Sega Apparently Learned Nothing From EA's Spore-DRM Mistakes
from the this-isn't-hard dept
You would think that, given the widespread negative publicity generated by EA's choice to use draconian DRM with the release of Spore, that other video game companies might recognize that they'd be better served going in a different direction. Unfortunately, that's not the case with Sega, whose Sports Interactive subsidiary has released the latest copy of its incredibly popular Football Manager product, only to find that many, many legitimate customers are discovering they cannot activate the offering because the DRM is not working properly. And, not surprisingly, this is now leading to numerous negative reviews on Amazon, as people point out how the DRM has stymied their ability to actually play the game they've purchased (while some have noted that cracked copies of the game are already widely available). Congratulations, Sega. Not only have you failed to stop piracy, you've also pissed off many legitimate paying customers, and made sure that the game is poorly rated on Amazon. What do you plan for an encore?
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Filed Under: backlash, drm, football manager, spore, video games
Companies: sega, sports interactive
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They just don't get it, do they?
People WILL stop buying sooner or later, and it has already begun.
Check out the reviews for Mirror's Edge on Amazon. It is by EA and just came out last week. There are people on there as well who are, thanks to Spore, quite aware of DRM and will Not buy it because it also includes Securom. Securom is a rootkit that the DRM hounds want you to install. It has documented problems with stuff much more far reaching than just the games it is meant to stop. One of the worst designed programs ever. It (and all other DRM) needs to go.
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Obviously no-one learned from Half-Life 2
THAT was the last PC game I have bought. Obviously, game players AND manufacturers have learned absolutely NOTHING in the intervening years.
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Re: Obviously no-one learned from Half-Life 2
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Re: Re: Obviously no-one learned from Half-Life 2
The bottom line is that it is easy, unobtrusive, non-invasive, and from a company that I highly respect.
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Re: Re: Re: Obviously no-one learned from Half-Life 2
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Re: Obviously no-one learned from Half-Life 2
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down to 158 reviews
I bet amazon has cut down the reviews again.
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Re: down to 158 reviews
Let me get this straight. In your mind, if a product is so completely screwed up that people are refusing to buy it, and if those people who refuse to buy it write up their opinions on why they refuse to buy it, that for some bizarre reason those opinions should not be considered "real" reviews?! That fricken makes no sense.
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Re: Re: down to 158 reviews
So why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?
YOU HYPOCRITE, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
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Re: Re: down to 158 reviews
I'm not saying these posts don't have a place, but they're not reviews, they're complaints.
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@ The AC Above
Half-Life 2 only came as a Steam game, and mods work just fine.
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Re: @ The AC Above
There's a way to install it w/out Steam. Honestly, I don't recall what that way is; but I do remember finding the info on some pirate forum...
After that, my game worked fine: without Steam.
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Learned what?
SPORE is a hit selling nearly 2.0 million copies in just 3 weeks – over 40 million creatures have been uploaded into Sporepedia. SPORE is the number one title on the PC in North America and number three title in Europe year-to-date.
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Re: Learned what?
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WOTLK
WoW x-pack sold over 2.8mil in the first 24 hours.. :p
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WOTLK
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Re:
Some point and laugh at the Amazon review bombs, but for a lot of people that's the threshhold to purchase, tech headed or not. Buyers may never visit an official game forum, but if they buy via Amazon, they're going to get something to think about.
I also read that this game doesn't use Securom but something called Uniloc. Sounds like same crap, different day to me.
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Brother
Little Brother: Hey! Spore looks like fun!
Big Brother Tech Head: It's has DRM, I'd never play it.
Little Brother: Me neither!
for the rest of that little brother's life, he will stay clear of DRM as much as possible even if he doesn't know what it is
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Perhaps the only value DRM provides is that of the short-lived gymnastism provided by the Streisand Effect (No offense, Mike, but I like to call it an attention "Bubble") Ergo, as more systems and games implement DRM and it becomes mainstream, games, media and the like may depend on DRM for the unintended Streisand Effect. But, understand this attention quickly fades for those that truly focus on innovation as their core competency. EA had 7 years of dev work into Spore. Great job, BTW.
But at the end of the day, as properly described by Mike and SteveD in the article, the game will ultimately be judged on its merits and playability factors. DRM inclusive, or not.
So as I watch these marionettes- (EA, Sega, and the like) play, I either have to congratulate EA's Marketing team for their use of DRM to invoke the Streisand Effect and their poor implementation of DRM (Arguably a one-shot chance for throwing questionably into the entire gaming industry's implementation of DRM) Or possibly going forward, disown them as a company who makes poor management decisions on the back of a 3-5% market share increase pursuit..
So why are we not talking about the new Zune strategy these days? When you sign up for their upcoming service, you get 10 MP3s per month... I think Microsoft finally gets it, in one way or another.
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Hello
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Haven't bought a game in years..
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Negative reviews on Amazon
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