John Riccitiello hates DRM

By Shamus Posted Thursday Oct 16, 2008

Filed under: Rants 49 comments

EA boss John Riccitiello hates DRM? Who knew? In an interview with Gamasutra:

I don’t like the whole concept; it can be a little bit cumbersome.

Yeah. A “little” cumbersome.

But I don’t like locks on my door, and I don’t like to use keys in my car… I’d like to live in a world where there are no passports.

SORE
See? He hates DRM. But we make him do it. He’s like an alcoholic yelling at his wife, “Bitch, why you gotta make me hit you?”

Once again a guy who makes millions a year is too clueless to grasp the most basic and obvious principles at work here. (Note that I’m only calling him clueless because I’m too polite to call him a liar. He can cop to either one as it suits him.)

But let me get out the big purple crayon and draw a picture of how this works for the benefit of the information-bankrupt multimillionaire captains of industry that aren’t reading this: DRM isn’t having locks on your car. It’s having locks on your car to which you do not have the key. The key is in the hands of the actual owner of the car, who (you hope) unlocks it for you. And who can stop doing so at any time. And who must actually spend money to be available to unlock your doors when you ask. And who is occasionally unavailable. And who still expects you to pay full price for a car you don’t own, don’t control, and can’t sell.

Are you sure you wanted to go with the car analogy here, John?

[…] and I think the vast majority of people voted with their wallets and went out and bought Spore.”

Counterpoint: Spore was the most heavily pirated game ever. There is no ignoring the negative backlash over the DRM, which overshadowed the product itself in the news. Yes, some people bought the game. But how many more would have bought it if not for the DRM? Every illegal download is not a lost sale, but every person who refuses to buy because of the DRM is. It’s disingenuous to the point of absurdity to point to the former and ignore the latter.

True to form, John Riccitiello always makes sure to give a backhanded insult to prospective customers whenever he makes any sort of public announcement. When talking about the people who gave Spore a 1-star review during the Amazon review bomb:

I’m guessing that half of them were pirates, and the other half were people caught up in something that they didn't understand,” he says. “If I'd had a chance to have a conversation with them, they'd have gotten it.”

At least he admits he’s guessing.

But the insult here is that we’re the ones not listening. Here we have a famous man appearing in the news and complaining about how nobody listens to him.

John Riccitiello: You do have a chance to have a conversation with us. You’re having it right now. And it’s all one way. You talk, and then you cover your ears and scream that we don’t “get it”, as if I’d be happy to let you stomp on my face because someone else ripped you off. I read everything you say publicly, and you have never even made a half-assed case for why you’re bothering with this DRM. I’m not “caught up in something” that I “don’t understand”. I’m looking at the simple facts of the proposed transaction and pointing out that you’re trying to rip me off to no benefit to yourself, and using your fight against piracy as an excuse. That last part is a double insult because your DRM scheme didn’t stop a single pirate. It was cracked two days out of the gate before release. Which means it didn’t stop a single pirate, anywhere, ever. Everyone who wanted to pirate it, did. But not everyone who wanted to pay for it did.

You can punish your customers all you like, until you don’t have any, if that’s what you really want to do. It’s your ship and you’re the captain and icebergs are free to all. But you have truly risen above the crowd of offensive dolts in this mess by trying to paint yourself as the victim while perpetuating the problem. You can’t possibly hate DRM as much as your customers do. Get rid of it or stop your bellyaching.

I might be your harshest critic, but I am not your worst enemy. I have money sitting here that I would be happy to give you (even in spite of the bland reviews Spore has endured) if you would just be willing to sell me the game. It’s a very simple economic transaction, and all your hopping around and making noises about locks on doors can’t change the fact that you’re the one refusing to do honest business with an honest customer.

 


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49 thoughts on “John Riccitiello hates DRM

  1. A Gould says:

    Cracked two days out, eh?

    Seems to me that if your security can’t hold out a week, it probably wasn’t worth the bother. Because two days is a trivial amount of time to wait to grab The New Hotness. A week *might* be enough to encourage people to buy.

    They’re in danger of becoming the movie theatres, where people decide “looks good, but I’ll wait for it to come out on DVD/PPV/something cheaper”.

  2. Kel'Thuzad says:

    Wow.

    That was quite a fine rant. If only they heard you.

    EDIT: Oh my… I just read that Escapist article. It sounds like he’s going to consider having people pay by the month as future DRM… this is bad.

  3. JT says:

    The Yahoo Biz site had a different quote from a similar interview with Ricci-tiki-tavi (one might be forgiven for thinking it was the same interview, so similar were the subject matter). It was AWESOME.

    “We’re still working out the kinks. We implemented a form of DRM and it’s something that 99.8 percent of users wouldn’t notice. But for the other .2 percent, it became an issue and a number of them launched a cabal online to protest against it. I personally don’t like DRM. It interrupts the user experience. We would like to get around that. But there is this problem called piracy out there.”

    Let me highlight two statements from that.

    “We implemented a form of DRM and it’s something that 99.8 percent of users wouldn’t notice.
    and
    “I personally don’t like DRM. It interrupts the user experience.”

    Huh. So no one notices it but it interrupts the user experience, eh? Like I said. AWESOME.

  4. hotsauce says:

    Two days out? I thought it was cracked two days early. Wasn’t it available to pirates privateers before it was available to the suckers general public?

  5. Yonder says:

    Shamus, you say that it was pirated two days out of the gate, but as I recall it was pirated before the race even started. Here in the states at the very least it was not out.

    Someone somewhere on the internet said something to the effect of “If there wasn’t DRM it would have been cracked even sooner!”

    Personally I am all for that, I am envisioning a golden future where every time the developers try to delay a game, A Delorean comes from the future on twin tracks of fire with the goodies from 2-3 years in the future.

    This wouldn’t even hurt sales, because it would still be 4-5 years before most people could play the game, but it would still be awesome.

  6. Greg says:

    He said he also doesn’t want a bonfire of money. Oh well. Frankly, I live in a situation where if I can’t buy a game, install it, play it for a month or so, and then see about coming back to it after a year or two after a long deployment in some broadband forsaken land, I’m not going to buy it. I guess I either don’t get it, or I’m a pirate.

  7. J SMith says:

    Quote – “I'm guessing that half of them were pirates, and the other half were people caught up in something that they didn't understand, …”

    Guess work and ignorence is what got us into this DRM mess in the first place!! How can you sxpect to run a business on guess work

  8. Deoxy says:

    I'm guessing that half of them were pirates, and the other half were people caught up in something that they didn't understand

    Translation: if you disagree with me, it’s because you’re stupid, ignorant, or a criminal.

    Anybody remember the name of that particular logical fallacy? I’d have to go look it up.

    As to the cracking, I was also remembering it as being cracked before release. Could be wrong.

    1. Loonyyy says:

      It’s a mess of them. It’s a False Dichotomy (These aren’t the only options), it’s an Ad Hominem: If you disagree with me, it’s because you’re stupid, and that makes you wrong, it’s a claim to authority, with no real evidence (Do you really believe that as many as HALF of the reviews are due to pirates down voting? It’s insane).

      So he’s got fallacious logic and an incorrect premise.

  9. krellen says:

    I stole Spore from my brother, who stole it from his friend (okay, it was a birthday present for him, and I use one of his installs on my machine). And the sad thing is, it’s not even that good.

    Spore gets 1 star on the DRM, for sure. But I also give it 1 star on its quality. The cell stage is fun, but there are a million flash and free games out there that duplicate it without that little problem of making you stop before you’re done having fun. The creature, tribal and civilisation stages might as well not even exist – their only purpose is to give you hurdles to determine your bonuses in the space stage. And the space stage is just … blah. Too much is going on to let you just explore and have fun. Spore had so much potential and failed on all of it.

    If you want to have fun with Spore, shill out the $10 for the Creature Creator. That’s the good part.

  10. Old_Geek says:

    For: There was no reason to drag American politics into this. That’s a troll or a thread jack.

  11. Zerotime says:

    Deoxy: Ad-hominem Straw Man, maybe?

  12. Greg says:

    Old Geek, come on. Are you really trying to blame Bush for DRM? If you want to spew crap like that, take it somewhere else.

  13. Eric says:

    Spore was cracked a week before it’s release. I read this interview a couple days ago, and just about had the same reaction you did Shamus. Why don’t don’t you actually mail(as in post office) this post to Ea headquarters, straight to riccitiello. Then possibly it could to a discussion.

  14. Vacca says:

    I’ll say it again, why don’t these morons just start issuing patches to removes DRM after say, a year. I’d put up with any of their schemes if they did that and I knew that the copy I paid my hard earned money for, was going to be MINE. Two things have put me off buying any game for about two years now (and I used to be a compulsive buyer): 1. DRM and 2. Really bad quality and uninspired gameplay.

  15. Kel'Thuzad says:

    I’m pretty sure it was cracked about a day after the Australian release, which was a week before the US release. So, pirates got a better product, paying nothing, earlier than the suckers.

  16. Question: Are there any reliable statistics on how much money was lost to piracy back in the “good old days” when copy protection meant looking up word #43 on page #92 of the manual?

    There were seven Leisure Suite Larry games produced from 1987 – 1996. If Sierra had lost so much money from piracy back then, would they have continued to make the franchise?

    Leslee

  17. Eric says:

    Spore Piracy Soars in Spite of DRM
    Consumer backlash against Spore’s copy protection spurs high number of illegal downloads.
    By Kris Pigna, 09/13/2008
    Spore screenshot

    Spore, it can be said, has had a less than auspicious first week of release. First users sabotaged the game’s Amazon rating in protest to its controversial digital rights management (DRM), and then to make matters worse, it was later revealed the game only allows for a single online account per computer. Now, as Forbes reports, the backlash to Spore’s stringent copy protection has had an unfortunate (yet not entirely unexpected) result: a surge in illegal downloads.

    According to peer-to-peer research firm Big Champagne, Spore has been illegally downloaded via BitTorent 171,402 times since September 1 — meaning downloads began a full week before the game was even released. While Big Champagne chief executive Eric Garland says it’s not unusual for high profile PC games to reach six-figure piracy rates, what is surprising in Spore’s case is how quickly the downloads are rising. “The numbers are extraordinary,” Garland said. “This is a very high level of torrent activity even for an immensely popular game title.”

    And unfortunately, it seems much of Spore’s piracy is direct blowback from the game’s copy protection. Spore’s DRM only allows three activations of the game in an attempt to prohibit rampant piracy. But it also means users who (for whatever legitimate reasons) need to activate their game a fourth time must first get approval from Electronic Arts customer support, which is a measure that has inflamed anger across online communities and has lead some to illegally download Spore out of pure spite.

    “By downloading this torrent, you are doing the right thing,” wrote one user on The Pirate Bay. “You are letting [Electronic Arts] know that people won’t stand for their ridiculously draconian ‘DRM’ viruses.” In another comment, the same user wrote, “You have the power to make this the most pirated game ever, to give corporate bastards a virtual punch in the face.”

    Ironically, part of what is luring people to pirate Spore is that the copy protection has naturally been cracked, meaning their illegal copies aren’t restricted to a limited number of activations — therefore making illegal copies, in a sense, superior to legitimate copies. Still, some at least were a little more ambivalent about their digital theft. “I feel bad about pirating this game. I really wanted to buy it but EA put DRM on it and my policy is that any form of DRM means an instant not parting with money,” another person wrote. “When I pay for something I want to own it not rent it with EA deciding when I’m not allowed to play it anymore.”

    But in the face of this backlash, EA remains undeterred. “EA has not changed our basic DRM copy protection system,” said corporate communications manager Mariam Sughayer to Forbes. “We simply changed the copy protection method from using the physical media, which requires authentication every time you play the game by requiring a disc in the drive, to one which uses a one-time online authentication.” Sughayer also said that according to EA’s data, less than 25 percent of users install their games more than once, and less than 1 percent attempt to install them more than three times.

    Still, we have a feeling EA’s reasoning won’t sway the legion of players angered by the strict copy protection. And with other teams inside EA already acknowledging the potential problems when it comes to DRM, it’ll be interesting to see how (or if) EA responds with future titles.

  18. Neil D says:

    If they were really interested in finding out the truth of the matter, they would release a version in January with the DRM removed and see what happens to their sales figures. The pirates have already done their work, so they’ve got nothing to lose at this point.

  19. Mari says:

    Vacca – Maybe I’m cynical, but I’m not buying any software on the publisher’s “promise” to do something in the future. They can “promise” all day long to remove the DRM in a year or two, but guess what? Until the DRM is removed, they don’t get my money.

    I’ve been burned too many times on promises for future features, future support, future goods. And especially in software where we have publishers who lie about minimum specs, lie about the actual extent of existing DRM, and lie about the effects of that DRM, you want me to believe they’re telling the truth when they promise to do anything?

    1. Darkstarr says:

      Corporate promises are almost as worthless as politicians’ promises, and for basically the same reasons: big corporations and politicians, regardless of party affiliation, can get away with breaking their promises with impunity, and “we the people” have little if any recourse other than to sit there and take it. Even if, as apparently a LOT of people have done with Spore (and a certain chain of stores whose name rhymes with Mall Wart), we “vote with our wallets” and decide to take our money elsewhere. It’s a sad state of affairs, but what can we do when the Powers That Be are too stupid to take a hint delivered with all the subtlety of a tactical nuclear warhead?

      (Sorry about mentioning politics at all, but I felt I had to so as to illustrate my point. Please don’t use this post as an excuse to attack specific politicians/parties/etc., because I’m trying to keep this as flame-free as I can.)

  20. Thanakil says:

    World of Goo (that AWESOME indie game, also on Wiiware and Steam) was made available a week earlier (the 7) than the official release, for people who preordered the game. With no DRM. (I think it still has no DRM, except if bought on Steam since… Well Steam count as DRM)

    The good thing : They simply asked people to not distributed it, and left it to us to keep that promise.

    As far as I can tell, that version of the game wasn’t uploaded. There is a version that can be pirated, but it came the day after it was officially released (released 13, uploaded 14), which just goes to show that the developers (2D Boy) were right to trust the fans.

    So I guess World of Goo lasted longer with a simple “Please don’t do that” than very punitive DRM.
    That should be a example to follow but… Only people who already know how bad DRM is will pay any attention to this.

  21. Deoxy wrote in post 8:

    “Anybody remember the name of that particular logical fallacy? I'd have to go look it up.”

    Ayn Rand called this “argument from intimidation”. It’s a form of ad hominem where you imply that no decent, honest, upstanding, apple-pie-eating person could *possibly* disagree with you. :P

    Personally, I just think their entire payment model is broken and needs to be fixed–and it wouldn’t be that hard. Look at the massive number of “free” services we get that people still make money from: broadcast TV, broadcast radio. Many people still pay for cable and satellite radio, however.

    Videogames, perhaps, have simply become another industry where asking for money *up front* is a losing strategy. And why the hell isn’t EA spending all this DRM money on PROSECUTING SOME PIRATES?! There are so many friendly ways they could go about doing it, too, like identifying the major pirates and then talking to their ISP’s about shutting off their service. The ISP’s don’t want lawsuits and could certainly use some “good-guy” mojo of their own.

    I don’t know about you, but I’d think twice about pirating if I knew the result could be that no one is willing to provide me with bandwidth ever again.

  22. Jeff says:

    What we really need are less ass-kissers in the mainstream media who’d actually question the bullshit they feed the public, as opposed to report it as the truth.

    1. Loonyyy says:

      That’s nothing to do with it. Mainstream media for games? Little bit too distributed to have an issue with. More to the point, it’s gaming media that criticizes the DRM anyway.

  23. BarGamer says:

    “Caught up in something we don’t understand?” Johnny, it’s YOU who doesn’t understand. Trust me when I say that the pirates and hackers know EXACTLY what they are doing. Do you think that we are Jack Thompson, to talk about stuff that we don’t know anything about, do things that don’t make sense even to the insane, or enjoy arguing for the sake of arguing? Well, your example Jackie has been perma-banned from practicing law. Don’t make yourself be next.

    Speaking of law, you’ve got one class-action suit on your hands already. For every lawsuit that actually makes it to court, you’ve got hundreds of thousands that WANT to sue, and millions who are either discouraged from buying or pirating your game regardless, or simply moved on to something else.

    Seriously. You’re in a competitive market. Your enemies should be other game companies, NOT YOUR CUSTOMERS. Treat your customers like thinking, feeling, human beings, not Evil Bug-Eyed-Monsters, maybe you’ll get further with your prepared statements.

  24. Chris Arndt says:

    I actually see most of these software company’s security gimmicks as a direct parallel to nanny-state political philosophy, or an endorsement of some micro-refraction of statism, but I would not compare them to any real politician or movement.

    That said, there’s something brutal and vicious about any scheme where they don’t trust me to manage what I earned, or legitimately traded something for, or even just OWN.

    It’s mine. Don’t tell me I cannot make 1000 copies and store in random places that I also own.

  25. Rubes says:

    “…it didn't stop a single pirate, anywhere, ever. Everyone who wanted to pirate it, did. But not everyone who wanted to pay for it did.”

    Best quote I’ve seen on DRM. This, more clearly and concisely than any other argument I’ve read, tells you all you need to know about DRM.

  26. Illiterate says:

    Leslee wrote:
    Question: Are there any reliable statistics on how much money was lost to piracy back in the “good old days” when copy protection meant looking up word #43 on page #92 of the manual?

    There were seven Leisure Suite Larry games produced from 1987 – 1996. If Sierra had lost so much money from piracy back then, would they have continued to make the franchise?

    Leslee

    Not that I necessarily disagree with your point, but a fair case could be made that piracy was not as easy and accessible those days.

    Even if you could afford DSL, bandwidth was much lower. Usenet was a lot harder than torrenting is now. I remember pirating a game (someone posted it on their BBS) at 2400 bps, which meant a meg took a considerable amount of time (a number of hours, I think). When connected and downloading from a bbs, you’re monopolizing yours and someone else’s phone line the whole time.

    The other piracy that happened back then was mostly tiny infocom games on floppy disks. So that depended on someone you knew actually mailing or handing you a disk.

    Also, development teams consisted of one or two dudes, not a vast army of graphic artists and sound producers.

  27. Kevin says:

    Actually, Sims 2 is the most pirated game ever according to that article you linked. Although Spore is on track for it.

    And Riccitiello is right in that people voted with their wallets. 500,000 people pirated Spore, one million people bought it. So, even assuming the obvious leap in logic that every pirate would’ve bought the game if it weren’t for DRM/not liking the price/having a bad day at the office, you’ve still got two out of every three people saying “I don’t care about the DRM.” 66% of the gaming population said “The roadblocks you put up aren’t enough to deter me from buying this game.” If that’s good enough to elect our Presidents, it’s good enough for EA to keep doing what they’ve been doing.

  28. RR says:

    @Illiterate:
    Not that I necessarily disagree with your point, but a fair case could be made that piracy was not as easy and accessible those days.

    Not really.

    It was still extremely easy to pirate games back then. Broadband really hasn’t changed things that much. Downloading was slower then, but the files were also smaller. It’s all been relative.

    Sure, it’s a bit more convenient now. But I was able to get any game I wanted by either downloading it from a BBS or going to a swap meet. And I often got those games before they even showed up in local shops.

    Piracy was just as much a problem then, as it is now. The C64 was a case in point. It sold so well, precisely because of the piracy on that platform. People bought a C64 knowing they could easily get free games from their friends.

    The difference between then and now, is simply down to publisher greed. Back then, you didn’t hear publishers whining much about the rampant piracy on the C64, did you? Why is that? Well, it’s partly because of spiralling costs. They need to sell more units to make a profit, and piracy hurts them more now than it did then.

    But the real reason, is because these companies have been taken over by suits who only see dollar signs in their eyes. They want to “monetize” everything, on behalf of their shareholders and themselves. So they can keep buying their fancy suits, expensive lunches, luxury cars and homes. They can’t stand the thought of anyone getting their product for free, no matter what the cost to their customer goodwill. They think they know better. It’s an enormously shallow and shortsighted view. These guys have extreme tunnel vision. “We’re right, and you’re wrong, and that’s all there is to it!”

    All you need to do is read between the lines of Riccitiello’s and Gibeau’s comments. These guys are arrogant pricks who just don’t want to listen.

    The irony is that despite all the attention that’s being focused on PC piracy: within the last couple of weeks, a number of major new titles for the 360 have been pirated. Most of them, before each respective title’s release.

    Publishers like EA seem to think that piracy wouldn’t follow them to the consoles, where the whole cycle would start over. Or, at least, they probably didn’t think it would happen this quickly. Surprise!

    Fallout 3, Far Cry 2, Gears of War 2, and Dead Space have all been pirated for the 360 already.

    http://www.gamezine.co.uk/news/game-types/first-person-shooters/far-cry-2-available-pirate-on-360-$1245058.htm
    http://www.gamezine.co.uk/news/game-types/shooter/uh-oh-gears-war-2-pirate-copies-doing-rounds-$1245106.htm

    For the above links, you need to put a dollar sign $ in front of the number in each URL (-$xxxxxxx.htm). For some reason, WordPress is stripping it out.

  29. Illiterate says:

    RR,

    Maybe the problem is that the game companies are now publicly traded? They have to say they’re doing something about piracy so their investors don’t whine?

  30. RR says:

    @Illiterate:

    Yes, exactly. The shareholders ultimately run the show. The board at EA (or any game company) has to do what they want: increase profits. And said shareholders remain largely ignorant (and frankly, just don’t care) about the specific details of how a company like EA handles things, until decisions cut into those quarterly profits.

    Shareholder: “You say you want to put this SecuROM thing on all your PC games? And whatever that is, it will also eliminate piracy? Sign me up!”

    If the suits at EA want to be ruthless and unfair to their customers . . . who cares, as long as profits continue to increase. But, eventually, their DRM tactics will come back to bite them in the ass. The shareholders already can’t be too pleased with all the negative press and the court case against Spore, at the moment. Too much more negative attention, and I think Riccitiello will be called on the carpet.

    That’s why privately held companies like Valve and Stardock tend to produce better games and treat their customers with more respect. Because they can set their own policies, without having shareholders as backseat drivers.

  31. Bryan says:

    Quote — “DRM isn't having locks on your car. It's having locks on your car to which you do not have the key. The key is in the hands of the actual owner of the car, who (you hope) unlocks it for you. And who can stop doing so at any time. And who must actually spend money to be available to unlock your doors when you ask. And who is occasionally unavailable. And who still expects you to pay full price for a car you don't own, don't control, and can't sell.”

    Don’t forget that every vandal (hacker, cyberpunk, social engineer, etc.) has multiple duplicates of the keys, and can do anything they want to your car, and you don’t even have permission to take it to the shop to get it fixed!

  32. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Kel’Thuzad:

    “EDIT: Oh my… I just read that Escapist article. It sounds like he's going to consider having people pay by the month as future DRM… this is bad.”

    Actually,that is good.It forces the developers to make games that are worth playing for more than a month,and it will slash prices.

    Also:
    http://xkcd.com/488/

  33. Luke Maciak says:

    Shamus, once again you are my hero for telling it like it is!

    Also I like that DELETED tag on one of the comments. Nice touch. ;)

  34. Eathanu says:

    The way I see it, if EA wants to continue releasing their games with such draconian protection, fuck’m. All that does for me is removes any moral qualms about pirating it and essentially getting the product for free (minus the time it takes to download, of course). In a counterpoint, however, Fallout 3, which is slated to be released with just a CD check, is on my list of priorities and I will attempt to purchase it from my local GameStop the day it’s released (I’m not one for pre-ordering, never have been) or failing that on the second shipment.

    The interesting thing? I’ve never played the first two, and Bethesda has consistently disappointed me when it comes to their latest games; I did not like Oblivion, at all, not because of the requirements on the system, but the game itself I found lacked the charm that made Morrowind one of my still all-time favourite PC titles.

    Regardless of this, Fallout 3 looks okay and is an honest release, from what I’ve heard, so I’ll pay them my money, get their game, then pirate whatever else EA decides to fit SecuROM onto and see which company really wins there.

  35. Ross says:

    Howdy

    This is already a little old so chances are you’ve all seen it already, but the recent XKCD comic on DRM was pretty awesome.

    Thanks for a topical post so I could post the link Shamus. (Knew I wouldn’t have to wait too long though).

    http://xkcd.com/488/

    Oops, see I was already beaten to it anyway.

  36. Frank says:

    The list of games I’ve refused to buy because of DRM is growing alarmingly, but in every case I’ve written to the publisher via email or forum to let them know that they’ve missed a sale.

    More recently I’ve started writing to the points of sale (Direct2Drive.co.uk in the case of Red Alert 3, for example) about this, urging them to put pressure on publishers regarding this issue. I’ve asked them first of all to fully disclose all DRM on a game’s page so that customers can make informed purchases (or abstain). If we manage to get them to do that somehow, they will finally notice a direct impact on sales.

    Therefore I would urge everyone to write to whatever online or physical retailer they’d normally buy the game from and explain the DRM stance to them. The big retailers will be the ones who actually can put pressure on publishers.

  37. kamagurka says:

    Deoxy: It’s a false dichotomy, also known as a false dilemma or either-or fallacy.

  38. Leon says:

    ‘He's like an alcoholic yelling at his wife, “Bitch, why you gotta make me hit you?”’

    I’d just like to point out that this is possibly the best analogy ever.

  39. felblood says:

    At this point of the game, I’d feel more guilty for buying Spore than stealing it.

    When your policies elicit that kind of response from potential customers or potential pirates, you’ve royally screwed up somewhere.

    Look’s like I’m not missing out on anything great anyway. I know a guy who had it before it came out, and he says, “meh.”

  40. Rustybadger says:

    Echo the “meh”. It sucked. Fortunately, I didn’t drop $55 on it before I determined that it sucked.

  41. Old gamer says:

    Looks like EA is not the only company with this shit Far Cry 2 has a similar DRM courtesy of SecuROM. So looks like another no go with this one. You think that the Spore backlash would have limited this Crap to EA but looks like there are more companies out there who want to piss off their customers.

  42. Vao Ki says:

    @Kevin (#28):

    “500,000 people pirated Spore, one million people bought it.”

    How many of those 1 million sales were actually the PC version? To prove that the DRM is working on even 2/3 of customers you would need to show only the sales for the PC version, and prove that those who pirated it would have paid for it if pirating could be stopped.

    Also, this is inaccurate because it does not factor in all of us who refused to buy, yet did not pirate the game.

  43. Bryan says:

    Quote — “Also, this is inaccurate because it does not factor in all of us who refused to buy, yet did not pirate the game.”

    Also, it doesn’t take into account anyone who bought the game and thought it turned out to be a waste of money because of the DRM. Remember, there was no mention of DRM on the boxes.

    Reminds me of the “Trans Fat” being omitted by processed food package labels. It took a lot of effort to get the laws changed to where they HAD to include the data.

  44. Yonder: I cracked up at that. Good work.

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