Darkspore Gone Forever Due to Abandoned DRM - UPDATED

[Stainlesssteele4]

Game works fine on Origin. Launched it and ended up playing it for half an hour after reading this. Seems that the problems are just for Steam owners.
I only happen to own to because of that free 10 dollar game coupon that went around, and I haven't played much of it.

 

[RicoADF]

Oh man, Jim's gonna love this..

At any rate, just checked Origin and indeed they are still selling the freaking thing, unfreakingbelievable.

I'm tempted to buy it, check weather it works then if it doesn't get my refund

 

[CyberMachinist]

Well at least a questionably forgettable game well now be remembered as the videogames equivalent to the Alamo....... or something like it. There is a peculiar irony to this.

I don't know about irony, really. Rosa Parks was just a woman who was too tired and sore to give up her seat. She didn't think about politics when she refused, and certainly didn't think people would still be learning about her actions into the 21st century.

I'm not saying games are the equivalent of civil rights, for the record. Just using an example of someone small and unassuming becoming a rallying point.

I'm also not sure about the Alamo bit either, since people are mad today but might not be in a week. Darkspore may simply be forgotten because too few people have a pony in the race.

About that I only said the Alamo bit because I was thinking about the phrase "Remember the Alamo" To be honest I don't know much about the Alamo except it had something to do with a last stand by Mexican soldiers.... or was that American soldiers? I think i got a bastardized version of it or something.

And you just described the irony i was saying, back towards me, that something likely forgettable like this game would end up being remembered, albeit as an example for bad practices.

 

[oldtaku]

This was also the entire XBox One if we hadn't forced them to backtrack on that. 10 years from now, poof, the entire console and every game on it would have been dead unless they felt like it was worth it for them to patch out the 24 hour checkin.

 

[omega 616]

OMG DIGITAL IS SO AWESOME!

Yeah, it's fucking amazing! If this is the future we are heading towards, I would rather stay in the past. I might not play a load of games that belong on GOG but when I want to, I don't want to find the servers have packed in.

 

[Callate]

We need a law on the books such that in the event of such developments hackers are allowed to do whatever is in their power to get such a game functioning without threat of legal sanction. The hundred-plus year copyright is a travesty even without the considerations of a digital age.

 

[MrHide-Patten]

And thus ladies and gentlemen; I give you Exhibit A on why the Xbone would've been shit..ier.

 

[Irridium]

Consumers have virtually no rights these days. It's a sad state, but they can probably get away with it for a while at least. And even then, it will be consumer outrage and not laws that work. Hell, if anyone tries to contact the authorities or file a complaint, they will be called spoiled and entitled.

Well at least they'll be able to get together to file a class-action lawsuit!

Oh, wait, that's right. Damn-near every company has made everyone give up that right with their EULA.

Fixed for accuracy.

Remember: One of the first license agreements forfeiting your right to sue was Steam's. Hope that money you saved on those games was worth it.

OT: This is the future. Relish it. Drink it in. Orwell's prophecy has come true.

Re-fixed. Now even more accurate!

Also, guess it's a good thing I mainly buy physical and from GoG for that exact reason Although many physical games still require Steam. Which sucks. I complain but people tell me to just shut up and accept it because Steam isn't that bad

 

[Vivi22]

Consumers have virtually no rights these days. It's a sad state, but they can probably get away with it for a while at least. And even then, it will be consumer outrage and not laws that work. Hell, if anyone tries to contact the authorities or file a complaint, they will be called spoiled and entitled.

Well at least they'll be able to get together to file a class-action lawsuit!

Oh, wait, that's right. STEAM made everyone give up that right with their EULA.

Fixed for accuracy.

Remember: One of the first license agreements forfeiting your right to sue was Steam's. Hope that money you saved on those games was worth it.

If you were interested in accuracy at all, you'd place the blame on the courts that undermined your rights by upholding the ability for companies to do this thus ensuring every company ever would add it in as soon as it was legal. Which they all pretty much did because leaving yourself open to class action suits when you can easily stop it is just bad business. I really can't blame companies for taking advantage of the situation when your government and courts readily create such loopholes and undermine your rights for them.

But for whatever it's worth, Valve is the company I'm least worried about ever having to file a lawsuit against that adopted that clause. And I assume by one of the first you actually mean one of what, hundreds that all added it at about the same time once the court ruling was in?

 

[Atmos Duality]

And this is what you can expect from every always-on game with a single player aspect. So go ahead and try to defend it without looking like a corporate tool.

Agreed. This was not at all unforeseeable.

I just wish I could take this news into the past, find everyone who screamed "SLIPPERY SLOPE!" and "THEY WOULD NEVER DO THAT!" and ***** slap them across the fucking eyes with it.

 

[Dark Knifer]

Also, guess it's a good thing I mainly buy physical and from GoG for that exact reason Although many physical games still require Steam. Which sucks. I complain but people tell me to just shut up and accept it because Steam isn't that bad

Yeah, I'm with you on that.

Steam makes any physical copy of a game I have a pain in the ass and my internet is far too slow for digital downloads to work. I even have a mate who can't play games at all on steam even with discs because of mandatory updates and she can't get them because it would use all her internet and then some and you can't seem to switch to ofline unless you have the latest so it renders those copies completely useless.

Steam works well but certainly not for everyone and they do do some bullshit legal stuff just like everyone else.

OT: ONline does really get rid of shelf life it seems, though I wonder if it's still on origin because it might work there for some reason?

 

[kajinking]

What a shame, excuse me as I pop in my 5-year old copy of Supreme Commander Forged Alliance to numb the pain.

Gasp! The official servers are down? The company that made it went under?!

Uh no! My game is almost completely fine and playable!

 

[Roander]

I'm not convinced we can say for certain yet that a) the game is definitely broken for all players and b) it will never be fixed.

Inquisitor Laine (the guy who wrote that post) does not appear to be an EA employee. He's just a volunteer forum mod.

The only other place online I can find this story is Game Trailers (where Escapist have got it from) and they aren't citing anything other than that post by Inquisitor Laine.

Does anyone here actually own Darkspore? Can they verify that it doesn't work?

I'm only acting suspicious because gaming news sites like this have a habit of performing a variant of the [a href=http://xkcd.com/978/]Wikipedia Citogenesis[/a].

That was a good question. I own it and I was able to sign in, after going through the standard "we've updated our terms of service, please indicate that you've read and agree to this nonsense that we know you're not going to read every time we do this". Anyway, no apparently it's not broken for everyone. If there are knows bugs that make the game unplayable for some people and they have no intention of fixing those bugs it's still irresponsible to keep selling the game. Do they at least have some sort of warning posted on their site?

 

[Trishbot]

If this is "the future" so many Xbone DRM supporters were trumpeting, I'd prefer to live in the past... when I could PLAY the games I paid for.

 

[Severian]

AHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Drm. Wave of the future of games. This should make developers and publishers happy. :/

 

[Worgen]

And this is why I have no faith in origin, I don't trust ea with complete control over my games.

 

[BoogieManFL]

I've been troubled by stuff like this for years. What happens when I'm old get nostalgic? Will half the games I played be gone forever? All because they force bullshit connection requirements on games that don't really require it.

I played the beta, glad I gave it up pretty quick. Having spore in the title was an attempted cash in, anyway.

 

[immortalfrieza]

Even if EA doesn't throw in a patch to fix this before long, I'll bet anything that someone bypassed this DRM within the first month at the most after this game was released and uploaded it long ago. I also bet that the few that have actually bought this and those that are still buying this will probably start using whatever crack that is.

 

[BreakfastMan]

I can't wait for this to happen to Destiny!.

Wait, isn't Destiny an MMO? And not in the "we're just saying it is so that we can get away with DRM" sense, I mean a legit MMO like Guild Wars is. If it is, that's justified because it needs to stay online. If it isn't... wow Bungie. How the mighty have fallen.

They're calling it a "shared-shooter" or some other buzzword of that sort. It has a story and everything you can play by yourself, but since its always-online you're always being matched with people and you'll randomly encounter them as you play through levels. I think. Still not 100% sure. But what I do know is that you'll be able to play through the game alone, but you'll need to be online to do it because of all the multiplayer and "shared world" stuff they're doing.

I wouldn't be so sure. Remember, Demons/Dark Souls did something very similar, and you can still play those games offline just fine. Sure, you miss part of the experience by playing offline, but you can still do it.

I can't wait for this to happen to Destiny!

Destiny?! What about Battlefield 3, or Diablo III, or Starcraft 2, or Simcity, or Mass Effect 3 or the entirety of everyone's Steam Library (far fetched but not impossible).

Actually, that Steam one is highly unlikely. Steam has an offline mode that generally allows you to play you Stream games just fine.

 

[wulfy42]

I have the game, but barely played it. It's one of those games on a back burner (Way back at this point), but I did intend to play it some year. I bought it on sale though so it wasn't that expensive (probably got it at 75% off through steam).

I must say that if I can never play it again in the future, I've saved WAY more on steam then the loss from this one game, so I'm not too worried about it.

That being said, this is one time I think pirating makes sense. If a game is only playable via pirated version, and you bought it legally....then well...it should not be illegal to pirate it. I have no clue if a pirated version of Dark spore was released or not...but since most games seem to end up having a pirated version it probably was.

Maybe Steam will eventually upgrade to the pirated version lol.

Anyway I think EA games needs to release a patch that allows it to be played without the servers at this point. If they are abandoning the game, then abandon the DRM..and let all the people who purchases it play it. As far as people who didn't purchase it...who cares..they abaondoned the game anyway.