.
    The key is to strike a perfect balance in-between: to be able to keep the DRM, yet not inconvenience users who legally bought the game.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

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    Quote Originally Posted by cyberfish View Post
    Ah I see.

    But modern games are all at least a few GBs, and will take at least a week or 2 to download (even more for new releases, since the uploader:downloader ratio is very low).

    If it's still easier (faster) to get it by downloading than purchasing... that's something they need to work on.

    Even if the game is cracked on day 1, people won't start getting it until at least a few weeks later.
    It's real easy to tell which people are into the file-sharing community, and which are not. A few GBs will _NOT_ take a week, it won't even take half a day. Most torrent trackers will kick people out for hit'n run, which in shot terms is not uploading the same as you download. So the upload:download ratio is actually 1-to-1, and in most countries, atleast here in scandinavia, the average internet connection is 6mbits down, atleast.

    On top of that, most uploaders use seedboxes rather than their own connections, so they might have between 200 and 300 mbits upload, and suddenly, it won't take more than an hour or two to haul down large files, certainly not weeks.

    It's a very organized society, quite fascinating really, alot of effort goes into maximizing how fast files can be spread. And bear in mind, p2p is the bottom of the pirate food-chain, in newsgroups and on the scenes private FTP-servers, things go even quicker.
    How I need a drink, alcoholic in nature, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics.

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    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    The key is to strike a perfect balance in-between: to be able to keep the DRM, yet not inconvenience users who legally bought the game.
    Of which so far all attempts at this have failed. However you are forgetting that, at least in the USA, you cannot 'take-over' people's computers just because they bought 1 piece of software. In this instance the courts have ruled in favor of the consumers. Games can make it just fine without DRM. Perhaps its more a question of why aren't those sites who provide clearly illegal downloads being targeted by the corporate lawyers instead of the consumer who paid for the product? It appears to me that going after the source would be more beneficial than attacking it through your paying customer base.

    There are other ways to combat piracy but they are not being utilized as of yet. Improvise, adapt, and overcome or die. The market changes daily and this is nothing new. Steam has a very good approach except that the games phone home which is not all that great to me. However the benefit is that your friends can see if you are playing and it is very easy to get an online game going. Now if Steam provided boxed copies as well through an online store and allowed you to both digitally download or buy the boxed copy it would be nearly perfect. I really wouldn't care if my boxed copy phoned home to Steam but I'm one of those guys that really want the box, the manual, and the security knowing that my next hard drive format won't thrash all my games or force me to go through lengthy downloads and cd-key hunts just to get them back. Steam also has great deals running from week to week. About 3 weeks ago they ran a special on some very good games and they were only about 20 bucks. They said their sales increased almost 600%. In fact they made so much money as to overcome the discount price and actually came out far ahead of where they would have been if they had not discounted the games.

    I now have over 375 games in my quickly growing collection and every single one of them is bought and paid for. 2 of those are direct downloads from Steam and about 5 or 6 of them are from my hardware vendors providing free games with their products. The rest are from various retail stores. I am in no way advocating piracy and I cannot believe how many of my friends are so quick to pirate any type of media when their very job relies on media much like what they are stealing from other companies. That just blows my mind. If you pirate you are stealing - period. No justification in my mind.

    We achieved our goals. We were uncracked for 13 whole days. We were happy with it. (...) As soon as you're gone, you're gone, and your sales drop astronomically if you've got a day-one crack.
    And yet the consumers who purchased may have years of headaches just so 2k's games would last a mere 13 days without being cracked. So punish the actual paying consumer for as long as they own the game to stick it to the pirates for 13 days. What a great sales model. Keep it up and you won't be around.

    Incidentally the entire Civilizations 4 package was just made available at retail stores. On the back of the box in big red letters it says that all of the content is being provided DRM free. Excellent. I hope more companies follow suit. Create great games and customers will pay for them and instead of concentrating on all the thieves that stole your product, concentrate on the people who actually bought your product. Chances are they will continue to do so in the future.
    Last edited by VirtualAce; 05-17-2009 at 12:04 PM.

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