So I called EA about "disk checks".

Sulphur on 11/8/2011 at 20:05

See? There you go again. I don't have these problems because I've dealt with them, unlike you and your tin foil paranoia. I don't have to give a shit about any of your assertions about DRM because instead of complaining like a ridiculous whingebag, I either a) accept, b) reject, or c) sidestep them.

This is a critical component of decision making - MAKING A DECISION - and where the paradox of your paralysis lies: you choose b), to reject DRM, but you can't live with not having what you want, can you? So if you can't actually live with b) either go with a) or c) or carry on with what you're doing, which is d) continue to live your life in paralysis. But don't fucking annoy us about it.

So, go on and answer the question: are you physically and mentally capable of talking about something else, or not?

catbarf on 11/8/2011 at 20:39

As a game design student, lost_soul's demands from the industry seem ridiculously petty. No company can design their game with hardware a decade from now in mind, and it's unreasonable to expect a company to bend over backwards to alter a game just to suit you and your refusal to use a CD.

If you have such a problem with the security needed in games in order for people like me to actually make money off of our work, buy the game and then download a crack. Or hell, buy the game and then go download a pirated copy. I don't care. But if you're going to absolutely refuse to use this simple solution, you have no right to be bitching over your overblown sense of entitlement.

Get a Steam copy, download a crack, use CD emulation. You have plenty of options. If you choose not to use them because they're not the perfect fantasy solution you have in mind, that's your problem.

lost_soul on 11/8/2011 at 20:49

I choose not to use those methods because I could get in trouble for doing some of them, and this game is not for sale on Steam. The game producers shouldn't be able to sue me if I "crack" something to use it on a modern system, but they very well can. If I had wanted to take that risk, I wouldn't have purchased it in the first place. Instead I will go out of my way to avoid supporting game developers by purchasing used, because this is how they treat their paying customers.

Question: If I intend to buy all my games used, which console should I buy? a 360 or a PS3?

catbarf on 11/8/2011 at 20:58

Quote Posted by lost_soul

because this is how they treat their paying customers.

And how should they treat their paying customers? Do you really think there should be no DRM in any games whatsoever?

lost_soul on 11/8/2011 at 21:02

two words: id software

Developers should remove the DRM when the game is no longer "in the spotlight" and the only point it serves is to piss off those who actually supported you and PAID for your product.

Now I just found a used 360 arcade for $90. Should I buy this? I could finally play games like Perfect Dark Zero for about 3 bucks. I could also pick up a used copy of DNF for $15 or so. Help me out here!

Renzatic on 11/8/2011 at 21:06

Quote Posted by lost_soul

Yeah. You could get in trouble for downloading a crack. You could also spontaneously combust in the next 15 minutes, and spend the last moments of your life writhing in burning agony. Neither one of these scenarios is likely to happen.

There isn't a single publisher out there that'll go after one guy for downloading a crack for a game that's over 10 years old. Why would they waste the money to gain practically nothing? Spite? Nah. They won't care. They won't even notice. As long as you're not writing cracks for recent games, and widely distributing them afterwards, you have absolutely nothing to worry about.

catbarf on 11/8/2011 at 21:06

Quote Posted by lost_soul

two words: id software

Oh boy, they patch out disk checks. You know, if you spent all of five minutes creating your own CD images for your other games, you could get the same exact thing. And it's not illegal, and nobody's going to come after you for it.

catbarf on 11/8/2011 at 21:11

Quote Posted by lost_soul

Developers should remove the DRM when the game is no longer "in the spotlight" and the only point it serves is to piss off those who actually supported you and PAID for your product.

Why should a company invest time and money into gathering up the relevant code and documentation from the four corners of the earth and using it to remove security checks to support a nearly non-existent and absolutely non-profitable secondary market as well as a small but vocal group of fans with an overblown sense of entitlement?

lost_soul on 11/8/2011 at 21:17

Oh please. It is as hard as zipping up their game exe that they keep on their tech support machines and offering it as a official patch.

catbarf on 11/8/2011 at 21:31

Quote Posted by lost_soul

Oh please. It is as hard as zipping up their game exe that they keep on their tech support machines and offering it as a official patch.

Uh, no. For starters, tech support does not always have a special magic version with all the DRM removed and nothing else changed- there are often specialized, in-house debugging builds that go well beyond just removing DRM. And that's assuming they even keep around a five-year-old game for tech support in the first place, and it's assuming they're not just using a specially licensed but otherwise ordinary copy of the game, which is what most tech support teams use, so they can actually reproduce bugs that are DRM-related.

Do you really think that axing DRM in games is so easy, yet every single development studio is downright malevolent enough to not do it?

Edit: And hell, if all it took were an exe replacement, creating cracks to bypass DRM on modern games would be incredibly easy. It's not. The harder it is for pirates to get rid of DRM, the harder it is for developers to do likewise- and expecting them to put time, money, and effort into doing so years after a game's release, when it's not even earning them money anymore, is ridiculous.