ArsGeek

Fed up with DRM, high costs, the same old same old and system requirements that are way to high? Go old school with GOG.com!

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard of Good Old Games (GOG.com).  I've been hearing a lot about it as well so I decided to finally check it out and what I discovered was a little slice of gamer heaven. Let's start with some of the problems of modern gaming - issues that I have at least, maybe you'll agree with some of them.  First of before anything else is the state of the software.  Buggy releases which feel like nothing more than late beta stage games, crippled with DRM and support that consists of the user doing all of the footwork.

Continue reading...

Spore patch released – DRM unchanged

EA released the first Spore patch today (PC only, Mac users will have to check back).  You can grab it here. Here's what it does (details in the full post), and the official site.

Continue reading...

How EA and Spore are causing piracy, the DasmX86Dll issues, removing SecuRom and some great DRM free alternatives

Speaking of SecuRom - I'm not quite sure why software companies continue to insist that DRM of this type (or any type) is worth it.  I wonder how much money EA stuck into this?  The game was available on the torrents before it's official launch and yet here's EA and far to many other companies shoveling money down the DRM hole. And it's doubly a problem because of their refusal to see this as an issue.  If the game sells well, EA says "See! DRM isn't that big a deal, people don't care and we're still selling games."  If the game's sales are hurt by DRM they fall back on "Pirates are killing our bottom line!"  Seriously?  Games will get pirated, sure.  But you're much more likely to sell copies if they're not crippled in the first place by software that does nothing to stop the pirates and everything to annoy legitimate users.

Continue reading...

My Spore creations – let me show you them

Yes, everyone and their brother's sisters's uncle are playing, reviewing and yawping about the DRM (which does suck) in Spore. I've been busy making things though.  You can check them out to the right ----> down there somewhere or look in this post for a flash widget which sometimes crashes my browser in Ubuntu (sigh).

Continue reading...