Ok, so I know this is not technically a 'video game' category of postage, but there isn't one, so:

What exactly is this restrictive software that EA's been putting in their newer games?? I can't quite figure out what it's supposed to do.
Limit your installations?? *confusion*

I'm only asking because I'm kind of excited about the Sims 3, but I don't want to buy it if there's something "wrong" with it.

Thanks! :)

No clue, not a gamer, sorry. Fear and Loathing can prolly help you though.

It is suppose to restrict you to 5 min. playing per day so you have time to do your homework and dont flunk school. What you think of that, lol?

Sounds like some kind of DRM, maybe it's a way to stop people from stealing the game.

I think my 3.6 GPA will contest to the fact that, in addition to enjoying video games, I also have priorities and set them accordingly.

lol.

It most recently got attention with the release of the game Spore. It is a digital rights management system. It is supposed to help prevent piracy of their games (rather ineffectively). It does so by limiting the number of times you can install the game. If you only plan to install the game on one machine and are not likely to be reinstalling it frequently you may not have a problem with it, but many people who bought the original release of Spore did have trouble with it, so much so that EA released a second version where they tweaked the drm.

Thanks!

Dupes.

I re-image the drive every time I load a game. Wouldn't do a thing to limit me.

It depends on what game it is. Some has some weird protection, that checks online when you start the game to validate, others have other kinds of protection. You shouldn't be afraid about this, if you bought a real copy (not pirate) it will work fine.

Yay! Thank you!

Unless the game creates a unique ID from the Mac Address, Mainboard Model, CPUID amount of RAM etc etc etc.

Then... when you go online your computers spec has changed enough for them to consider it a new computer and you drop an install, or the game b0rks itself to force you to re-install.

Ta,

Chris.

DRM's that limit installs are idiotic.

Actually you often have less trouble with the pirated one's. They go through and remove or break stupid drm sh^t.