Creature creater; animations; music; graphics: 9

Game play: 3  (5 sharewhare games papercliped together, with rts and fps mechanics from a decade ago).

gameplay is amazingly boring i just got to the city stage and i cant play anymore cause of how bad it is for the other stages i only played around 10 minutes a day cause i couldnt handle how simple it is

Well the story has made the BBC but sadly no plug for SD in it. You can read the story here.

Still waiting for the NYT story to surface - you just know SD will get plugged in that one.

One can only hope (I plan on buying Demigod just to show my support for Stardock's business model, even though the game doesn't really seem to be up my alley). But judging by the way EA is reacting to the backlash on Mass Effect and Spore ('generously' upping your activations to 5 instead of 3 on AC3, as well as a few quotes I've seen from them), I'm not holding out much hope that they, at least, will get it.

They won't get it so long as their games continue to sell vast numbers of copies.  DRM hasn't hurt their sales figures.  It's hurt a demographic they don't care about:

Upset people on internet forums.

Nope, it's a proven fact.  Not only do games with no drm generally sell better, but non starforced versions of games on steam sold better then retail.

It's a proven fact.  DRM only hurt the publisher.

Oooookay.  I guess I just dreamt that the recent games that have caused such hellstorms of anti-DRM posts sold rather well.  Thanks.

I was going to buy Mass Effect, which looked to be really good until I found it had DRM with it. You could only activate it only 3 times too. Year or two ago I bought Supreme Commander and Command and Conquer, Tiberium Wars and they are great games. They didn’t come with DRM. I guess DRM is fairly new.

They sold well like the early Starforce games did.

Try looking up older Starforce related game sales.  Some of them number in the 100's, (Not even 6 figures or 5) quite sadly.

Once word gets around about a product, kiss your ass goodbye.

People were fooled for a while about Starforce, just like they were fooled about Secu-rom.

But, the word is out now.

The requirement for activations is 'new'. Some form of copy protection isn't. I really hate putting the disk in the drive to play though.

Errr, Spore is directly target at casual players (people with less mind than sims players) to get more money (you know, rather than have a brilliant game). They don't care about DRM, Spore will make all the money they want it to make. EVEN IF every proper gamer didn't buy spore, it would make FAR more money than it would the other way around. Word up: Casual market is more prophitable than the true market. EA dons't think we are worth enough.

You evil, evil person. Some poor sap will buy the returned game and only have 2 (or 4) activations left... How do you sleep at night???

I guess it is no different to me registering an account and returning the game and then someone else buying it and not being able to register their serial...

It's really more of a reflection on EB's "rental" policy then any publisher I guess...

So what?  Casual players are people without much knowledge of gaming.  They aren't mindless sheep like you imply; casuals come in many forms.  Doctors, lawyers, dentists, people who don't have but maybe 1 hour a week at most to play a game.

These people still have a brain, and a bad game with bad drm will reach them, because word of mouth does extend from friends.

To put it bluntly, a casual player would buy maybe one game a year.  And they would buy a game that would last a long time.

The Sims 2 was a huge success because they could buy it, start a family, and play forever.

A casual gamer isn't as stupid as you think.  A game like bejeweled 2 or Peggle would be more exciting and longer lasting then Spore.

agreed... my wife who is not a gamer has been playing those 2 for at least a year or more now...

You think casual players have time to read forums all day? They may be put off by amazon but that isn't the only place to buy spore.

When I say less mind, I was just humoursly insulting a diffrent class of players, you need to lighten up, get some skill at the internet, lol. Im regularly insulted by console players and versious other groups I meet (not the idiot 12 year olds, the good people).

...

The 'word' about SecuROM has been out for years.  Games using it continue to sell hundreds of thousands if not millions of copies.  You've compared Spore to Daikatana in another topic which I think should be evidence enough that you have no idea what you're talking about on this subject.

In summation:

DRM = bad

Lying about how games using DRM are selling terribly and are a quickly dying breed = also bad

I don't know about ya'll, but I like to be able to pick up my game 10 years after I get them.  I still put Earthsiege 2 and Xwing Alliance on my computer when I'm in the right mood.  If I had the ability, I'd start an Airwarrior (not 2, not 3, just Airwarrior) server if it would let me.  I miss playing with buttloads of people, and buttloads of planes.  Duke Nukem 3d?  Come get some.  Star Control?  Wel...you get the idea.

In all fairness, SecuROM only recently switched from selling disc-checks to phone-home systems (BioShock was the first popular example).

Funny thing about spore is that the pirate version has a crack that removed the securom DRM thingy and due to some australian store releasing the game early it was available to download from the internet before the release date. As bad as internet piracy is, I feel that they are shooting themselves in the foot by pissing off legitimate customers. You buy the game, you have to deal with shit like DRM + copyprotect. You pirate the game you get a nice DRM free game. It is probably faster and easier to just download the game than it is to travel to your nearest gameshop and buy it. Plus it is free. In my honest opinion if you have a choice between paying money for a DRM riddled piece of shit game or getting the thing quicker and easier for free, you are a retard if you buy it.

If it's such a piece of crap then why pirate it either?

If a game is bad or has onerous DRM on it such that you won't buy it, then great, don't buy it. But that's no excuse to then jump online and pirate it. Say what you will about the executive's choices (and inform your buying descisions accordingly), but the devs and artists deserve to be paid for their work if you're going to be enjoying it. So buy if you want it, or just go without. Even more so, pirating it just makes you a statistic that they'll use to back up even worse DRM next time.

I have a stack of game cd's about 1foot high. I have probably spend thousands of euro on games, some are good, some are shit. At least 1 I could not install because it had starforce on it and royally fucked up my PC so I never got to actually play that one.

The way I see it. If I like a game I buy the game. But to be honest this whole war on piracy is a war to protect their profits. I would love to see EA financial figures. They are continously buying out smaller companies and releasing tons of games. Any time someone mentions piracy the gaming industry, as well as the music and movie industry immediately jump to the conclusion that piracy will utterly destroy them and drive them out of business which fortunately is complete rubbish. I have no figures on games but I can quote the top 10 highest grossing films. Titanic, $1.85 billion. lord of the rings: return of the king, $1.1 billion. pirates of the caribbean: dead mans chest, $1 billion. harry potter, $976 million etc.. (I would like to point out that on the wiki top 50 grossing films a vast majority, if not all 50, are made by hollywood studios(an american business). So why should anyone outside america care if hollywood shuts down. They are making laws and policing the entire world to protect american profits, you really think any other country cares?)

If these people are making $900m dollars a film, and that is just box office takes, they still sell dvd's and make games and all types of crappy toys and stuff, how can they justify the claim that pirates are 'destroying hollywood'. I know this argument is about games not films but the arguments game developers use are very similar. They have been doing this cry-baby act for years. Piracy has been around for years. I remember playing games on my amiga which is probably 20 years old by now and they had copy-protection on it. That is 20 years of piracy and what do we have now. A gaming industry that has gone from strength to strength increasing profits continously over the years. I remember when games were developed by small studios, sometimes even a single person, now we have EA with studios spanning the globe and sole rights to hundreds of games, making millions(probably billions) of dollars a year and, not satisfied with their profits, are now demanding the right to squeeze every penny from their customers.

I am not just ripping on EA or anything. I am just saying that the current trends toward increasing amounts of 'pirates' on the internet point to a change in the way society views the entertainment industry. Pirates were copying books when the printing press came out, pirates were copying films when the vcr came out and pirates will continue to copy games and films no matter how hard hollywood or anyone tries to stop them. You can not govern social change to protect profits, people will not allow it and will fight back.

Hmm, edit not working. Anyway. Would just like to point out that Radiohead released their new album for free on their website. There were more 'illegal' downloads from filesharing websites than their website indicating that pirates are not motivated by their greed or refusal to pay for something. They are doing it out of principle or to make a statement. If the entire world pirated a DRM game and they ended up selling nothing do you really think EA would just up the severity of their protection? or will they realise that copy-protection might stop some people from downloading it but it will probably push others to download it just because of the copyprotection. The problem is that most people nowadays do not have their own opinion, they watch too much tv and read too many magazines that they just regurgitate what the media say. We do not need the entertainment industry, there are plenty of indepentant films and freeware games on the internet. Hollywood and major game developers like to tell people that without them entertainment will end, we will have nowhere to get our 'precious' games and films. I disagree.

My PoV:

When a game is sold to me that does not work on my machine despite contacting support multiple times, and in fact appears intentionally designed not to work with other legitimate programs based on that support, and no one is willing to give me all (Or even a portion of) my money back... Then I'm going to play that game, one way or another.

But yes, buy the thing first.