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EA to PC Gamers: “Install 3 times? Buy another copy”

Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 7:18 pm
by Cyril
http://www.simprograms.com/?p=692

EA to PC Gamers: “Install 3 times? Buy another copy”
Posted by: Judhudson in News - The Sims 2, News - The Sims 3, Sim News, Spore News, Video Games

This really grinds my gears…As reported here in the past, Mass Effect for PC contains a new type of SecuROM which will be present in all future EA/Maxis games.

What does it do? Not only does it install itself to your computer without a word of notification as well as disable your firewall, dvd drives and cd/dvd burning software. It limits you to installing your game on your PC up to 3 times.

This can be triggered via using up your 3 activations and each time you change a piece of hardware, reformat your computer or install/upgrade a new operating system, it takes up one of the activations.

This is proven to be true by a guy over at the Mass Effect forums. He registered and started to play the game (Activation #1). Well, when he tried to play the game he had strange artifacts on his screen. Thinking it was an OS-related issue, he reinstalled XP and reinstalled the game (Activation #2). Finding out that it didn’t help the problem, he soon figured out it was his graphics card struggling. Well, he bought a brand new card and that solved the problem (this triggers Activation #3). Game ran fine for a short period of time (2 days) and he played thru it and completed the game. Well, a week after that, he decided he wanted to run thru the game again. This is where he stumbles upon this error:

“The game can not start. For security reasons, only a limited number of machines can ever be licensed by a single purchase. This limit has been reached. Please purchase another registration code, reinstall, and then try again.”

There is no doubt that EA will try to include this new version of SecuROM on Spore and possibly The Sims 3….and if it is, we are going to encounter some very serious problems. Heck, I can’t even count the times I had to reinstall the games, upgrade my hardware and reformat…

You know, come to think of it…EA is doing this to prevent piracy of their games, but it’s only hurting us legal customers. Look at this:

If you are a Pirate:
BAD: You do have the same bugs that those with legal copies have, plus new ones depending on how the cracked copy was programmed.
GOOD: Unlimited Activations!
GOOD: No SecuROM to deal with
GOOD & BAD: It’s free, but illegal

If you are a Legal Customer:
BAD: Limited to 3 Activations
BAD: Your computer is plaqued with SecuROM
BAD: Game contains errors and bugs
GOOD & BAD: You support Maxis by purchasing the game, but you are also supporting EA, and if you support them, you support SecuROM

Honestly…what looks better to you?

Re: EA to PC Gamers: “Install 3 times? Buy another copy”

Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 10:41 pm
by Skyfaller
An earlier article said you would be able get more installs on the telephone. If you can't, I suggest you turn to the pirated version once you run into trouble. So don't buy the game before a nice de-DRM tool becomes available. You're the customer, you have the power.

I'm not sure if they can deny you functionality you paid for in Germany, so we'll likely get the same copy protection, otherwise it might be too easy to escape DRM. But they have to help you on the phone. If you don't have the same rights in your country, perhaps contacting EA in the EU for telephone support will help. If they ask why you're calling from abroad, claim you're on holiday. Or have a EU citizen contact them in the first place. If this all true, try to obtain the UK version, in case they can trace where you bought the game from the code. I'm not comletely sure this is workable, however, I'm no lawyer.

I can't say how many times I installed the MW games, several dozen times all flavours ...

Re: EA to PC Gamers: “Install 3 times? Buy another copy”

Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 4:23 pm
by Nynx
Just one more way EA is tone of the worst publisher ever, and another way its shooting itself in the foot. I say let them, hopefully EA crashes and dies at some point ;)
can you tell I hate EA?

Re: EA to PC Gamers: “Install 3 times? Buy another copy”

Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 7:25 am
by saracen16
I was able to do that while chatting to a representative. She enabled me to do more installs.

If that doesn't work, the next option - also a bit of a cheat option - would be to crack it.

Re: EA to PC Gamers: “Install 3 times? Buy another copy”

Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2012 11:55 pm
by SomeKid
Nynx wrote:Just one more way EA is tone of the worst publisher ever, and another way its shooting itself in the foot. I say let them, hopefully EA crashes and dies at some point ;)
can you tell I hate EA?
And given just how awful ME3 was, and the lies put out during marketing, I personally hope EA fails miserably. I won't by products from 3 game companies - EA, BioWare, and Obsidian can just rot. (If I do buy, it is well after the price drops, and I know whether I am buying a bug filled POS.) Blizzard's quality has dropped, but I still buy their games, but I won't buy when brand new simply due to price. Is it just me, or does PC gaming seem to suck badly when compared to what we had 10-15 years ago?

Re: EA to PC Gamers: “Install 3 times? Buy another copy”

Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2019 4:37 pm
by CommanderHunter
Uh... the last comment is over 5 years old.