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I'm staying away from the EA Spore forums for a while...

ZeekZeek
edited September 2008 in General Chat
I made the mistake of using TTG as an example on how to properly release a game since EA, at no fault of their own, now has a problem with people who pre-loaded (i.e. paid and downloaded 90% of the game) Spore while the Australia market has the game out in the market.

The arguement is that EA should just go ahead and give those who paid and downloaded the game the last 10% of the game and activate it.

My mistake? I brought up how TTG won't even upload the installer for their games until the scheduled release date to insure that everyone on the planet gets the game at the same time, as well as the fact that they don't produce a hard copy of the game until the initial download run has been completed.

So, yeah.... My bad for opening my yap. But, hey, what can I say when you guys are the best at what you do? Nothing but good things.

Comments

  • TrogLlamaTrogLlama
    edited September 2008
    Wait... what?
    How was that a mistake (other than the inevitable fan backlash)? Could we get a little more detail on the aftermath?
  • InvaderJim42InvaderJim42
    edited September 2008
    Yeah, I'm curious on why that was such a bad idea (besides the obvious of trying to reason with the stupidest gaming corporation on the face of the planet. I'll never respect EA after all the evil things they've done.)
  • biscuitdoughhandsmanbiscuitdoughhandsman
    edited September 2008
    maybe EA should use TTG as a roll model...unless TTG copyrighted that method of downloading games.
    probably not but its possible.
  • TrogLlamaTrogLlama
    edited September 2008
    ... Um, no. No, I don't think they do.
  • Rather DashingRather Dashing
    edited September 2008
    It's not possible. A copyright cannot refer to a process or method. At best, it'd be a patent, and I really doubt you can patent common sense. =p
  • DerwinDerwin
    edited September 2008
    The main difference between Spore and the TTG games is that Spore is multiple gigabytes... the individual TTG episodes are less than 100 megabytes for the installer. So pre-loading sounds like a good idea. The problem with EA is that by having a retail model before the downloadable version, people get pissed off. The benefit of doing the downloadable version first is that everyone gets it at the same time. But knowing EA, they probably think that if they were to release the downloadable version first, it would be more easily cracked and made available to the online pirate masses... which may or may not be true, but it ends up hurting them more in the end the way they are currently going about things.
  • AlucardAlucard
    edited September 2008
    "I really doubt you can patent common sense. =p"

    People have tried
  • wispwisp
    edited September 2008
    pre-download just don't makes any sense to me...the game is done and you can download it, but not enough to play. then they release the rest and you can start playing almost instantly. okay, so everybody can have the game at the same time. this might seem nice for users on dial-up or something....they don't have it sooner though, everybody else is forced to wait for them.
  • ZeekZeek
    edited September 2008
    Derwin wrote: »
    The main difference between Spore and the TTG games is that Spore is multiple gigabytes... the individual TTG episodes are less than 100 megabytes for the installer. So pre-loading sounds like a good idea. The problem with EA is that by having a retail model before the downloadable version, people get pissed off. The benefit of doing the downloadable version first is that everyone gets it at the same time.

    That, and they don't want their servers blowing up, which is why the pre-download is locked until Sunday at Noon PST.

    However, the game was accidently sold early in Austraila, as I mentioned earlier. And then to add insult to injury (in the fews of some fans), EA told AU retailers to just go ahead and start selling it on the 2nd of the month instead of the on the 5th like originally scheduled. Supposedly.

    This made a lot of the pre-download customers pissy, and they've been firing the guns of claiming flase advertisement by EA. The reason why most of them did the pre-download was, as advertised, to have the game before anyone else is able to get in their car and drive to Best Buy to get it. Well, those people feel they were cheated since there are Aussies out there playing the game since the start of this month, well before the original release date.

    As far as piracy goes? The game was cracked and up for torrent download within the first hour of someone discovering that you could buy it early in Austraila. So, yeah, so much for EA's dreaded DRM.
  • BadwolfBadwolf
    edited September 2008
    Nice to see Australia getting something early for a change anyway.

    I'm not planning on buying the game myself, but I've just been reading Joystiq's hands-on preview at PAX, and they didn't seem to enjoy it. They don't know whether to put it down to being in a packed hall at the time, or the game itself, but it's not looking good. German reviews aren't giving it huge scores either.
  • InvaderJim42InvaderJim42
    edited September 2008
    Zeek wrote: »
    As far as piracy goes? The game was cracked and up for torrent download within the first hour of someone discovering that you could buy it early in Austraila. So, yeah, so much for EA's dreaded DRM.

    Wahaha! Nothing is safe! The only real DRM that would prevent piracy... would be not to even develop the program in the first place.
  • Rather DashingRather Dashing
    edited September 2008
    Yeah, but stopping ALL piracy is never the point of DRM. The point is to make it JUST difficult enough that a lot of people on the edge of piracy or purchase will err on the side of the latter. There's nothing that will stop the hardcore pirates who refuse to pay a dime for anything to stop pirating. But then there are those who would pirate if they didn't have to deal with torrents and virtual drives and the like. I assure you, it's probably deterring the guys who would snag the game if it was just "drag the files into a folder and, voila! Video game copy!", or something similarly simple.
  • wispwisp
    edited September 2008
    that's true, drm will keep a few people from pirating a game (or other digital stuff)...but how many aren't buying a certain product, because drm annoys them?
    what society needs is a certain sense of honor and respect, not drm. i buy telltale games' games not, because i don't know how to get them for free, but because they deserve to be bought.
  • ZeekZeek
    edited September 2008
    wisp wrote: »
    that's true, drm will keep a few people from pirating a game (or other digital stuff)...but how many aren't buying a certain product, because drm annoys them?
    I'd guess and equal amount. So for every pirate getting the game, there's at least that many consumers out there not touchingi t because of the DRM.

    But I fall into your other example. If I can find the product and think it is worth putting money towards, I will buy it to support the people that made it.
  • wispwisp
    edited September 2008
    we'll probably never know..
    Zeek wrote: »
    So for every pirate getting the game, there's at least that many consumers out there not touchingi t because of the DRM.
    looks funny...like some kind of new sushi...
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