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[Kazz]

Can someone tell me what the hell the big deal is?

I'm buying Spore.  I refuse to believe that copy protection will destroy my computer.

[Cthulhu-chan]

The only thing I see as REALLY retarded is the 10-day reauthorizing cycle.  It shouldn't pose a problem to me, but I can see how it would to others.  SecuROM also doesn't play nice with some developer software, so for those folks it's a problem.

[Zaratustra]

You're not allowed to give or sell the game to someone else or put the game in another machine because you are EA's bitch and a good little bitch does not own anything.

[Cthulhu-chan]

give or sell the game

I understand your plight but I must be part dragon except it's a nerd dragon and so I sleep atop a pile of video games and consoles.

[Kazz]

I mean, I get that it's stupid, but is it really "I refuse to buy this now" stupid?

[Zaratustra]

Of course not. That's why we're pissed. Because EA could make it so every Spore buyer has to wear an inside out porcupine as a condom to play and people will buy it anyway because it's motherfucking Spore.

[Kazz]

Well, you say "of course not," but the Game News Dump thread is full of people saying they're not going to get it now.  I'm just waiting for them to get on so I can roll my eyes at their arguments.

[Brentai]

I'm just waiting for them to get on so I can roll my eyes at their arguments.

Just go ahead then.

I'm not going to waste my time re-treading the entire rootkit scenario with you if you've already decided not to give it any thought.

End thread.

[Thad]

First: Copy protection does not work; it only punishes legitimate users.

First, part two: it punishes legitimate users because there will be false positives.  At some point, someone, somewhere will get locked out of a copy of Spore or Mass Effect that he has legitimately purchased, because SecuROM will make a mistake.  Meanwhile, no pirate anywhere, ever will have any trouble getting them to run.  Which club do you think I'd rather belong to?

Second: security.  It prevents me from deleting 16-bit binaries from my computer.  Oh, hello Mr. Gaping Security Hole.

Second, part two: Sony does not have a fucking stellar record when it comes to DRM and security flaws.

Second, part three: by its very nature, any software that is designed to hide from a user who installs it and which is not easy to remove introduces a vulnernability in the system.  Especially if it, oh, say, cripples your antivirus software in the process.

Which brings me to third: it's been known to damage the functionality of people's systems.  Development software, CD burners, and antivirus have all been affected, plus it deliberately blacklists software for mounting disc images, something that Mac and Linux users tend to take for granted as a basic part of their OS.  And that's just the stuff we know about -- who knows what other unintended (or even intended) consequences the software could have?

First, part three, and in summation: I do not appreciate being treated like a criminal.

[Kazz]

You guys seem pretty confident that the game is going to be easy to pirate.  Why is that?

(I swear I'm not trolling.  I just realized it looks like I am, but I'm not.)

[A²]

Because games are always pirated. Short of boxing a man armed with a shotgun who is instructed to blow your head off should you even think about using that CD for anything other than playing your game in the company's intended way, games will always be cracked and pirated.

And they will be free of this SecuROM bullshit.

[Bongo Bill]

SecuROM in particular is poorly implemented. I'm conducting further research, but so far what I've found is this:

• It installs a shell extension which, among other things, prevents you from deleting 16-bit executables.
• If you want to play the game on a non-Administrator account, it installs a program which is always running, to monitor your usage.
• If it detects a program that could theoretically be used to bypass or spy on SecuROM itself, it will fail to run. Apparently, benign programs like (older versions of) Process Explorer, as well as programming utilities such as debuggers, trigger false positives, either if they have been run since your last boot or if they exist on your computer at all (I'm not sure which).
• It responds similarly to virtual disc drives. Since virtual disc drives are impossible to distinguish from normal drives on a certain type of connection, there is an astronomically high false positive rate.
• It also doesn't run if it thinks it's in a virtual machine.
• It mucks up your registry in a manner that could be used to hide a rootkit, though it is unknown whether a rootkit exists.
• If you upgrade (apparently) any part of your computer, it thinks that you've installed it on a new computer.
• All of the above remains on your computer even after you remove the game.

These things are apparently universal to any software that uses SecuROM, regardless of the specific enforcement scheme.

[Brentai]

You guys seem pretty confident that the game is going to be easy to pirate.  Why is that?

(I swear I'm not trolling.  I just realized it looks like I am, but I'm not.)

I'm actually not, now that someone reminded me that Spore relies so damn heavily on downloadable content.  At this point I'm either going to hope it's playable on consoles or sigh heavily and try to sour grapes my way out of it by remembering how much I never liked Sim Anything anyway.

[Bongo Bill]

You guys seem pretty confident that the game is going to be easy to pirate.  Why is that?

(I swear I'm not trolling.  I just realized it looks like I am, but I'm not.)

I'm actually not, now that someone reminded me that Spore relies so damn heavily on downloadable content.  At this point I'm either going to hope it's playable on consoles or sigh heavily and try to sour grapes my way out of it by remembering how much I never liked Sim Anything anyway.

Well, to be strictly technical, Spore can populate its galaxy entirely on its own by just using random numbers. But you miss out on sending your horrible creatures to others, seeing others' horrible creatures, the YouTube integration, and all the rest of the web 2.0 shit.

Makes you wonder why they couldn't just sell you a Spore account and be done with it.

[Kazz]

The console versions that I've heard about were gimped-out DS versions or cell phone tie-in crap.  I don't think any fully-functional 360 or PS3 version is coming; I haven't heard anything to that effect, anyway.

I'm still probably going to buy the game, though, just because I'm not afraid of viruses.  (Not saying SecuROM is a virus, though it might technically qualify, I'm talking about the sort of shit that it conceivably opens you up to.)

[Brentai]

It's already a virus as far as I'm concerned.  It borks Visual Studio 2008.

Which I need to work.

Meaning that I literally have to at least set up a dual-boot just to drink Will Wright's Pee.

...on the other hand, thinking about this has led me to realize that I probably should have a dual boot set up to seperate dev/work and games, anyway, so I guess I ought to thank SecuROM for that.

[Thad]

You guys seem pretty confident that the game is going to be easy to pirate.  Why is that?

Smartass answer: Because we've been paying attention for the past two decades.

Answer with qualifier: Brent and Bongo are probably right about Spore given its reliance on online content.  (In which case SecuROM is fucking unnecessary anyway.)  But Mass Effect is another story.

Technical answer: the copy protection mechanism entails checking a website every ten days to make sure your serial number hasn't been blacklisted.  But with a little reverse engineering, the program could be hacked to skip the check, or to check a dummy source.

I am sure they have gone to great lengths to make reverse engineering difficult.  But no copy-protection scheme has ever worked, which brings us back to Smartass Answer.

[Kazz]

Even if you hack it to check spore.pirates.org:1337 instead of what it's supposed to, all the other stuff would remain true.

Are we talking about disabling SecuROM on a purchased retail version, or stealing the whole thing and then cracking it?

[PhoenixUltima]

See, this shit is why I play console games. Well, that and my computer was outdated in 2002 and hasn't been upgraded since. But this is a big factor too.

[Thad]

Even if you hack it to check spore.pirates.org:1337 instead of what it's supposed to, all the other stuff would remain true.

Not really, it's just something that has to be tackled separately.  It also depends on how tightly SecuROM is coupled to the game -- inasmuch as it's designed modularly and to work with multiple games, I have a hunch it's as simple as a check for "Is SecuROM installed?  Is SecuROM running?" which can also be easily spoofed.

Are we talking about disabling SecuROM on a purchased retail version, or stealing the whole thing and then cracking it?

From a technical perspective, it doesn't matter; somebody's going to have to buy and rip the game at some point, but after that it doesn't really matter if it's cracked from a legal copy or a pirated one.

Me, I'm not buying anything with SecuROM installed in it.  From my perspective, "I'm not afraid of getting a virus because a company installs malware on my computer" misses the point.  The point is that A COMPANY WANTS TO INSTALL MALWARE ON MY COMPUTER.

I believe this is an unacceptable business practice, and I will not support it.  But again, I'm a guy who, when he wants to buy a CD, looks up its record label to see if it's RIAA-affiliated.

See, this shit is why I play console games. Well, that and my computer was outdated in 2002 and hasn't been upgraded since. But this is a big factor too.

Console games use nasty DRM schemes and hamhanded enforcement tactics too.  The primary difference is that I don't use my game consoles for anything but gaming, so I don't have to worry that the DRM on my copy of Bomberman 93 is going to prevent me from burning CD's.