Remember how, last month, I said that occasionally the EA Desktop app will refuse to launch The Sims 4 unless it can "see outside" every so often? Well, I finally did some digging and I found out what's going on there. It turns out that the EA App will periodically "forget" about software that the player has installed on their computer.
When EA Desktop is run while an internet connection is present, it will contact a number of different servers at EA HQ. Mostly, these are for telemetry, like user analytics and other corporate feudal stuff, but there's one that provides it with a token for every installed game and piece of official DLC. The token, called an "entitlement" in the logfile, has a hardcoded expiry date of about a month. If the player doesn't know any better and remains connected to the internet while they play, they won't notice any condition but normal... however, if the connection should be lost, EA Desktop can't renew the entitlement and the timer will start ticking down. If the EA App can't renew the entitlement, it expires, and EA Desktop forgets that it has any games installed.
Ever hear the phrase, "designed to fail"? That's this, big time. It doesn't matter how much the game cost, or how often you play the game, or how much DLC you have, or how much money you've sunk into lootboxes; after a month without internet, the entitlement expires and you're fucked. This compels the user into connecting to the internet every so often so EA and Google can have a great, long look at your computer before the entitlement server tells EA Desktop, "Yeah, okay, Player 4F7707BC has a couple games that you can run for them." There's the rather large and obvious hole this creates in your privacy, for sure; but I'm thinking about people who live in areas prone to unstable internet connectivity. Rural areas of the United States. Inner-city urban areas. People who fall behind in the bills and get their internet shut off. People with metred internet plans. These are all situations where EA's anti-trust "entitlement" DRM system will not work.
"Why not just go to the library for internet?" That's a good thought. Thank you for thinking about the benefits of public libraries. However, there are two issues with that. First, desktop computers cannot be easily taken to the library, and more people use desktop PCs for gaming than laptops, either because of cost, ability, availability, or a combination of these. Second, the library cannot always be guaranteed of stable internet either, especially for rural areas. The 56k internet at the library is not going to be any better than the 56k internet at home, and EA Desktop transmits a lot of data for a 1997-style dialup modem. It's going to take tens of minutes for anything to load, and at home, tens of minutes translates into tens of dollars spent on dial-up just for a giant, multinational corporation to authenticate a game that it's authenticated 50 times already.
EA Desktop is just one example. Valve Steam. Nintendo Switch Online. Google Play. Netflix. Disney+. Spotify. The loss of physical media has had an incalculable effect when it comes to the inaccessibility of media of all kinds. Not just games, but films, music, books, news, even weather forecasts. If you can't get on the internet, or you don't want to expose your computer to all those telemetry beacons, you can't use this. Nope. We're a huge, billionaire corporation with offices in 50 countries, and we say this is not yours to have.
Anyway, we've strayed from the point somewhat. It seems to me, in reference to The Sims 4 and EA Desktop, all that needs to be done is to fool the app into believing the entitlement is still valid. This can be done by either spoofing the server or changing the token itself so it doesn't expire. Just like YouTube's adblock killer, it's only a matter of time. Perhaps it's been done already and I just go to the wrong websites to find that information. I don't know.
--30 August 2023--