Amazon users slam Spore for DRM

by Ross Miller { Sep 8th 2008 at 12:40PM }

The Digital Rights Madness around Spore has started an internet war. After demonstrating their power earlier this year with the "Mass Effect Sex-box" author, a gang of ruthless Amazon reviewers have struck Spore (and to a lesser extent the Galactic Edition) down to a paltry 1.5 out of 5 stars. Here's what those Negative Nancies are saying:

Dumbed down experience and draconian DRM
DRM is a show stopper
Spore: I Refuse to Buy Until DRM is Patched Out
No Way, No How, No DRM
drm makes me a sad panda
$49.99 too much for game rental

Notice a trend here? The Spore DRM, so far as we know, works exactly like Mass Effect's system: You have 3 activations for installation, and after that you will reportedly have to call EA for more (and uninstalls won't work to raise that number). Of course, those reviews haven't stopped Spore from being #1 in video game sales on Amazon (Galactic Edition at #12), and we doubt any negative reviews will. As Will Wright aptly told MTV Multiplayer, "We would rather have the Metacritic and sales of Sims 2 than the Metacritic and sales of Half-Life."

Tags: drm, ea, electronic-arts, maxis, spore

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)

mr mobius @ Sep 8th 2008 12:43PM

Will is annoy the people who buy the game legitly?

Will it stop the pirates from pirating the game?

One has the answer yes, one has the answer no. Decide which goes where.

Tiptup300 @ Sep 8th 2008 2:19PM

I legally bought the game and i have to say, I didn't notice really any drm having an effect on the game or the install process, unlike Crysis. Crysis makes my dvd drive literally squeal, just google "crysis dvd drive noise", the secrum causes it. Other than that Spore is pretty sweet, up till the part with the cities....

Ghen @ Sep 8th 2008 3:23PM

I've had spore downloaded and installed for about 2 days now. (I think it was saturday, could have been friday)

DRM didn't stop me. never does, never will.

Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Sep 8th 2008 5:57PM

You know... I still have a copy of Alpha Centauri (and AC: Alien Crossfire).

I lost count of installations I did (I even played it under Linux in Wine) and I never ever in the past decade I had to call somebody and beg to allow me to install and play it.

I guess, EA doesn't position Spore as a game which would remain in market for a long time. Since presence of DRM automatically means that sooner or later supporting the activations would become a nuisance and all willing to replay the game five years later might stumble to the surprise that game doesn't run anymore since EA doesn't support it anymore. (Or probably (in best case) EA would bankrupt, for example.)

I own two discs of Alpha Centauri - but you will never own a disc of Spore. You only renting the game. And you allowed to use it as long as EA would deem that profitable.

jay @ Sep 8th 2008 6:24PM

DRM most likely won't affect you right now, unless you happened to be one of those individuals who have trouble activating it or have hardware/software that's incompatible with the copy protection scheme.

You have to remember that it's more of the matter of principle. Imagine that you have to be strip-searched every time you walk out of Best Buy. Sure, you won't lose anything unless you stole something, but you'll still feel violated.

bobartig @ Sep 8th 2008 7:39PM

@Ihar: You could take the exact same situation, and make a much stronger argument that Spore is a game that EA would like to cultivate and support forever, based on its draconian DRM requirements.

DRM sucks, but you're jumping to a conclusion based upon supposition upon supposition. You see DRM as a way to "win" against the customer in some sort of make-believe war of attrition.

I see [any particular DRM scheme] as an unending contract between the publisher and customer, in that the publisher will ALWAYS have to provide a means of letting legitimate customers install the game, or deactivate the DRM scheme at some point.

The "DRM will eventually kill your gamez!" argument is very popular "internet argument", but is there any precedence for this? I'm not a fan of DRM, but FUD is FUD.

bigsofty @ Sep 8th 2008 9:15PM

LOL, at SOME POINT your all gonna have to call EA and beg them to allow you to play your own game... its inevitable over time...

"

First of all, the game incorporates a draconian DRM system that requires you to activate over the internet, and limits you to a grand total of 3 activations. If you reach that limit, then you'll have to call EA in order to add one extra activation. That's not as simple as it sounds, since when you reach that point EA will assume that you, the paying customer, are a filthy pirating thief. You will need to provide proof of purchase, reasons why the limit was reached, etc, etc (it has all happened before with another recent EA product, Mass Effect). EA, of course, is not obligated to grant you that extra activation or even provide that service. In a couple of years they might very well even shut down the general activation servers, because "it's not financially feasible" to keep them running. What you will be left with is a nice, colorful $50 coaster. And you will be required to pay for another copy/license if you want to continue playing.

This basically means that you are actually RENTING the game, instead of owning it. The game WILL stop to function in the future. That's inevitable, because even if EA keeps the activation servers going, there IS going to be a time when EA will simply cease to exist because of financial issues or federal laws (like most business eventually do).

"

EA... reap now what you have sown...

ThornedVenom (Harley Quinn Defense Force) @ Sep 8th 2008 10:01PM

Dude, today there was Spore on my school server. The point is that pirates are fucking fast and that no amount of DRM is going to stop them. On the other hand, any amount of DRM is going to sway people away from purchase.

OpNickC @ Sep 8th 2008 11:53PM

"The "DRM will eventually kill your gamez!" argument is very popular "internet argument", but is there any precedence for this?"

Microsoft Music service
Yahoo Music service
Any online EA game more than two years old.

Once EA shuts down the authentication server (which WILL happen, as it has for other DRM systems), you're SOL.

I'm not spending $50 on that.

BananaBoat @ Sep 9th 2008 12:53AM

I won't buy another EA game until Securom is dumped. I've made that pretty clear in the past. Securom is basically a rootkit, designed to exist on your computer even after you've uninstalled the game that it came with. Deleting it is impossible without the proper programs, which require the end user to type exotic commands into Dos, just so that you can delete the Securom registry entries and application data folder (they both contain null characters). It can render your DVD burner useless, it can completely screw up your image mounting software (daemon tools etc, which has very useful and legal uses) all without your approval. On top of all of that, it tries to force the user into a sales model that is essentially a rental instead of an outright purchase. It will be a cold day in hell before I rent a game for 50 dollars from EA or from anyone else.

I don't advocate piracy (I've made that clear in the past) but I think it's pretty telling that not only was the DRM (securom) cracked before this game ever hit the American market, but a full version was up early as well thanks to an Aussie store breaking the release date. So not only did the pirates get to play the game early, but they don't have to put up with Securom. The only setback? They have to manually import creatures, instead of getting them off of EA's download manager. That process takes all of about five minutes. So they get it early, they get it without hassle, and there is no downside. What do paying customers get? They have to wait a few extra days, so that they can rent a game for 50 dollars, have Securom on their computer (which forces your computer into giving it Administrator rights, even if you aren't running as Administrator...guess what other type of program does that) and just generally get thrown under the bus.

A friend of mine (a pre-ordering, paying customer) let me play it on his computer for hours. Basically I beat the game, legally, without having to spend a cent on it. It makes me wonder how long it will be until some company tries to put in a "For your use only" clause into a EULA, and what steps they could possibly take towards enforcing it.

I really hope that the sales will be terrible, so that they'll get the message, but all signs (especially it being #1 on Amazon despite the reviews) point to the sales being fantastic.

Wah-hah-ha! @ Sep 8th 2008 12:45PM

I didn't know Hillary wanted to buy Spore

j.howlett @ Sep 8th 2008 1:14PM

the no way, no how, no drm cracked me up

kojo87 @ Sep 8th 2008 12:45PM

"we would rather have the Metacritic and sales of Sims 2 than the Metacritic and sales of Half-Life."

so you'd rather make shovelware that sells a bazillion copies than make a game that will go down as one of the best of all time and sell less? i guess EA was a logical choice of publisher then.

kojo87 @ Sep 8th 2008 12:48PM

just to clarify i did buy Spore and i like the game. its just depressing to hear someone like Will Wright say something like that. i thought he was all about the creativity and not the money. so much for that...

MatsJn @ Sep 8th 2008 1:02PM

How old is that quote BTW?

Last time I checked Half-life's Meta was lower than The Sims 2.

Oh and I would much more like to make a game that redefines an entire genre rather than keep treading old ground.

ScottG13 @ Sep 8th 2008 1:02PM

Sorry, but I would too and I love great games. Money talks, baby. Especially at the level of The Sims franchise.

Taco_Hell @ Sep 8th 2008 1:02PM

Actually Kojo, if you read the interview, he's basically saying he would rather have a great game with great sales rather than an amazing sale with ok sales. Basiclly, he wanted the best of both worlds.

Nirolak @ Sep 8th 2008 1:15PM

Half-life sold 8 million copies back in 1998 though, if those are considering only "ok" sales, the almost every million plus seller is an utter failure.

I mean, what benchmark is he working to exactly for amazing sales? 20 Million? 100 Million?

Personally, when a game will make a ton of money regardless, I had hoped he would have the character to make sure it was the best game it can be, not make it worse just so it sells a little more.

Poisoned Al @ Sep 8th 2008 1:19PM

Would I like to be known for being a good artist, or a truck full of money?

Hummm, that's toughy!

bobartig @ Sep 8th 2008 2:04PM

@Nirolak: It's the last one. 100M. That's what Sims2 did, and that's the kind of goal that's set for Spore. You can't get a game like Spore made at all unless you can demonstrate to the big wigs "Here's how we'll appeal to the masses. Here's how we'll sell another 100M".

Plus, "best" is pretty much subjective. The 'best' game is the one that appeals to the most people, makes the most happiness, and generates enough revenue to continue to justify the hoards of resources that a Will Wright game demands. There are people that have been working on Spore for over a decade, writing simulations and prototypes, figuring out what would be possible with computing resources in the year 2006-7-8 when the game would finally come out. That kind of wild R&D doesn't pay for itself. Comparing this to Half-Life, although a terrific franchise (and the only one that gives me motion sickness, don't rightly know why) is inappropriate. They are different ball games, different eras, different goals.

Whether all this effort will pan out in the end has yet to be seen, but the goal was not "half life", it was to anchor a new empire that would generate 9-digit sales

Vcize @ Sep 8th 2008 2:18PM

Sims 2 sold 100 million copies? Holy shit. I swear I've never met anyone that owns, or probably that has even played that game. Who the hell is buying it?

Haggard @ Sep 8th 2008 2:36PM

@MatsJn

Was the last time you checked when you were high?

Half-Life - 96%
Half-Life 2 - 96%

The Sims 2 - 90%, add-on packs tend to hover around 75% for good ones, as low as 40% for bad ones.

MatsJn @ Sep 8th 2008 3:07PM

I don't get high on drugs, I get high on life!

I must have read the text for the PC version but read the score for the PS2 version, my bad.

The Purveyor of Justice @ Sep 8th 2008 3:23PM

Sorry, Sims 2 sold 13 million copies; 100M is a little bit of an exaggeration.

Frank Thompson @ Sep 8th 2008 3:45PM

actually Will is talking about getting as many people as possible to enjoy and appreciate the game, not appeasing critics and not fulfilling sales goals

offday @ Sep 8th 2008 8:08PM

I agree. This statement makes Will Wright a complete dumbass. It's pretty obvious where his priorities are.

Averna @ Sep 12th 2008 9:59PM

The sims is a lot of people's 'dirty little secret'

I hide my copy is a porn dvd case.

Lone Starr @ Sep 8th 2008 12:46PM

A good company learns from its mistakes....

WorMzy @ Sep 8th 2008 4:04PM

Whilst EA ignore them.

Jeff @ Sep 8th 2008 12:51PM

I have spore, and it honestly sucks. The Creature Creator encompasses everything good about it... the rest of it is just bad versions of good games.

AwesomeTown @ Sep 8th 2008 1:00PM

Well I don't believe DRM should affect a person's review of the game itself, it is definitely a factor for purchasing. And it is for me, a person who would go out and buy it right now if it wasn't there. EA just doesn't get it. It only hurts those who would actually pay for it. It will be pirated either way.

knighty (GT: ZeraKnight) @ Sep 8th 2008 1:08PM

Yep. Has already been cracked. EA are just fucking retarded. Does noone there actually know of the pirating community? It defies logic.

ScottG13 @ Sep 8th 2008 1:03PM

My girlfriend and I are loving it and I doubt SecureRom would lower her score from "Awesome!" to "1 star." By the time this becomes a serious issue, I doubt I'd even care.

And I can always dig up a crack for something that's broken.

jynxycat @ Sep 8th 2008 1:05PM

People will bitch because they can.

Sheppy (of the Fidlious Clan of Wong) @ Sep 8th 2008 1:17PM

I think people will bitch because EA is notorious for dropping support of a game on PC within months of release and all their customer support channels are designed specifically to confound and confuse the user long before they reach a human.

And given this is a product which REQUIRES customer service to use after the three installs, that is a legitimate concern.

Not to mention the entire system is put there in the first place to call paying customers thieves.

Ridgecity @ Sep 8th 2008 1:48PM

People bitch because there's already a backlash for this game, so the sheep have to follow what they are supposed to follow. EA adds DRM not Will Wright.

in other subjects, nice panties you sexy thing...

dark_inchworm @ Sep 8th 2008 2:05PM

People will OBEY because it's convenient.

But should they? NEIN!

Dani Reader @ Sep 8th 2008 2:36PM

I agree with jynxycat. Because her avatar is hot.

OperatorC @ Sep 8th 2008 1:05PM

Lot of good the DRM is doing. The game can be found floating on the torrent and other p2p outlets, and though you can't connect to the servers for shared content you also don't have to worry about activation bullshit.

Tell me again why this 3-installs crap is worth it for the non-pirating consumers?

In my opinion: it isn't.

MC Double Def DP @ Sep 8th 2008 1:08PM

Down with DRM!!! But don't copy that floppy!

Buckshot @ Sep 8th 2008 1:10PM

Galactic edition installed fine on my desktop and laptop, can see my spore page and creatures on both. Plays with no disc, no complaints from me.

Microswirl (MKWii:1676- 4270-3674) @ Sep 8th 2008 3:16PM

You missed the point.

Ghaleon @ Sep 8th 2008 1:11PM

I really wanted to buy Mass Effect on PC, but not till their BS install stuff is straightened out and/or gone.

Vcize @ Sep 8th 2008 2:22PM

I thought I read that Mass Effect removed their DRM hell after the pre-release backlash they got?

Monkeys Suck @ Sep 8th 2008 1:12PM

Honestly, this is the wrong approach to DRM. Yes, I'm with everyone when I think that these restrictions are bad, especially in the foreseeable future, but complaining doesn't do it. We want PC games, we want them to keep coming, but we don't want DRM. But PC developers are losing money due to piracy, so they need to at least try something. What can we do to show them what we want? BUY THE GAME IF YOU ACTUALLY WANT IT. Problems are gonna come up with these methods, but that's what patches are for. Digital distribution is another great method of buying. The thing is, not buying it doesn't teach them anything about the problems. If PC gaming will ever survive, we need to help them along, show them what works and what doesn't (obviously this DRM method doesn't work since it was cracked effortlessly).

Sheppy (of the Fidlious Clan of Wong) @ Sep 8th 2008 1:23PM

My god, you're absolutely right. The best way we can show EA the way to creating good DRM is by buying Spore but telling them this isn't good at all. So rather than passing on the sale in a form of protest, we should give them money anyway. This way, they know that we're very sternly standing against DRM like this but will gladly hand them $50 for the ass raping such a purchase encourages.

It all makes sense now. How about you google "PC Gamers Bill of Rights" to actually see the way things SHOULD be handled. Or how antipiracy was handled in the past (read: novels or dictionaries thrown in with the games and word passes to progress in the title). Companies can do much to protect their investment but it will all be in vain, meanwhile more and more legitimate customers will be discouraged from future purchases because of the DRM. In other words, PC market will continue to shrink or forgo retail shelves altogether.

Monkeys Suck @ Sep 8th 2008 1:44PM

I'll assume you're talking about #8, where we shouldn't be treated like criminals. Honestly, why doesn't this practice work in stores too? Why don't they remove those electronic locks and alarms too? Why don't they remove the security cameras?

That's a very stupid rule. The $50 doesn't go towards an "ass-raping" as you so called it, but rather help them further their development of games, their business, and protection. Nothing has worked so far, but we need to continue to support them. I'm pretty sure companies would love nothing more than to not waste time in development trying to figure out a good way to protect their product, but they haven't figured out the best way yet. Why don't we support them, help them figure it out?

Anam @ Sep 8th 2008 1:57PM

The locks and alarms in stores are to protect UNSOLD products. As soon as you buy it, it is yours and you no longer have to worry about locks and alarms. The Spore method is equivelant to purchasing a product and then when you get home you have to call the store to give you the code to unlock the product that you've already bought.

You just don't get it. If you want to help the PC gaming industry, you can start by buying games from companies that care about their customers and letting companies such as EA know that if they want our money, they have to compete not only in products, but in service.

Vcize @ Sep 8th 2008 2:26PM

Monkeys, you're not making any sense. If you go on buying the games with this strict crazy DRM nonsense, then all the developer sees is "oh wow, looks like that strict crazy DRM nonsense is working, let's keep doing it and maybe amp it up some".

If DRM hell games sell less then maybe they'll get the message that its only making things worse, and then you can go on supporting the games that don't have it. Buying games with crap like this attached to them is only going to make more crap like this come along, to the point where even YOU aren't going to want to deal with it anymore.

Mez Jr @ Sep 8th 2008 2:38PM

I actually don't believe the game companies are loosing much money to pirates. What you have to do as a game company is ask yourself, are these people who are pirating my game potential customers? From my perspective it's fairly difficult for a casual person to pirate a game. They're big downloads, downloading bootleg software is fraught with danger (viruses) etc.

As a consumer who knows how to pirate games, I find it a pain to do so. I'd much rather pay for a game and give the monetary credit to the game makers.

However, I find it very frustrating when the copy protection makes it difficult for me to enjoy the game. The 3 install situation is pretty much a deal breaker for me. I still play old copys of X-Com Apocalypse that I bought around 10 years ago, and have installed on multiple machines.

I don't know what EA is trying to prevent, the security was cracked in less than a week, so the ONLY people they inconvenience are the people who pay for the game.

To use the retail store analogy, that would be like frisking you when you go up to the cash register to pay, making you empty your pockets, then letting you buy the product, while not having any locks or sensors at the door.

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