New version of SecuROM

[MaryH]

There is a very big, very bad new development in the SecuRom problem:

" Mass Effect News     
Yesterday Jfederated found a post on the Mass Effect board which is currently scaring the life out of the staff of SAS. A gamer who owned Mass Effect made three hardware changes to his pc, only to find that he got a message stating his registrations had expired and he needed to purchase a new license for his game. His license expired after TWO DAYS of gameply. EA had originally stated that we could reinstall our games as many times as we liked under the new DRM, this appears to be incorrect. The new Securom is beginning to appear to be an attempt to obtain additional money out of people who purchase their product by getting us to purchase the same game multiple times."

If you want more information about this, our forum has the link to the original page and photos of the actual error message this player got on his computer.

[EKozski]

I read the article. That is bad news. I feel sorry for the poor guy.

I hope he gets restitution.

[Tenshii~Akari]

:angry7:

Rest in Pieces, EA.... Rest in Pieces.  You'd think they'd wouldn't be able to dig their grave any deeper...  :roll:

[EKozski]

Amen!

[MaryH]

The real problem is that EA is probably going to put the exact same DRM on Sims 3 and Spore when they come out.
Can anyone spell "Sinking Ship"?  EA is going to be in a world of hurt if this goes on to their other games and has the exact same effect on those.
That's why we're scared, and angry. More money to EA, less fun for us.

[Tenshii~Akari]

Pretty sure many people know already, but those who plan on downloading either version of the Spore demo ($10 or free) be aware that it's been reported:

Securom v7.36 IS included with the demo downloads.  Will this affect your computer?  Maybe, maybe not... the possibility is there, but EA's not going to admit it...

This has been a report from your friendly neighborhood watch committee.  Have a nice one.  

[EKozski]

I was running a few things around my head yesterday.

Now, we as a (certain) group of people refuse to buy anything EAGames related. If a new no-CD version comes out, people go out and buy the games. Am I correct in that statement?

What I'm trying to figure out is, if a no-CD version is put out there which makes the games playable, people go out and buy the games.

Isn't that a win-win situation?!!? EAMaxis wins and you win.

[Tenshii~Akari]

Hate to admit it, but technically, the game is still playable... on certain machines that have great luck streaks.  As long as there's the people having no issues whatsoever, doesn't mean it's unplayable at all.  I'd rather have something conflict/controversy-free instead.  

As for a legal No-CD version, EA would still try to find a way to screw around with that and try to prevent pirates from arring that, too.    They've done it with the EA Download ... thingie... so it's destined to happen either way.  :lol:

[MaryH]

I'm afraid that EA is not the type of company that wants to make concessions to their "perceived" threat of arring. They don't want to admit they've made a huge mistake in putting SecuRom into every single game-and as Tenshii did note, they will protect everything they can from the dreaded pirates they think are out there, just waiting to jump on their game and take it apart.
It's going to take a world-wide boycott, mail and petition campaign to make them see the error of their ways.
As for the machines that have been lucky so far-we're working on what machines and hardware trigger the bad luck of SecuRom. I personally think the older machines are probably the more apt to be disabled, but that is only my opinion.

[EKozski]

I remember reading a post over at the Sims site, where a lady had a brand new computer and SecuROM brought it to it's knees.

Her exact words were, I had a 3,000 dollar computer brought to it's knees by a 30.00 game.

So, I don't think old or new computers have anything to do with it. I think it's more software and configurations and hardware. With all the stuff I've been reading, all the arrows point in that direction.