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[Rico]

If, by chance, you had registered for Bioware's forums, they may have your key.

[Brentai]

Was too lazy to go find a cracked version, tried some sketchy keygenners.  Worked, but with the predictable result of Explorer now being infested with cooties.

Minor, and my fault for being lazy and careless I guess, but it seems to be the inevitable fate of every PC product that I buy that sooner or later I'm going to have to do something illegal to use it anyway.  Had I stolen the game in the first place, I wouldn't have any of these problems.

[Brentai]

EPILOGUE: Vista flat-out refuses to even try to run it, even in compatibility mode, due to unspecified issues.

So.

...Exactly how shoved into a little niche would I be nowadays if I started developing indie games on a Mac?

[Thad]

EPILOGUE: Vista flat-out refuses to even try to run it, even in compatibility mode, due to unspecified issues.

Have you patched it?

Assuming the automated patcher doesn't work, you can download the patches manually.

Brad just went through exactly the same thing.

So.

...Exactly how shoved into a little niche would I be nowadays if I started developing indie games on a Mac?

Flash is a pretty common way to go these days.

[Brentai]

Weird, I ended up on a different page which basically told me they weren't supporting Vista when I went to look for patches.

I cannot use intarwebs today.  It's okay, because I seem to be doing better than everyone else I know with a computer.

[Detonator]

Forbes article detailing Spore's piracy.

Great quotes.

Electronic Arts had hoped to limit users to installing the game only three times through its use of digital rights management software, or DRM. But not only have those constraints failed, says Garland, they may have inadvertently spurred the pirates on.

"By downloading this torrent, you are doing the right thing," wrote one user going by the name of "deathkitten" on the popular file-sharing site The Pirate Bay. "You are letting [Electronic Arts] know that people won't stand for their ridiculously draconian 'DRM' viruses."

"You have the power to make this the most pirated game ever, to give corporate bastards a virtual punch in the face," deathkitten added in another comment.

The copy protections on "Spore" were equally detested by a less piracy-prone crowd at Amazon.com. By Thursday evening, the game had received more than 2,100 reviews, nearly 2,000 of which had given it a rating of one star out of five. Most negative reviews--including messages titled "No way, no how, no DRM" and "DRM makes me a sad panda"--cited the game's restrictions as a sore spot.

 

Also some Stardock quotes, check it out.

[Brentai]

To be quite honest, I don't want to play Spore, but I'm very tempted to download it just to be an asshole.

Of course, the problem is that I really do usually end up buying whatever I steal, unless it proves to be lame.

[Dooly]

To be quite honest, I don't want to play Spore,

In this case, it seems that you'll think it's lame going in to it.

[Mongrel]

So I guess at some point I must have unthinkingly thrown out the manual for Neverwinter Nights, figuring I probably wouldn't be playing it again and if I did I wouldn't need a damn manual.

Guess where this is going.

You know, when I first read this, my original thought was "Didn't that kind of copy protection go out in 1995?"

[PhoenixUltima]

The SecuROM bullshit is the one reason I didn't buy a copy of Spore to go with my new computer (old one was dying, I needed to upgrade anyway). Although from what Yahtzee said about it, it doesn't seem to actually be that good anyway, so. Then again, he hates everything anyway. Then again again, he usually has good reasons to hate stuff. But regardless. Spore could be the best game ever made in the universe and come with free chocolate-covered strippers and I still wouldn't put SecuROM on my computer just to play it.

What's stupid is that SecuROM in its earlier versions was just the typical "check the CD to make sure it's legit" kind of copy protection, which doesn't bug me at all. Then whoever cooked up that stupid fucking rootkit shit said "hay guyz we should do this with our gaems too " and apparently everyone agreed. 

[Thad]

What's stupid is that SecuROM in its earlier versions was just the typical "check the CD to make sure it's legit" kind of copy protection, which doesn't bug me at all.

That's because you never tried doing it through Cedega.

[Detonator]

EA Games Label President Frank Gibeau responds to SecuROM rage:

We assumed that consumers understand piracy is a huge problem – and that if games that take 1-4 years to develop are effectively stolen the day they launch, developers and publishers will simply stop investing in PC games.

I'm guessing no one told him when Spore was finally cracked.

 

[Kayin]

My sister got a new Sims 2 expansion today but realized she didn't have a DVD rom drive (Since they were all  CDs till now).

I said "No problem! We have tools to handle situations like this!" and proceeded to rip her a DVD image and give her D-Tools and allt hat. When it was all installed and we ran the game it refused ot run because it detected CD emulation software.

So then we got a cracked EXE from a torrent site. At the end of it I said to her "See? This is why you should just steal shit."

 

[Brentai]

EA Games Label President Frank Gibeau responds to SecuROM rage:

We assumed that consumers understand piracy is a huge problem – and that if games that take 1-4 years to develop are effectively stolen the day they launch, developers and publishers will simply stop investing in PC games.

I'm guessing no one told him when Spore was finally cracked.

 

Fortunately, I'm pretty sure nobody told the investors, either.

[Arc]

she didn't have a DVD rom drive

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFuck

[Detonator]

EA Games Label President Frank Gibeau responds to SecuROM rage:

We assumed that consumers understand piracy is a huge problem – and that if games that take 1-4 years to develop are effectively stolen the day they launch, developers and publishers will simply stop investing in PC games.

I'm guessing no one told him when Spore was finally cracked.

 

Fortunately, I'm pretty sure nobody told the investors, either.

That just confounds the point: if the investors aren't paying very close attention, what's the point of developing such a complex new DRM that doesn't work AND fucks with your computer?  I'm sure they're not telling the investors about that either.

[A²]

I wonder if the investors read the internet.

[François]

Investors only read the papers.

And only the papers they invest in.

[Thad]

I'm guessing no one told him when Spore was finally cracked.

He's just blowing an incredible amount of smoke.  Yeah, the 3 activations are the deal-breaker, everything else is fine. 

[Detonator]

And in comes the class action lawsuit.

It's handled by the same firm that won against StarForce, that's good.