Darkspore Rendered Unplayable by Always-Online DRM

[Gahars]

Maxis' Spore managed to sell like hotcakes despite the generally negative reception from both critics and players (really, it was more of a panned-cake). Thanks to those strong sales, the game received several spin-offs, like 2011's Darkspore.

I know nothing about the game except that it has the word "dark" in it, so I'm just picturing the original Spore with added angst and brooding.

Well, it seems that things have gotten even darker for this Spore installment.

When Darkspore launched in 2011, it brought with it a grim harbinger of things to come: always-online DRM. Though EA claimed the mandatory server connection wasn't DRM and was just "part of the experience," the fact remained that the game couldn't be played without a steady connection. One of the many concerns with this "feature" was that players' ownership of the game was entirely dependent on the life of EA's servers. That fear was recently validated, as a series of bugs on EA's end have rendered the game unplayable, with no fixes planned.

Darkspore has been plagued by a number of bugs that prevented players from logging in, including one notable server issue that broke the game for over a week before a server-side fix allowed customers to play their game again. These bugs have been popping up ever since the original release, but the latest (Error 3) looks like it could be around for a lot longer than a week.

An announcement on the official forums seals the game's coffin: "Darkspore is no longer developed. It is for almost all intents & purposes an abandoned title ... Error 73003 has gone unfixed & remains an issue. Error Code 3 has arisen for the majority/all & remains an issue."

The Escapist

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Adding to EA's continuing goof, while the game was pulled from Steam, it is still being sold on Origin. That's right - they are continuing to sell a completely nonfunctional game. I can't imagine a whole lot of people were looking forward to purchasing Darkspore, but still - it's the principle of the matter.

This comes at a pretty important time in gaming, as many are debating the merits of always-online DRM programs. Opponents often say that they effectively cripple a game's longevity, only letting players enjoy their product until the servers inevitably fall, and this is a perfect demonstration. Darkspore has no chance of being preserved for later generations now; it has been expunged from gaming history.

It's still just Darkspore, but again, it's the principle that matters most here.

On the bright side, this does mean that Sim City 2013 won't last forever, either. Forget the principles, I can be happy with that.

 

[BORTZ]

Sound like EA Sporiolded another game.

 

[ilman]

Oh, EA, your stupidity never ceases to amaze me.

 

[shakirmoledina]

well written.

always-on... check out AC2 ratings on gamefaqs and you shall see how much it spoils a game. no matter what the benefits, all players love local storage over online storage for bigger games that are single player.

 

[Clydefrosch]

That's sad... I always wanted to play the spore games once I finally cash out money for a new pc.

 

[Deleted member 194275]

This thread give us two alerts:

- EA aways denied that their DRM polices would end up with a "dead" game, and a 2 years old game died.
- EA seem do not care about customer rights, that explicitly forbids selling of non functional products.

The most sad of all of this is the fact that EA is not the only who is doing theses kind of polices

 

[The Catboy]

That seriously sucks for everyone that paid for it. The is why the always online DRM is pure bullshit. You spend money on a game that won't always work and come a few years they might just shut down the servers, then you're really fucked.

 

[gamefan5]

Definetely the worst video game company ever. XD

 

[KingVamp]

So many games would/could have got effected like this, if this DRM was still on the X1.

 

[Subtle Demise]

On the bright side, this does mean that Sim City 2013 won't last forever, either. Forget the principles, I can be happy with that.

Actually, there is a server emulator available.

 

[Hop2089]

Ubisoft is getting just as bad, I recommend you not buy anything from that you know have always online drm, Two of these games are next gen, The Crew and The Division, avoid them like the plague.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Well shit. I don't give a shit about EA but now I'm afraid this might happen to WARP too. I bought that game

 

[Law]

Ubisoft is getting just as bad, I recommend you not buy anything from that you know have always online drm, Two of these games are next gen, The Crew and The Division, avoid them like the plague.

Isn't The Division a co-op MMO style game? One could argue they're adding online functionality as reasoning to make it always online, but it doesn't seem to be the kind of game you would play offline anyway.

Ubisoft is a mixed bag, all I can really say in their defense is Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon (and the original Far Cry 3 which owned bones anyway)

 

[Taleweaver]

Erm...how can they manage to have bugs in a game 2 years after release?

No, don't answer it. This is one of them rhetorical questions.


Thought about it? Good. So...guys: let's not keep saying they're stupid, okay? We should know better at this point. If it really was stupidity, they would have rolled back to a previous, working version at this point.

We all know the alternative: it's a business model. As gamers, we don't like the model. We call it evil (and on our viewpoint, it certainly is). But it's exactly that. They know that the more games are out there, the more choice gamers will have (and thus less incentive to buy newer ones). With this model, they can eliminate old games, which indirectly ensures that people will continue purchasing new games.

 

[Rydian]

Navigating source after source to find the original, it seems that the quote comes from... the actual forums, where a moderator of the forums themselves actually made a forum-wide announcement on the issue.

So yeah, you know things are dire when somebody feels the need to do something like this.

 

[chartube12]

I like the new sim city, despite the minor bugs which have not effected me in any major way. It is going to suck to not be able to play it once the servers get taken down.

 

[Rayder]

And people wonder why I've decided not to bother with "new" games.

 

[KingVamp]

And people wonder why I've decided not to bother with "new" games.

Oh please. It is not like all games are like this.

 

[Rayder]

Maybe all games aren't like this, but how will you know until it happens?

My new plan for ANY game I might buy is to see if there is a crack to bypass the online crap BEFORE I buy it. If not, then no buy. I don't play games online and don't feel I should have to log in to anywhere to play singleplayer. I'm also now old enough to realize that NO game is a must-play, no game is that important that I should have to report my playtime to anyone.

 

[Gahars]

Maybe all games aren't like this, but how will you know until it happens?

Step 1) Just check if the game has always-online DRM first

It's pretty simple, actually.