Darkspore Gone Forever Due to Abandoned DRM - UPDATED

[Grabehn]

I wanted to try out this game a long time ago, and now I learn that it had always online DRM... Well good riddance to be honest, EA has been ruinning a lot of stuff for a while now, and they probably won't change at all.

It's really funny how the only way that you can play a game that had always online DRM to avoid piracy is through a pirated version, lovely lovely irony.

 

[Akytalusia]

and this is the future of every game with this -new age always online drm-, EA, microsoft. and this is not unexpected. everyone knows it eventually comes to this. it's inevitable. so FUCK OFF. stop it. this is not the future we want. it's not the future we don't know we want, as you ignorantly suspect. a lot of the core crowd is already against this, and you. i hope this event opens even more eyes to your dystopian vision of the future. and if you keep pushing this atrocious ideology, i sincerely hope this event ignites the seed of destruction that leads to your completely obliteration.

change your path. there is still plenty of time to save yourself. there is still plenty of money out there for you to earn. you make good games that people want to buy and play. but you're trying to take too much.
back off.
right now.

 

[Thaluikhain]

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?

Hmmm...so "sorta kinda" should be added to the end of the title? Again?

Not cool, Escapist, not cool.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

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.

That's funny because some corporate tools on this forum have accused me of slippery slope argument when I was talking about this in the past. Some people just can't see what's in front of them.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

I actually own this game and haven't had the chance to beat it.

Now, it seems like I never will.

Thanks, EA. [i]You're my favorite company.[/i]

 

[Jamous]

Wow. Well that's fucking beautiful.That is so much fucking bull shit it's unreal. And they're still pushing always online DRM! At least now we have a concrete example to point to when we complain about it.

 

[Stevepinto3]

But it was worth it for stopping all those people that were gonna pirate freakin' Darkspore, right?

....right?

Seriously, this is why people hate you EA. You are literally selling a broken product, AGAIN. That it is still on sale on Origin without so much as a warning that it is currently not playable (let alone that it may never be playable again) is nothing short of fucking despicable.

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

To Hell with remembering Darkspore: remember Zune. I still have a 20mb rockbox that cannot be used because Big Micro decided to update the DRM on Windows Media Player.

People were forced to purchase and re-purchase music as old DRM systems were no longer supported by new MP3 players and new WMP protocols. The happy ending to that story is that now most music is now DRM free, just watermarked. Most.

We said this would happen to games. No-one listened.

And you know they still won't. You guys, much as I'm glad you're here and reading this, are not the EA target demographic, the ones that shop at Target or K-mart or Walmart and don't know any better but to tolerate whatever studded dildo EA chooses to stuff up everyone's rectums. EA is going to continue to make crap and put it on their crap data distro service.

Thank goodness, for now, inflow of the DRM-free (or at least DRM-lite) indie games is still strong.

238U

 

[erbkaiser]

To be honest, Darkspore has been unplayable since nearly launch. I can't remember the many weeks on end that the game would not allow log ins, or when it deleted characters, or just plain threw up error codes we never got an explanation for.

The solution is as always, look for alternate executables. The singleplayer component worked and works perfectly fine if you can change the code not to look online.

All EA needs to do is release one final patch to fix this, and then at least Darkspore's singleplayer will be available for suckers like me who purchased it.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

This is also (new) Sim City in 5 years. Though good riddance.

You're being overly optimistic, I wouldn't bet past two years for that POS.

 

[Bolt-206]

Man, the three people who bought Darkspore are going to be so disappointed. No, wait. Because even the three people who bought it would never want to boot it up again either.

Now now. I had fun the few times I actually played it.

Yeah, but what about the other two?

Steams says I put 134 hours into, so I'd say I had fun with it.

Still wasn't finished with this game either, but I suppose warning lights were blaring when updates stopped coming in only 4 and a half months after launch, with the last still leaving a ton of bugs and a time eating new map that eats away at older systems (like mine), so I should've seen this much coming...

 

[Xariat]

though at time of writing EA is still selling it on Origin.

OK this cannot possibly be legal? that's not just false advertisement, it's a fucking scam.

Also, does anyone have a picture of Darkspore giving erro code 3 or error 73003? I want to make a Never Forget picture so I can bring it up every time someone defends the always-online policy.

 

[Starke]

Darkspore Now Requires a Third-Party Crack To Play

Fixed it for you. Remember folks: cracking is 100% legal as long as you own a legal copy and didn't pirate it like a bad boy.

...and didn't violate the provision in the DMCA that prohibits bypassing DRM, or the relevant provision that exists in whatever trade agreement your country signed with the US in the last 15 or so years.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Oh man I had competely forgot about this game (I didn't even knew it was out in 2011)!

This is why DRM shouldn't existed, if that game didn't had it at least some people out there would of still played the singleplayer.

 

[Oskuro]

I wonder how people will react once Steam starts doing this shit. Not if, but when, it is literally impossible for a company to support a product indefinitely. At some point some Steam titles are going to go offline, and people who bought them won't be able to play (or even install) them anymore.

 

[SweetWarmIce]

Damn it I actually started playing this again a month ago.

 

[Sushewakka]

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.

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

Fun fact: Due to the way they work, EULAs are non-binding in Europe: No contract can force you to give up your rights.

 

[erbkaiser]

Fun fact: Due to the way they work, EULAs are non-binding in Europe: No contract can force you to give up your rights.

Not so fun fact: that's the theory, the practice is different. For example, in the EU there is a law that any purchase made online can be cancelled without cost to the buyer within 7 days, for whatever reason, and the seller is obliged to pay you back within 30 days.

The only exceptions are things like hotel rooms and consumables.

Yet try enforcing this against online game stores like Xbox Live, PSN, or Steam - no dice. They simply will refuse to cooperate with the law and nobody in Brussels seems interested to do anything about it. In fact, people who have attempted a charge back against Steam have found their entire account locked, Valve in essence stealing all their games on the service.

 

[LordMonty]

This is EA 101 leave a game boned and make your sleves look like dicks. Also i imagine they're upset that microsoft made them look even vaguely good in PR terms this is a natural response.

 

[Hungry Donner]

though at time of writing EA is still selling it on Origin.

OK this cannot possibly be legal? that's not just false advertisement, it's a fucking scam.

A friend at work was browsing the game bargin bin and found some MMO that had been shut down over a year before. He dropped it off at the customer help counter and explained it was impossible to play.

Another friend encountered the same situation, but he bought it to use as a gag gift.