Monthly Archive for January, 2009

Pirates LOVE Spore
January 17th, 2009 by Theo

According to torrentfreak.com, Spore broke all records for a game being illegally downloaded, which they say is in part thanks to the DRM that came with the game.

Digital rights management or DRM is a term that refers to access control technologies used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, and copyright holders to limit usage of digital media or devices (cited from Wikipedia).  It was this limit of usage that Electronic Arts had placed on Spore, as it does with many of its games, which caused an uproar from gamers during the September release. 

Ernesto, torrentfreak’s founder and Editor-in-Chief explained, ” Traditionally, games can’t compete with the most pirated movies and TV-shows in actual download numbers, but Spore came very close this year.  Only 10 days after the game’s launch date, already half a million people had downloaded the game. During the months after that, another million people obtained a copy of the game via BitTorrent. According to our estimates, Spore was downloaded 1.7 million times since early September, a record breaking figure for a game. “

In an article written by Ernesto directly after the release and initial surge of 500K downloads he also pointed out, ” Most critics agree that Spore is a great game. However, the users aren’t too happy with the absurd DRM restrictions that come with the game. EA decided that people who buy a legitimate copy of the game, are only allowed to install it three times.  The idea behind DRM is that it will stop people from pirating the game, but in reality, it often has the opposite effect.  ¡­many commenters on various BitTorrent sites now legitimize downloading this game because the official copies include some heavy and intrusive DRM. “

An EA representative in an “Analyst Weigh-In”, said this about the download number, ” Stepping aside from the whole issue of DRM, people need to recognize that every BitTorrent download doesn’t represent a successful copy of a game, let alone a lost sale. We’ve talked to people that made several unsuccessful attempts to download the game and ended up with incomplete, slow, buggy or unusable code. In one case, a file identified as Spore contained a virus. To say that every download represents a successful copy of the game ¨C- or that there’s been more than 500K copies downloaded ¡ª that’s just not true. “

In closing Ernesto remarked, “Of course the record breaking number of Spore downloads can’t be attributed solely to DRM, but it sure helped. That’s not all, it also contributed to making Spore one of the worst rated games on Amazon. Out of the 2,219 reviews, 2,018 awarded the game with just 1 star, all because of the strict DRM.

DRM doesn’t stop people from pirating a game, on the contrary. It only hurts legitimate customers since the DRM is removed from the pirate version. The same is true for music, movies and books. Let’s hope EA and other media moguls will learn their lesson. “

Was this is a case where the DRM was too strict or could it be that enforcement only harms those who follow it?  Not doing what it is meant to, protection of the product from illegal use and replication.

What do you as consumers think about DRM?  Do you feel it is legitimate for product manufacturers to put limits on how often and in what way you can use the product you paid for, or that the purchase alone should give you sole ownership and discretion on the items use? 

http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-games-of-2008-081204/

A recent viral video highlighted by Youku Buzz shows the popularity of the iPhone bowling game. The video features a subway rider playing the bowling game while on the Beijing subway before losing his prized device out the door. Alas poor guy, expensive lesson.

While the iPhone is not legitimately sold in China yet, there are an estimated 1.5 to 2 million illegally cracked iPhones already in use in the Middle Kingdom. 

Somebody believes that the video is probably a spoof. And gizmodo said “In fact, it was about the Sony Ericsson F305 motion gaming phone. Apparently the F305 comes with some bowling game of its own. Does a viral video count as a fail if everybody thinks it’s advertising a different product? ” However, this person shows why you shouldn’t play Bowling for the mobile, while riding the subway.

I know that you have been waiting for a long time. But the news we heard yesterday shows that you have to wait a little bit longer. The date of the Darkfall European commercial release has been pushed back to February 25th, 2009.

For stress testing the servers and the final features of the game, thousands of players will be allowed to sample the game for free with the distribution of the release candidate client, on January 22nd.

The date of the Darkfall European commercial release has been pushed back to February 25th, 2009. A pre-order will be made available mid-February. The pre-orders will get priority for early access to the game. The pre-orders will also get priority for the game launch if we have to go to a staged release.

The Darkfall team also listed the reasons for the new release date follow:

• At this stage, everything is connected: Hundreds of elements need to come together. When one thing falls behind, everything else tends to follow.
• Demand for Darkfall at launch could be much higher than expected. If this is the case, we need a different process to better handle the demand.
• Darkfall’s partners (distribution, billing, account management, support, etc.) entered into the game at a late date and we needed more time than expected to integrate properly.
• We fell behind on a couple of weeks of beta testing progress and we need to make this time up. We need more playtesting data on several features we haven’t had much chance to test externally.
• We’ll use this extra time to implement updates based on tester feedback and also make some enhancements we were saving for after release.
• We want as many players as possible in the game before the launch and we haven’t had the chance to stress test our servers with live players yet.
• We underestimated the effect the holidays would have on our preparations. While we worked through them, the world around us seemed to stop.
• We don’t want to rush things more than needed. An extra month may not seem like a lot of time, but it’s enough to allow us to take care of any compounded delays.

For more information please check the official forum of Darkfall

Virtual Worlds Are “Soft Targets”
January 15th, 2009 by Theo

In an 80 page report released by ENISA (European Network and Information Security Agency) security risks surrounding Virtual Worlds and MMO’s were highlighted, including the claim that, “Virtual worlds are a soft target for thieves because they fall outside many of the measures taken to protect other online assets.”

ENISA, according to their website, is an Agency created to give EU states advice and recommendations, data analysis, help with awareness raising and cooperation, while attempting to follow the development of standards, promote risk assessment activities by the Member States and interoperable risk management routines and produce studies on these issues.

The list of contributors that make up this international panel include university professors and researchers, technology and online corporate representatives, recognizable names such as writer and MUD creator Richard Bartle, CCP (EvE Online) economist Eyjolfur Guðmundsson, NCSoft’s Adam Martin, and a host of individuals from across the industry.  The group explains, “This paper provides an overview of the key risks to users of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games and Virtual Worlds (MMO/VWs) and makes recommendations for actions and best-practices to address them. It is also aimed at raising awareness among political and corporate decision-makers of the legal and social implications of security issues in MMO/VWs.”

The report opens with statistics regarding a vast increase in virtual world related crime stating, “2007 was the year of online gaming fraud–with malicious programs that specifically target online games and virtual worlds increasing by 145% and the emergence of over 30,000 new programs aimed at stealing online game passwords. Such malware is invariably aimed at the theft of virtual property accumulated in a user’s account and its sale for real money.” Further, it goes on to profess the importance of recognizing the real value of virtual world economies saying, “With nearly 1 billion registered users of MMO/VWs (Massively Multiplayer Online Games and Virtual Worlds) and real-money sales of virtual objects estimated at nearly USD 2 billion worldwide at the end of 2007, this is a serious issue. The failure to recognise the importance of protecting the real-money value locked up in this grey-zone of the economy is leading to an exponential increase in attacks targeting online MMO/VWs.”

This introduction to the paper which they label the Executive Summary also describes, “Another important area of risk is the disclosure of private data. MMO/VWs are commonly perceived as being completely separate from the real lives of their users and therefore immune to privacy risks. In reality, representing yourself as an avatar is little different from using any other form of online persona. The inclusion of IRC and VOIP channels, along with the false sense of security created by MMO/VWs, leads to significantly increased disclosures of private data such as location and personal characteristics.”

Read more on the next page

Following this abstract ENISA lays out quite a laundry list of specific risks.  14 areas including such issues as; Avatar identity theft and identity fraud, MMO/VW privacy risks, Cheating, Harassment, Trading and financial attacks, Risks to intellectual property, Information security related risks for minors, MMO/VW spam, Attacks on user’s machine through game client, and Access and authorization problems in MMO/VWs.

Along with the detailed analysis of these security issues the group gave recommendations for the European Commission and National Governments, MMO/VW providers and towards Awareness raising and research. These risks along with the recommendations entail what the group felt are issues that deserve industry wide attention and discussion.

If you are interested in reading about the specific risks and recommendations the paper cites, here is the full PDF.

The MMO game industry of South Korean has ushered in another spring, many new titles in a variety of styles will be released in 2009.

Nexon recently released an official gameplay promo of Dragon Nest, a fantastic action MMORPG which is developed by Eyedentity Games and published in Korea by Nexon and in China by Shanda soon this year.

Dynamic action gameplay allows you to break free of “click and wait” combat. Allows convenient controls and engaging gameplay with combos and chain attacks. Dungeon maps change at random and monsters spawn indiscriminately, keeping players on their feet as they explore the new world of Lagendia. Players can engage in guild vs guild wars over territory and even morph into a dragon themself to defend their territory. Using an “Eternity Engine,” gameplay will be provided with premium graphics with low system requirements so thousands of players around the world can play simultaneously.

The gameplay video is full of game details and you will find the game is fun and fantastic. The date of global launch is not clear but a rumor says that the game will be coming out in October 2009.

Click here to download HD version.

Another Dragon Nest video made by fans is wonderful too.

Click here to download HD version.