DRM Creates Backlash Against Spore
September 9, 2008 13:30
The long-awaited release of Spore has been marred by the game's digital rights management software, which has led to consumers flooding Amazon and numerous forums and feedback channels and posting negative comments and ratings for the game.
Spore, the highly anticipated PC title from Maxis and hallowed game designer Will Wright, was released on Sept. 7 and is expected to do blockbuster business similar to Wright's Sims series. But many gamers are objecting to the game's DRM. Electronic Arts' subsidiary BioWare announced in spring that both Spore and the PC version of BioWare's Mass Effect would be released with a version of Sony's SecuROM copy protection software. Initially, SecuROM would limit the number of activations per customer to three and also require an online re-authentication with EA every 10 days or the game would shut down.
After an outpouring of negative feedback on BioWare's forum, as well as other forums, EA decided to drop the re-authentication requirement, which many gamers felt was unreasonable for a single player game that did not otherwise require an Internet connection. But the activation limit was left in place for both Spore and Mass Effect, which left a bad taste in the mouths of many prospective customers.
As a result, scores of PC gamers have taken to the Web in an apparently coordinated effort to badmouth Spore and crash its user rating on Amazon's sites. Both the U.S. and U.K. Amazon sites were flooded with negative comments about Spore's DRM and low user ratings for the game. Currently, Spore's rating on Amazon.com is one out of five stars and more than 1,500 customer reviews, largely negative and focused on the game's DRM, have been posted since Sept. 7. A large portion of customer comments that were posted prior to the game's release have apparently been removed.
The U.K. Amazon site has far fewer customer reviews, but according to forum posts on the site, all customer reviews posted in advance of Spore's release have been deleted by Amazon. Some of the comments on the sites include impassioned pleas to "Avoid Spore and make your statement!" as well as remarks criticizing EA for "punishing the people that give you money." Many argue that because the game has already been cracked (Spore reportedly leaked about a week prior to its release), keeping SecuROM's activation limit in place only serves to punish law-abiding customers who plan to pay for the game. The comments are quite similar across both Amazon sites and appear to be part of a grassroots effort to force EA to drop SecuROM from the game.
SecuROM, developed and owned by Sony, achieved infamy last summer when it was discovered on the PC release of 2K's BioShock - after its release - and found to restrict the number of activations per customer to three. Users are then required to call the publisher's customer support to request additional activations (after an uproar from gamers, 2K upped the number of activations per customer to five, which did little to satisfy angry fans). The DRM fiasco marred what would have been an otherwise strong launch for BioShock, which ended up as one of the most critically acclaimed and successful titles of 2007.
EA has not yet made an official statement in response to the anti-DRM campaign on Amazon.
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