Modding single player Mass Effect 3 bans you from Origin

[Darknacht]

Modding falls under fair use
so provided it dose not also remove IP protection your just fine
its not even a breech of the EULA

How? I would love it if it did but I've never seen anyone successfully argue it.

Spoiler: Fair Use

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include?
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

I don't see how this applies.

 

[TotalerKrieger]

Gaming is going to shit these days. Everything that was once great about the medium is slowly being destroyed by corporate greed. The fact that there are people here who are actually defending this bullshit is...really fucking depressing.

The modding community has created some top-quality work over the years which has vastly extended the life of many tiltes. I'm still playing BF2 these days as the content produced by the Forgotten Hope and Project Reality teams is vastly superior to many commercial releases. Why are people content to see this gaming tradition be phased out in favour of overpriced shovelwave and manipulative DLC? I don't get it.

My suggestion would be to ignore EA's threats and ditch Origin entirely. There are plenty of No-CD cracks which allow one to play a legally purchased game free of any Origin-related restrictions. Maybe someone could mod a proper ending to ME3...

 

[SajuukKhar]

Gaming is going to shit these days. Everything that was once great about the medium is slowly being destroyed by corporate greed. The fact that there are people here who are actually defending this bullshit is...really fucking depressing.

The modding community has created some top-quality work over the years which has vastly extended the life of many tiltes. I'm still playing BF2 these days as the content produced by the Forgotten Hope and Project Reality teams is vastly superior to many commercial releases. Why are people content to see this gaming tradition be phased out in favour of overpriced shovelwave and manipulative DLC? I don't get it.

My suggestion would be to ignore EA's threats and ditch Origin entirely. There are plenty of No-CD cracks which allow one to play a legally purchased game free of any Origin-related restrictions. Maybe someone could mod a proper ending to ME3...

This "shit" has been around for 2 decades, probably more.

If by "these days" you mean "these last two+ decades" then your argument makes sense, if not then it doesn't.

People treat this like its something new, like it isn't something we have had to suffer through for YEARS upon YEARS now.

also a crack that removes origin is in violation of the EULA

 

[Darknacht]

My suggestion would be to ignore EA's threats and ditch Origin entirely. There are plenty of No-CD cracks which allow one to play a legally purchased game free of any Origin-related restrictions. Maybe someone could mod a proper ending to ME3...

Except that is now an illegal copy of the game. I agree that this is a very big problem and the only solution is to ether not buy the game or illegally mod it and that is not a good situation for the customers. EA is proving once again why an illegal copy of their game is better than the legal one.

Modding falls under fair use
so provided it dose not also remove IP protection your just fine
its not even a breech of the EULA

How? I would love it if it did but I've never seen anyone successfully argue it.

it simply has to pass the balancing test
.....
So yea modding is A-ok

Except the fair use covers replicating copyrighted material not modifying licensed material.

 

[direkiller]

Modding falls under fair use
so provided it dose not also remove IP protection your just fine
its not even a breech of the EULA

How? I would love it if it did but I've never seen anyone successfully argue it.

it simply has to pass the balancing test

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

provided the mod is non-profit and simply adds to the work it passes
It also covers teachers who photocopy something to pass around the class

2.the nature of the copyrighted work;
This simply has to do with public domain stuff and right to publish its more for books. As fair use also covers backup and archiving.


3.the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole;
if it simply adds to an existing work it passes

4.the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
Dose it adversely effect the sales?(again as fair use also covers archiving this is more for dvd burners)


So yea modding is A-ok

 

[RatRace123]

Wait, really? They're actually punishing people for modding the game?

Last I checked, most Mass Effect mods are aesthetic, that affects no one except the person who installs the mod.

If it was modding multiplayer, yeah I could see that. But for singleplayer, that's just ridiculous.

 

[TotalerKrieger]

This "shit" has been around for 2 decades, probably more.

If by "these days" you mean "these last two+ decades" then your argument makes sense, if not then it doesn't.

People treat this like its something new, like it isn't something we have had to suffer through for YEARS upon YEARS now.

also a crack that removes origin is in violation of the EULA

Sorry, but this crackdown on modding has only appeared in the last 5 years or so. I'm sure there were some developers who prohibited such practices but that was never the norm. A few years ago it was commonplace for devs to release a SDK upon release, these days games are sealed off tighter than a bank vault. Look at the Battlefield series, BF1942 (2002): Forgotten Hope, Eve of Destruction, Desert Combat. Battlefield 2 (2009): Forgotten Hope 2 and Project Reality. Battlefield 3 (2011): NO SDK! NO MODS ALLOWED!

Why should I care if I violate the EULA? I payed for the game, as far as I am concerned I have no further moral obligations to EA. Unless they send a SWAT team to my house, I will break their silly agreement as I see fit.

 

[Atmos Duality]

While that was an egregiously stupid bit of legal finagling when it took place, (and a case that I think creates an extremely dangerous precedent) it applies to game code being actively accessed and transferred to and from the Blizzard servers. They do have claim to that. Also, it was in regards to a specific piece of code. That of the bot written by MDY.

I know what the case said. But the point to take from this is that even code onto your hard drive or loaded into RAM is claimed; which includes the client program. Since Mass Effect 3 is attached to Origin (a service), it's covered in the same way; single player and everything.

The proof is all there in the court record. It's a terrifying precedent for consumers; one that I suspect caused Ubisoft to reverse their decision to discontinue with their Always-On DRM, as the conclusion of case coincides with its reinstatement.

This is exactly why I hate Always-On DRM so much and why I have zero interest in Diablo 3.

Likewise, I too have no more interest in Diablo 3, or any future Blizzard products.
The Always Online DRM is completely unnecessary and impractical for single player games.
At absolute best, it's presence is negligible. At worst, it can render the game unplayable if you just have intermittent lag (as I do through my shitty ISP).

 

[SajuukKhar]

Sorry, but this crackdown on modding has only appeared in the last 5 years or so. I'm sure there were some developers who prohibited such practices but that was never the norm. A few years ago it was commonplace for devs to release SDK kits upon release, these days games are sealed off tighter than a bank vault. Look at the Battlefield series, BF1942 (2002): Forgotten Hope, Eve of Destruction, Desert Combat. Battlefield 2 (2009): Forgotten Hope 2 and Project Reality. Battlefield 3 (2012): NO SDK! NO MODS ALLOWED!

Why should I care if I violate the EULA? I payed for the game, as far as I am concerned I have no further moral obligations to EA. Unless they send a SWAT team to my house, I will break their silly agreement as I see fit.

I wasn't talking about a "crackdown on modding", which I find the notion of absurd because I have seen more modable games in the past few years then I did 10-12 years ago, I was talking about the EULAs being able to control nearly everything.
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Also that's a very nice attitude you have there, note the sarcasm.

It's that very same kind of attitude as to why we have EULAs and DRM as they are today.

That kind of "I can do whatever the fuck I want nana nana boo boo publishers" is only helping EA's justification for the use of this crap.

Way to go for being one of the people who not only caused the problem but are perpetuating it.

 

[Wintermoot]

Sorry is single player that hard for you?

Do you need someone to hold your hand or make you invincible?

If you need to mod the game in anyway, I laugh at you.

It's easy enough.

modding goes farther then that it also includes new weapons,new mission,new equipment and probably free HD packs made by the community.
OT
another reason for me to boycott EA I BOUGHT the game files,they are on MY computer and if I want to edit them or modify them that,s my own choice not the choice of the company that produced them

I totally agree with you, although according to the EULA, no you didn't buy the game files. You bought the right to use them.

but who reads those things anyway? also they pull shit like this and think it,s strange people pirate?

 

[Dreadman75]

I've read this whole thread so far and right now I just have one question:

Can the publisher/developer/whoever actually look onto your hard drive, and find any files that have been modified. It seems to me that if you merely mod files that affect the SP experience then no one can actually find out unless they look on your hard drive which would be a colossal breach of privacy, and probably illegal.

If that is the case thanks to another provision in an EULA then why the hell has no one raised hell about something like that? (If this isn't the case disregard this question)

Otherwise, who really cares? From what I saw on the original thread that first brought this issue up on the Bioware forums, two people from Bioware had two conflicting posts regarding this same issue. So again: Who cares?

 

[Saulkar]

EA can fuck all the way off with this.

I'll do what I want with the games I PURCHASED.

fixed that for ya

Fixed the typo you failed to fix.

HINT: It was the letter "D" after purchase.

My pro consumerism is showing.

Yeah no.

My statement refers to the present and the future.(not the past. I did not buy ME3) But the whole trying to correct my grammar thing was cute. Misguided but cute.

Er... what?! Who are you referring to as misguided? SajuukKhar was an asshat and modified your statement "I'll do what I want with the games I PURCHASE" and replaced it with something along the lines of "I'll do what I want with the license for a game I PURCHASE".

In your defense I made a backhanded reply to SajuukKhar, intentionally misunderstanding his/her rewording of your comment to fit his/her own image of how ownership of a video game should be properly worded and viewed as an attempt to fix a spelling error as is common when fixing comments (there is of course no spelling error, I just did an ass pull that was syntax correct (grammatically correct) but on the flip side context incorrect (past tense when you were in fact referring to past and future purchases)).

Though on the other hand from you mentioning that the comment was cute but misguided (which I still do not know if you are referring to me), I vaguely infered that you understood the nature of it. If that is the case I am not aware as to how this was misguided and if so, from an objective or subjective standpoint.

If you are in fact commenting about the line "My pro consumerism is showing". It is a meaningless statement in reference to how another escapist user commented that another user's (may or may not be SajuukKhar) "armchair lawyer(ism?) is showing", nothing more.

Call me oblivious because I cannot infer shit from a staggered sequence of comments, also I detest being called or having my endeavors labeled as misguided, even in jest, no offense to you of course.

 

[TotalerKrieger]

I wasn't talking about a "crackdown on modding", which I find the notion of absurd because I have seen more modable games in the past few years then I did 10-12 years ago, I was talking about the EULAs being able to control everything.

That's a very nice attitude you have there, note the sarcasm.

It's that very same kinda of attitude as to why we HAVE EULAs and moding crackdown today. Way to go for being one of the people who not only caused the problem but are perpetuating it.

Skyrim is the only AAA title released within the last year that gave players a SDK. The only one that comes to my mind anyways. It is a growing trend among devs to not support or even oppose modding.

How exactly can EA or any publisher determine if a user is in violation of the EULA anyways? Can they secretly scan my HDD for a NO-CD crack? I've never intalled their Origin spyware so I really doubt it.

Increasingly restrictive EULAs and a modding crackdown has nothing to do with illict gamer behaviour. It is all about increasing revenues, gaming is big business now and these fatcats are trying to squeeze every red cent out of the consumer. Unfortunately, gamers are letting them get away with it too.

 

[Atmos Duality]

I do believe that companies should be expected to put a link to the EULA somewhere on the box in a similar way that Steam's EULA is given a link to go to on the box of most Steam required games.

That isn't an unreasonable demand. It'd be nice if we had some actual say in what the terms of usage are, but nobody has time to discuss what is essentially a pittance contract.

Still, the fact that software has a EULA is well known and one should be expected to look up a games EULA before buying it regardless if the box told them to or not. In the modern day of the internet it isn't unreasonable to expect people to do some research into the product they are buying.

Expectation =/= guarantee. That's the clincher.
It's only fair to remain objective where possible; if we allow assumptions to take precedent, we might as well eliminate Reasonable Doubt.

 

[NiPah]

Making money off of the backs of real artists/creators is the lowest form of 'shit head'.

Stop the IP theft.

Modding is theft if you don't have permission/open engine.

If modding is theft, theft is just fine with me. IP theft was old news when Marcel Duchamp signed his name to a toilet, if you go around crying to stop IP theft via modding I'm going to cry bullshit.

Look up the painting L.H.O.O.Q., a painting that sold for $104,500, you're crying foul on someone making a modification to a game when the art community praises someone adding a mustache to a painting.

So yeah absolute bullshit, modders don't even get money for the most part, but you're ready to kill the creative spirit all in the name of false morals. I say keep up the good work modders, your progressive modifications have brought joy to many.

 

[Something Amyss]

but who reads those things anyway? also they pull shit like this and think it,s strange people pirate?

If you agree to something you don't read, you get what you deserve. And people were pirating before companies pulled "shit like this," so trying to correlate it is ridiculous.

 

[Something Amyss]

Look up the painting L.H.O.O.Q., a painting that sold for $104,500, you're crying foul on someone making a modification to a game when the art community praises someone adding a mustache to a painting.

If Da Vinci doesn't like it, he can sue.

Oh, right.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Skyrim is the only AAA title released within the last year that gave players an SDK. The only one that comes to my mind anyways.

How exactly can EA or any publisher determine if a user is in violation of the EULA? Can they secretly scan my HDD for a NO-CD crack? I've never intalled their Origin spyware so I really doubt it.

Increasingly restrictive EULAs and a modding crackdown has nothing to do with illict gamer behaviour. It is all about increasing revenues, gaming is big business now and these fatcats are trying to squeeze every red cent out of the consumer. Unfortunately, gamers are letting them get away with it too.

Spyware is a type of malware (malicious software) installed on computers that collects information about users without their knowledge. The presence of spyware is typically hidden from the user and can be difficult to detect. Spyware is often secretly installed on a user's personal computer without their knowledge.

Origin
-Does not collect knowledge without the users knowledge
-Origin's presence and information gathering is not hidden or difficult to detect

Origin =/= spyware. Please learn the word you use before you use them.
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If you believe restrictive EULAs and this fictional "mod crackdown" have absolutely nothing to do with illicit gaming behavior then you are fooling yourself, while it may not be the primary reason it is part of the reason.

Also gaming has ALWAYS been about the money, always. the only difference is now they have more way to bleed you. Much like EULAs we are only now having to suffer through actions that have been building up over 20 years.
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Minecraft lets you mod, Portal 2 is getting mod tools soon, Rage has mod tools, there is Skyrim ofc, I would not be surprised if both DOTA 2 and CS:GO have mod tools, there is the never ending series of Sims 3 mods, the civilization game genre is still modded like mad etc. etc. Modding is far from being cracked down as you imply.

 

[DANEgerous]

Uhh were is the problem in this?

-The game belongs to EA/Bioware
-They have the right to say no modding SP


Again, where is the problem?

I suppose that it voids access to quite a few games for instance you need Origin to play SWToR and that you did not mod an online part of the game yet got banned from an online service.

I mean i get the point that they have the right but it sound like shitty business ethics, still if we handle this as bad as the ME3 ending it get hard to blame EA.