By: Jarno Kokko Sep 09, 2008

Spore - love it or hate it, it's the big PC title of the day. With Spore, EA is again using the draconian SecuROM DRM system that effectively limits you to three installs of the game. While reinstalls on exact same hardware (same motherboard, same operating system installation) are exempt, it's still a nasty limitation. Only way to install after those three installations are gone is to call EA's technical support and beg for more activations.

SecuROM has been around for a while, but now PC gamers are completely fed up and there is a grassroots movement that wants to send a message to EA. The goal is to hit EA where it hurts, by directly affecting sales. This is achieved by rating Spore down in every possible place on the web due to the hostile DRM. On Amazon.com Spore is now rated with one star, with over 1300 user reviews - almost all panning the game for the DRM used. Metacritic has already pulled all user comments on Spore, and it currently stands rated at 6.4 (and going down), with almost 350 votes. Gamespot has also resorted to heavy-handed moderation of Spore user reviews, with warnings given to people voicing their opinion.

In my opinion this backlash is a nice demonstration how consumers can take advantage of the free "user-created content" that companies like to leverage on the web. Ah, the joys of Web 2.0... It remains to be seen if EA gets the message. Latest word is that Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 is set to use the exact same DRM - but with the installation limit set at 5 instead.

Comments

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	Unregistered 2008-09-09 #1 Why dont thy just have the game limeterd to some usb flash drive. More or less usb flash drive the verry fast ones 2.0 can easy trancefer data to and from it as fast as a HHD. I forone am always upgrading parts in pc, Ect motherboard cpu card and hhd psu to keep up to date and have a faster system, its one reason why i have a pc cos of the joys of updating, but if games are now gettin limmeterd its a realy bad move to pc gamers.
	Unregistered 2008-09-09 #2 Why limit at all? The game was cracked the moment it was released, if not earlier.
	Unregistered 2008-09-09 #3 ea doesn't mind gamers playing the pirated version of the game... they just don't like people that bought the game lending the game to a friend.