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[JDigital]

Copy protection is as old as the manuals in King's Quest games.

And it punished legitimate users while failing to prevent piracy even then.

In the case of Amiga games, I don't remember any that weren't cracked and available pirated within a week of launch. No sooner would a game hit the shelves than some clever kid in Europe was stripping the manual protection and hacking in a cheat code menu on startup.

I guess that's what Commodore got for using floppy disks.

[A²]

EA still retarded about DRM.

This does not bode well for Spore. In fact, something like this has a very real chance, methinks, of crippling what could be Spore's blockbuster sales.

[Burrito Al Pastor]

Well gosh, it's a good thing I don't like formatting my computer or replacing my hard drive!

Oh, wait. I do.

[Brentai]

I used to do it every month like clockwork until shit like this became the norm.

So yes DRM is still responsible for compromising my security, thank you.

[Thad]

In fact, something like this has a very real chance, methinks, of crippling what could be Spore's blockbuster sales.

Doubt it.  The Will Wright casual-gamer audience that's going to propel Spore's sales into the stratosphere is made up of people who don't know about things like this.

Of those casual gamers, how many are going to reinstall the game three times?  It could be enough to become a problem, but I don't know.

[Brentai]

The casual-gamer demographic doesn't even know how to UNinstall the game.

[TA]

This standalone creature creature for Spore that's floating around, does that infect your system with SecuROM?

[Brentai]

Quick research suggests "yes".

To be honest, you are very likely already infected with it.

[TA]

I was.  I just stripped the last remnants of it off, and don't want to have to do that again.

[Dooly]

The free one?

[Bongo Bill]

I think there are several questions here.

First: does the trial version of the creature creator have SecuROM? That would be the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Since I am still able to delete 16-bit executables, I am going to have to conclude that it does not include SecuROM.
Second: does the full version of the creature editor have SecuROM? That would constitute normal levels of stupidity. This, I don't know.
Third: will the game itself still have SecuROM? As far as I've heard the answer is yes.

[Brentai]

Considering that the full version came with a thousand other pieces of crap I didn't want, I'm inclined to say that SecuROM was probably stuck somewhere in that massive katamari of suck.

[A²]

I refuse to buy Spore until there is a version without SecuROM.

My dream of recreating Secret of Mana will have to wait.

[François]

This is honestly the deal breaker for me. At first I didn't care much about the game at all, then the creator piqued my interest, but I was still "well making creatures is fun, maybe I should get the whole thing, but is the creation process going to be actually meaningful to gameplay or is it just gonna be a system of superficially customizable stats tacked on to a bunch of gimmicky imitations of better games?". So I was on the fence.

Now, securom has tipped the scales in the "not worth it" zone. Maybe I'll change my mind later if the whole thing turns out to be really awesome, but at this time they've lost a preorder at least.

[Dooly]

I've stumbled upon this page, but it doesn't state whether they're talking about the free version or the ten-dollar version.

[Kazz]

For the record, I would still buy Spore if I had to submit to daily cockflayings.

[Bongo Bill]

I think if I get desperate I will just take a second computer, or at least make a second Windows partition, that SecuROM can just use as its own personal playground, where I put all my legitimate games and nothing else, and which I never upgrade.

[Brentai]

I set up a partition for that sort of thing.

[Thad]

Since Fred mentioned it, I figured we may as well revisit this.

A look around shows that, most definitely, SecuROM has not worked and there are numerous cracked versions of Mass Effect floating around.  However, near as I can tell, nobody's bothered to create a version that is completely free of SecuROM -- I guess people who install cracks generally aren't the most concerned for the security of their systems.

I assume it's possible to install a cracked version and then remove SecuROM, but that doesn't sound like a fun experiment to try.

A look at the worldwide releases yields interesting results.  Apparently the Polish version, by CD Projekt, comes in English and uses SafeDisc, which appears to have many of the same problems as SecuROM (hoses Daemon Tools, runs as root-level system process, bastard to remove).  I've heard conflicting reports about the Russian version; some people are claiming it doesn't have any DRM at all, while others are saying it uses StarForce, which of course is much worse than SecuROM.  I'm more inclined to believe the latter, though if they really DID release a DRM-free version of the game in a major piracy center like Russia then that's just one more slap in the face to legit users.

[A²]

EA thinks that SecuROM is just fine for Red Alert 3.

Aside from, you know, a billion 1 star reviews on Amazon JUST BECAUSE it has DRM. Also the fact that it didn't do jack to stop Spore from being torrented

We need to all get a huge gathering together, drive to EA's office, and then just line up and whack each of them with newspapers.