Because I refuse to rent games, & I highly doubt any one ELSE would rent a PC Game either.
Look, EA, there's an easy way out of this that will make you money AND garner you MUCH good will with Gamers.
Drop the DRM, lose the SecuROM, & stop requiring the cd to play.
The pirates strip the cruft from your stuff & never deal with it ANYWAY.
The ONLY people it hurts is the very people you WANT to play it.
Make it easier for your legitimate customers, & they'll thank you.
Make it harder on them, and they'll stop BEING your customers.
You'll never out-class the Pirates.
They are Legion.
There are MILLIONS of them for every programmer you can claim working for you.
It is only a matter of time before ANYTHING you do as a "piracy prevention method" is cracked, hacked, bypassed, patched, & rendered moot.
Requires a cd to play?
"No CD" patches are as easy to find as porn.
Requires an authentication server to play?
Fake the server, or patch the .EXE so it thinks it's already authenticated itself, & !POOF! there went that.
CD Key to install?
Key Gen's are as plentiful as viagra spam.
SecuROM root kit required to run?
Virtual Machine Environment, firewall set to deny all comm from the root kit through the VME, and "Oops, looks like I get to play anyway."
DRM number of installation limitation?
One patched DLL and suddenly that limit is "9999999999999999999999999999999999" & can be reset at will.
Are you getting the picture here, guys?
The only way to win is to not do the things that tempt them to pirate your game in the first place.
No DRM, no SecuROM, no limitations, & they'll still pirate it, but more people will buy the game BECAUSE you haven't treated them like scum...
Think of it this way.
If you went to a New Car Dealership & purchased a brand new car in cash, then when you tried to drive it off the lot the Salesperson told you that you'll only get to drive it three times before it was deactivated...
How would you feel?
Would you put up with that BS?
Or would you drive it home, park it inside the garage, & find a mechanic who could disable the limiting device?
I mean, it IS *YOUR* car, you should be able to drive it as often as you like, right?
Change "car" to "Spore", "drive" to "install", and "mechanic" to "pirate".
NOW do you see where we're coming from?
*COUGH*
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