Two New SecuROM Lawsuits Filed Against Electronic Arts

[Shadow703793]

[citation][nom]Master Exon[/nom]Maybe microsoft should sue for tampering with the OS of their customers?[/citation]
Not a bad idea. This would be grate and Microsoft has very good lawyers & money .

 

[Maxor127]

I think you all overreact. It's the complete opposite of the spectrum with game companies overreacting about piracy on the other end.

 

[JonnyDough]

[citation][nom]Detheroc[/nom]This is awesome!!! If companies that use securom keep getting hit with lawsuits they'll likely stop using it.[/citation]

Actually, they'll just stop making games for the PC and go all console - like a LOT of developers have done. Either way, consumer loses. On the plus side, it opens the door for smaller game developers who are willing to dedicate their time to making great games and sell them at minimal profit instead. Begone EA, give the little guys a chance again and maybe PC gaming will spring back to life.

 

[JonnyDough]

[citation][nom]Tindytim[/nom]...Halo was the pinnacle of mediocrity, and it's become a flagship title for the Xbox brand selling over 20 million copies over 3 games.Marketing, "gritty" graphics, and some mediocre gameplay will get you loads of sales. Doing something original and innovative will be taking a huge chance even if the game is great.[/citation]

I'd like to respond to now: It's all about marketing. Halo got huge because MS backed it with tons of marketing. Furthermore, Halo IS a great game. It captured sales, which is a testament to that. Good marketing and a crappy game aren't going to win sales. Bad marketing and a good game can still capture sales. Bad marketing and a bad game won't capture sales, and Good marketing and a good game will capture A LOT of sales. Halo is this last one. It had great marketing AND is a great game. It's easy to pick up, fun to play - and it has multi-player, both on and offline. It even had co-op. One of the first games on console to have all of those things, along with fluid movement that was easy to control using a controller. I think you're jealous, or you've never played Halo. I'm a 28 year old PC gamer who used to play Halo2, got tired of the hackers on console, and went back to PC gaming. I have a good idea what I'm talking about.

 

[JonnyDough]

Oh, and the difference between PC gaming and console gaming is that PC gaming allows you to download ANTI-HACK programs. Chaos Launcher FTW! (StarCraft)

 

[Primus462]

Seems like some of the posters are getting anti-piracy measures mixed up with the quality assurance, and thus getting off the subject of the OP and article. If the game is buggy, then that is a different issue entirely. The article and the lawsuits are regarding SecurROM, not how well the game was tested before it was released. But some people just like to complain......

 

[Guest]

I don't know if somebody already noticed and posted, but you said "install" or "installed" twice when contextually I'm sure you meant "uninstall" or "uninstalled."

Just FYI.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

[citation][nom]claudia64[/nom]I don't understand how damages for these three lawsuits could possibly amount to millions of dollars. The combined cost of three high-end PCs would be thousands, certainly not millions. I agree that SecuROM is a nasty little program and EA needs to explore options to control piracy. But still. $5,000,000???[/citation]

While I'm sure we can agree that 5 million is a bit steep, you at least have to admit that the costs can well exceed 10 grand. Sure the hardware may only cost 1k, but what about the rest? Let's assume that one of the users was using the same pc for work and gaming. Melissa might be sitting in her study trying to play spore and failing. No matter, she'll just do some maintainance on the webserver farm she's hosting in the basement - and during a routine task securom crashes her computer, and something breaks on the webserver. Costs manpower to replace, and costs excuses to the customers let down. Next up she notices her pc doesn't work properly anymore, and after a reinstall she'll have to order technician visits from various companies to get some of her custom built software back up and working.
That fictional story could easily cost considerably more than the hardware alone - just because securom doesn't work as intended.

Anyhow, no 5 mio is still too much if simply covering expenses is the point - but it isn't. Its probably meant like the woman who sued McD over too warm coffee.

 

[enforcer22]

While im not with mr moral high ground (whatever the hell thats suppose to mean) I do buy all the games i like (of course i download and try them first) Dont care what the moral nuts have to say about that i can show them were to shove it. Anyways i will never buy any game with secure rom on it dont care how good its suppose to be. EA should take a hint from valve. MAKE A GOOD GAME AND YOU WONT NEED YOUR TROJAN'S!!!! seriously sins of a solar empire was a awomse game. I downloaded it to give it a try. I paid for it 3 weeks later and pre ordered the expansion. what kind of anti priacy does it have? and that game is making money, Why? because its good. Not becuase you have to.

They wonder what is killing thier sales but then they put this bs program on thier disk. Sometimes i swear these people aer goddamn morons.I can think of two things killing thier sales.

#1 making the worst games ever.
#2 securom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


O and btw halo is garbage sorry i had to add that here btw im a 30 year old gamer and it still sucked ass.

All these companys are doing by moving to console only are making sure thier game gets pirated. Only now its not pirated on the pc its on the console which i have known tons of people pirating games since the original play station. its just as bad there as it is on PC only its the current excuse they have. When they realise how goddamn blind they are they will either think of a new excuse or realise they should put more then $5 in games and make something worth buying. Like i said before they need to goto valve's school of making a game that doesnt blow 101 and maybe they will learn something.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

Ye halo sucks, but somehow many people don't agree. I was stupid enough to order halo 2 without trying it first - waste of money. Anyway ye, I too stopped buying games with securom. I would've liked a legal crysis warhead, but I can't really say I want my vista to be any less table jut because I want to try a game. So the first crysis must suffice (got it original, playing a cracked, rootkitfree, version).

It's sad really. Good games don't need that kind of protection imo. I still have the original obilivion disk thoguh I didn't have to order it to play it (it's not an online game), and I have a host of other singleplayer games that I paid for as well - because they are good games, not because I couldn't pirate them.

So either make multiplayer games like world of warcraft, where not running on official servers is punished by lack of content refreshment, or make games good enough that people will want to pay for it. Don't just rush stuff out the door, or be paranoid and even add security to trailware ....

In short - I'm with enforcer22 although I'm only 28 and not yet old (old=30).

 

[enforcer22]

lol ass

 

[capaill]

If pretty much every securom-protected game is being cracked within a few days of release, then why do the game developers keep using securom? It seems to me that the best marketers here are in securom. They're probably the ones scaring the crap out of the game developers about pirating and somehow getting their software included on so many big titles.

I purchase most of my games, I fully support the PC gaming industry and want it to last forever. But I also want to play my games without needing the CD and I will look for a no-cd executable for every game I purchase. What's wrong with that?

Take the message, game developers: Securom sucks, it's alienating your customers, and it doesn't stop piracy.

 

[falconqc]

[citation][nom]capaill[/nom]Take the message, game developers: Securom sucks, it's alienating your customers, and it doesn't stop piracy.[/citation]

QFT, those pirates are laughing so hard right now. Still unsure if its at the customers or the game companies. Maybe a little of both.

 

[Retrogame]

If a game I want is on Steam, I buy it there instead of any other way, including games that are on console and my Xbox 360. Doesn't always work out of course due to optimization issues etc., and there IS the down side of spending hours and days downloading a game like Fallout 3 (which weighs in at almost 7 Gigs) but for the most part I like it. Once you have the DL, you can make compressed and encrypted backup folder using the Steam backup utility, burn it to a DVD+R and put it on your bookshelf for next time. Reinstalls under that system are easy, you just copy the files back to your HDD from the disc(s) you made, run the program, and then log onto your Steam account again, and presto. The worst that happens is the game goes to DL a patch that came out after your backup.

Given that today, if you own a computer and play games, it's virtually a given that you have internet access, I believe the solution is to have online security verification. Sure, it's not perfect, and it can be hacked, but it puts the onus on the company hosting the server you connect to when you want to register your program and doesn't install virus-like software on your computer to work. If you have to do that anyways for your operating system, your office productivity software, your antivirus, and just about anything else, like say, Photoshop, why not just bring games into the fold?

But, the industry doesn't understand its own customers. It's just like how for a while movie theatres were showing those antipiracy commercials before the movie started. What, we all paid $13 to get in here, plus $10 for popcorn, and you've got the balls to lecture us about not stealing your movies online? Get stuffed

 

[Guest]

Retrogame you're a fucking idiot!

Your dumbass father must have been stoned the day he laid your mother and planted the seed from which your dumbass evolved.