tempest in a teacup

EA scales down copy protection for Mass Effect and Spore

Angry people on the Internet actually caused change…I WA SHOCK!
The new scheme still limits you to three installs, which is lame, but the need to activate every ten days has been replaced with a check every time new content is downloaded, which is more reasonable. It’s not quite perfect, but it’s about where BioShock’s copy protection was, which is slightly annoying but acceptable.

In other EA PC gaming adventures, both this and this are looking really cool. I don’t know what’s more surprising - the fact that DICE is making something that isn’t a Battlefield game, or that said game is an Unreal Engine 3 game whose predominant palette colour isn’t brown.

Anime file sharers arrested in Japan
(Man, I seem to be linking to Zepy’s blog a lot for anime news)

If this means fewer high-quality raws for fansubbers to use, we might be in for a bit of a dry spell :/
What particularly annoys me is that so few studios have even bothered to offer a viable alternative to fansubs (Gonzo is the only one I can think of off the top of my head, and like hell I’m watching anything they put out).

I was hoping that I could write about something unrelated to gaming today…it’s not like I’m lacking for topics in any way.

But then EA goes and pulls a stunt like this with two of the biggest upcoming PC releases; games which I had been very much looking forward to.

I guess the appearance of security (and mind you, it is only for appearances - the probability that this copy protection will be broken by an enterprising hacker is pretty much 100%) is far more important than customer goodwill.

(BTW, anyone who suggest I should buy a 360 to play Mass Effect can go die in a fire)

I’m a PC gamer. Sure, I’ve owned consoles, and I still do, and I didn’t really have a gaming-ready PC for about 3 years, but it’s always been my platform of choice when it comes to playing the newest games.

That said, keeping up with PC news is getting harder and harder for me. This isn’t because it’s being drowned out or neglected (although one might be able to make such a case) but because almost every single article contains some throwaway line about how the PC gaming market is dying or already dead.

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