Will DRM kill Spore?

[w1z4rd]

Will Wright’s long awaited sim game Spore seems to have become the focus of a anti-DRM Internet flash mob who seem determined to sink the game on Amazon.com by dishing out poor ratings.

As things stand right now, the Amazon.com review page for Spore is pretty grim reading for any EA executives keeping an eye on how the game has been received. Out of 135 reviews currently posted to the site, 116 rate the game at 1 star (the lowest rating on Amazon.com), with 6 reviews giving the game 2 stars, another 6 giving it 4 stars and 7 giving it the full 5 stars (however, two of these reviews are from 2006 - dating back to when the game was announced). The average rating now stands at 1.5 stars.

The focus of the negative review campaign is the DRM mechanism that the game employs. I’ve not bought the game but from what I gather Spore requires online activation and after three activations you have to phone EA and attempt to get activations added (technical note - the system in use is called SecuROM PA). The idea is that this mechanism, combined with the requirement to have the disc in the drive while playing the game (technical note - SecuROM v7), makes it difficult to pirate the game. Ironically, the game was leaked several days before the official released date and a quick search seems to indicate that pirated copies, along with mechanisms for bypassing the copy protection mechanisms, are freely available on the Internet. So it seems that the copy protection schemes only inconveniences legitimate customers.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2558

Wow, 3 installs and then you gotta phone. How cruddy is this install? Its like Vista

 

[Mephisto_Helix]

Bioshock suffered the same fate .......... after enough pressure (read poor sales) they lifted the DRM kark.

 

[semiautomatix]

Ironically, the game was leaked several days before the official released date and a quick search seems to indicate that pirated copies, along with mechanisms for bypassing the copy protection mechanisms, are freely available on the Internet. So it seems that the copy protection schemes only inconveniences legitimate customers.

Why do these studios persist? They know their schemes will be foiled in a matter of days! Drop the DRM, accept the piracy (it will never go away) and attract larger crowds of legitimate customers. :/

 

[TelkomUseless]

Why do these studios persist? They know their schemes will be foiled in a matter of days! Drop the DRM, accept the piracy (it will never go away) and attract larger crowds of legitimate customers. :/

QFT!!

 

[oober]

Spore is boring played it for about 3 hours and uninstalled it. Its for small kiddies... or the gf.

 

[Threepwood]

Why do these studios persist? They know their schemes will be foiled in a matter of days! Drop the DRM, accept the piracy (it will never go away) and attract larger crowds of legitimate customers. :/

Melchett: So you see, young Blackadder didn't die horribly in vain after all.

George: If he did die, Sir.

Melchett: That's the spirit, George. If nothing else works, then a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.

They could spend more money on production probably and make a better game if they didn't flush budget away on cr4p like SecuROM methinks.

Like the article said, even before the game was released it was already pirated on the net. A big fat joke is copy protection.

 

[stefan9]

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2558

Wow, 3 installs and then you gotta phone. How cruddy is this install? Its like Vista

No its much much worse. With vista or xp you phone Microsoft and you will be reactivated in 5 minutes. You phone EA and its a massive struggle to get new activations. Guys for Mass Effect took a week and in some cases more to get new activations.

Its DRM is so affecting customers in a bad way. The Guys at BioWare have even started a thread on their forums looking for suggestions for alternative methods.