This meant that you had to keep Origin, the distribution platform running in the background, the web browser to select a game and the game itself. Changing servers meant to close down the game, select a new match and server in the web browser to start the game anew.

While I have not tried the system yet, I’d say that it is less practicable than a built-in functional server browser (to be honest, not a single server browser of a Battlefield game was that, but that’s another story).

Back in the good old games of gaming, I would have probably bought the game anyway. Today, I want to make a stand against all the “features” that hurt legit customers. That’s one of the reasons why I did not buy From Dust, even though I would really like to play the game. I also skipped the Modern Warfare series ever since its developers started to drop dedicated server support.

It now came to light that Origin, EA’s new online distribution system (not to mix up with the classic game developer that EA bought and killed), adds another issue that could convince some gamers not to use that system. Users who sign up need to accept the EULA which gives EA massive rights to collect, use, save and transfer user data. It reads under (2):

You agree that EA may collect, use, store and transmit technical and related information that identifies your computer (including the Internet Protocol Address), operating system, Application usage (including but not limited to successful installation and/or removal), software, software usage and peripheral hardware, that may be gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, dynamically served content, product support and other services to you, including online services. EA may also use this information combined with personal information for marketing purposes and to improve our products and services. We may also share that data with our third party service providers in a form that does not personally identify you. IF YOU DO NOT WANT EA TO COLLECT, USE, STORE, TRANSMIT OR DISPLAY THE DATA DESCRIBED IN THIS SECTION, PLEASE DO NOT INSTALL OR USE THE APPLICATION.

Gamers either have to accept that EA may collect, use, store and transmit data like their computer’s IP address, software, application usage and hardware, or they may not install or use the application.

EA may furthermore transfer the data in anonymized form to third party companies. Rock Paper Shotgun puts it this way:

And then even more creepily, they say they intend to take such information, combine it with personal information about you, and use it to advertise directly to you. However, when selling on this free-for-all on your computer’s contents, they’ll at least remove personally identifying information. Gosh, thanks.

The site furthermore compares EA’s clause with a comparable Steam clause and comes to the conclusion that Valve’s “policy is self-restricted to anything on your PC directly relating to its own products” while EA’s is “so broad that it gives the publisher permission to scan your entire hard drive, and report back absolutely anything you may have installed, and indeed when you may use it, and then pass that information on the third parties”.

If I would not already have canceled Battlefield 3, I would now.

The new game brings a huge change, instead of going for realism, they went for a cartoon look, which looks pretty stunning I think. Many will be deterred by this, I suspect especially hardcore gamers, but if I want realism I’ll jump down to a war zone and take a look myself. I think it’s quite unique and it makes the game more accessible to other ages and our friends of the female persuasion (I might be able to get my girlfriend to play a round with me!).

I haven’t played a lot with this series, I spent an hour or two with a newer one, and from what I can tell, the experience is much the same, but obviously very different due to the environment. I’m actually still waiting for my beta key, but to me the screenshots radiate much more of a fun factor than I’ve seen in games for a while.

Let us know if you’ve tried the game, I’ll add a comment as an update as soon as I give it a go, I can’t wait to shoot every one’s cartoon bum out of the sky, woohoo!

Companies seem to cling to those schemes although it has been proven that they are not helping fight software piracy. Games are usually available without copy protection on the Internet before or soon after they are released. This essentially means that someone downloading those games does not have to cope with installation limits and other copy protection schemes like CD checks while the people who bought the game do.

It was common in the past that customers had to call the game company or publisher if they reached their installation limit in order to have it reset so that they could install the game again.

EA, a company that made and is making heavy use of such copy protection schemes, has released a portable tool for Windows systems called EA De-Authorization Management Tool which will automatically scan a computer system for selected EA games and notify the user about the number of authorizations available.

The computer software program will recognize many of the latest games that have been released by EA. Among them Crysis Warhead, Read Alert 3, Fifa Manager 09, Fifa Soccer 09 and Mass Effect. A website will be loaded after the scan informing the user about the results of the scan.

The results will include links to de-authorization tools for supported EA games if they have been found on the computer system. Downloading those tools will then make it possible to free up a slot so that the game can be installed again.

It seems that the press coverage and outcry of the gaming community made EA change their minds. The games will now run perfectly fine after an initial online activation and additional checks will only be performed before downloading additional content for the game.

That’s definitely great news for the computer users who wanted to buy Mass Effect or Spore, the two affected titles, but could not ensure that they were able to authenticate the game every ten days to be able to continue playing it.

The updated FAQ by Bioware’s community manager Jay Watamaniuk specifically mentions the armed forces and international users. I personally think that they still have not understood the real reason for the outcry but that’s probably just me wondering why someone would copy protect games when cracked versions of the games normally make their appearance before or during the initial game release.

It’s a wrong way of fighting piracy. I never understood why companies are fighting piracy on the backs of their customers.

Technical Producer Derek French replied to a user thread on the Mass Effect Forum about the copy protection and activation the game would be using. I have several objections to this kind of protection although I understand that game makers and publishers want to make sure that they earn money from their games while keeping piracy to a minimum.

Users who do not have a permanent Internet connection will not be able to enjoy the game. The game has to be activated after installation giving the user nine days after installation to do so. It will stop working if it is not activated by then. A game will stop working if it cannot perform a check every ten days. If that does not happen the game will not run until the check has been made.

Am I the only one thinking about DRM and services that have been taken from the net ? It happened before, just recently to customers of the MSN Music store. What happens if EA decides to turn off the servers that check the activation. Will they be able to provide the check ten years after the game has been released ? What if the EA server is down or the Internet connection of the user ? He won’t be able to play the game until then if he is over the ten day period.

Let us take a look at the users who grab a copy of the game from P2P networks. Will they even realize the game has such a protection ? I bet they won’t. They install the game, copy a crack over and are done and can play the game for as long as they want without fearing that the game will be unplayable because of activation issues.

This is the exact reason why DRM fails. It is punishing the wrong people. Honest buyers are punished by it, not the ones who copy the game without paying for it. It’s like those stupid anti piracy trailers that can be skipped when loading a retail DVD. What’s your take on this issue ?

Gamers do not receive anything from this. All the money earned goes right into the pockets of EA. This kinda sucks and I thought it would be nice to share a way to get rid of those ads. The easiest solution would be to block the network that streams the ads from being able to connect to your computer. All you need to do is block (reject traffic from) the subnets 72.3.184.144/28 and 72.32.5.0/28.

Another method that looks more complicated would be to change the ad files in the cache by using a tool called IGA Ad Cache Editor. The readme explains the functionality: “This application imports and exports DDS image files from the ad cache of Battlefield 2142.  You can also import and export groups/sets of images (adpacks).”

Once exported you can modify the images using tools like GIMP and import them after you have changed the contents.