Chris Halverson’s Blog

So the big news this past week in gaming circles was the release of Will Wright’s “Spore”. Of course, the bigger news was the draconian SecuROM DRM that they force install on your PC during the install. You may remember SecuROM from the Sony rootkit debacle a while back. SecuROM is, by pretty much any definition, a rootkit. It is not removed if you uninstall the game. The DRM EA is using limits you to a certain number of installs (3 in the case of Spore). There has been huge backlash. Spore’s customer rating at Amazon has been destroyed by people complaining about the DRM (whether they’d buy it or not). It’s rating is hovering around 1.4 with about 1500 ratings, which given the hype is huge.

I wasn’t happy about all of that before, but I  only had a passing interest in Spore. But now I read that EA will use SecuROM in the upcoming Red Alert 3.

Oh noes!

I played RA2 more than I care to think about it. I played against my son and my wife like crazy. I’ve played all the RA2 expansions and Generals. The RA series was an awesom RTS series. Once I heard that RA3 was coming out I was all excited (and not just because Gemma Atkinson is in it, although that sure doesn’t hurt). Not so much anymore.

DRM does not work. When will the game companies realize this? What’s “funny” about this is that there were cracks available for Spore before it was released. Look at Stardock and in particular Sins of a Solar Empire. They have no copy protection or DRM and have sold remarkably well, especially considering the lower budgets compared to EA. Bioshock and other big games have had disatrous results due to oppressive DRM.

Stardock has, in fact, released a “Gamer’s Bill of Rights” that they will abide by as a developer and publisher. This is a very consumer friendly statement:

1. Gamers shall have the right to return games that don’t work with their computers for a full refund.
2. Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.
3. Gamers shall have the right to expect meaningful updates after a game’s release.
4. Gamers shall have the right to demand that download managers and updaters not force themselves to run or be forced to load in order to play a game.
5. Gamers shall have the right to expect that the minimum requirements for a game will mean that the game will play adequately on that computer.
6. Gamers shall have the right to expect that games won’t install hidden drivers or other potentially harmful software without their consent.
7. Gamers shall have the right to re-download the latest versions of the games they own at any time.
8. Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers.
9. Gamers shall have the right to demand that a single-player game not force them to be connected to the Internet every time they wish to play.
10. Gamers shall have the right that games which are installed to the hard drive shall not require a CD/DVD to remain in the drive to play.

I wish all games were like this.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 10:22 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.