Spore DRM

[kane_magus]

It's a bit sad that Spore is getting savagely raped in complaints over something that has little to do with the actual game itself.

Then again, given the big flap over Mass Effect not too long ago, by doing pretty much the exact same thing all over again with Spore, EA is bringing all this on themselves.

When are devs (or, more appropriately,

Comments

[owsf2000]

I consider the DRM to be part of the game itself in all cases. It's a "feature" like any other, just not one with the customer's best interest in mind. So draconian DRM is well worth raping a game's score in my books

[kane_magus]

The only thing I don't really agree with is the idea that the DRM is actually a part of the game itself. To me, it's just third-party malware that happens to share the same disc as the game. The game itself doesn't require the DRM to run, as evidenced by the fact that hackers are able to crack and remove the DRM and the game apparently still runs fine after that, for the most part. In any case, yeah, it's still worth raping the game's score, since it's not really feasible to separate the two in any meaningful way (without hacking, of course), but I still find it sad that the an otherwise potentially good game is being dragged into the toilet over shitty, pointless, ineffectual DRM.

But aside from that slight bit of semantics, I mostly agree otherwise.

[alessar]

Not too surprised, though I thought after the initial lashout at the DRM they backed off. Oh wait, originally it was going to require a weekly PhoneHome to keep running, wasn't it? But I thought they were going to at least allow 5 installs of it.

[kane_magus]

Three installs... five installs... any number of installs that is less than infinity is too few, in my book. I don't foresee reaching the three activation limit any time soon, but when I do, I'll likely just look for a crack somewhere rather than waste my time trying to contact EA to beg "just one more activation" out of them. You know, the thing that this DRM is supposed to try to prevent? Yeah, good job on that one, EA.

[alessar]

I'm just with Stardock on this... it's infringement on consumer rights. If I were married urban professional guy, I'd want an install on: my den pc, the kids pc downstairs, my work laptop, my home laptop, and I'd also want to be able to wipe the windows OS and re-install clean every 6-9 months.

The no revocation thing for installs is really unreasonable.

[korby]

I got my copy today. Not sure if I want to install now it since I'm leaning towards getting a new computer in the next few months.

[owsf2000]

Now now, that's just delaying the inevitable unlocking of the unadvertised bonus stage - the telephone call with EA customer support. (If it's like bioshock, I suspect it'll be by far the hardest stage in the game, but if you complete it you may receive a free activation.)

[kane_magus]

I hear that level's a real bitch. When I get that far I'll probably just input the super-awesome cheat code (i.e. "Visit Google. Search for 'Spore crack'") and get as many activations as I want, and just skip that level altogether. I know some people don't like to use cheats though as it supposedly takes all the fun out of the game.