Spore's DRM being protested on Amazon

[Lemur]

The anti-DRM rage is reaching the mainstream media. Forbes has a great piece:

How do you measure the failure of the copy protections that software companies place on their media products? In the case of Electronic Arts' highly-anticipated game "Spore," just count the pirates.

As of Thursday afternoon, "Spore" had been illegally downloaded on file-sharing networks using BitTorrent peer-to-peer transfer 171,402 times since Sept. 1, according to Big Champagne, a peer-to-peer research firm. That's hardly a record: a popular game often hits those kinds of six-figure piracy numbers, says Big Champagne Chief Executive Eric Garland. But not usually so quickly [...]

Electronic Arts calls those criticisms unfair. "EA has not changed our basic DRM copy protection system," says corporate communications manager Mariam Sughayer. "We simply changed the copy protection method from using the physical media, which requires authentication every time you play the game by requiring a disc in the drive, to one which uses a one-time online authentication."

Electronic Arts compares its DRM solution to systems in place on services like iTunes that similarly limits the number of computers that can play a particular song. Sughayer also points out that less than 25% of EA users attempt to install the company's games on more than one computer, and less than 1% attempt to install it on more than three.

Liars. EA, that is.

[CrossLOPER]

The anti-DRM rage is reaching the mainstream media....

The DRM will prevent piracy, they said.

[Mailman653]

Another dose of Spore news:
Amazon Pulls Negative Reviews Of 'Spore,' Then Reinstates Them

All those compalints don't seem to be working very well since the ad states the game is ranked #5 in sales.

[Lemur]

I was browsing the Spore forum threads this morning, just to see how angry the user base was and what EA is or isn't doing to address the problem. Anyway, I ran across a brilliant post that deserves reprinting. After a user compared the DRM to a lock on a house, a user responded:

Since you obviously like the "locking your house" analogy let's take it further.

Consider that when you buy your house you are forced by someone to use a super high tech lock to that house. It has eye scanners and finger print scanners and requires a key to use also. You've bought this house like say 100 000 others. out of those 100 000 there's a certain percentage that will not be able to enter their house because of faulty locks. Will that be you?

The lock is also integrated into the house so that should it ever have a hiccup you will be ejected from the house.

Should you in the future ever have to move to another house you are obligated to take the lock with you, but you will not be allowed to move more than 3 times. If you do the lock will stop working and you will be locked out of your house. Should the house ever burn down the lock will miraculously survive and this will count as if you moved once.

Should you have to move more than 3 times you will have to contact the company that built your house to activate more moves. This is an extensive process that can take weeks, and during that time you are locked out of your house.

Meanwhile, there are some people who move into houses and have locksmiths successfully remove the locks so that they will not be affected by any of the above procedures. It's quite easy even for you to do the same and it doesn't cost anything.

The only problem with the above description really is that the house is both representing your computer and the game itself.

Is this the way you would want your house to work? Then DRM is perfect for you.

[TevashSzat]

I was browsing the Spore forum threads this morning, just to see how angry the user base was and what EA is or isn't doing to address the problem. Anyway, I ran across a brilliant post that deserves reprinting. After a user compared the DRM to a lock on a house, a user responded:

Since you obviously like the "locking your house" analogy let's take it further.

Consider that when you buy your house you are forced by someone to use a super high tech lock to that house. It has eye scanners and finger print scanners and requires a key to use also. You've bought this house like say 100 000 others. out of those 100 000 there's a certain percentage that will not be able to enter their house because of faulty locks. Will that be you?

The lock is also integrated into the house so that should it ever have a hiccup you will be ejected from the house.

Should you in the future ever have to move to another house you are obligated to take the lock with you, but you will not be allowed to move more than 3 times. If you do the lock will stop working and you will be locked out of your house. Should the house ever burn down the lock will miraculously survive and this will count as if you moved once.

Should you have to move more than 3 times you will have to contact the company that built your house to activate more moves. This is an extensive process that can take weeks, and during that time you are locked out of your house.

Meanwhile, there are some people who move into houses and have locksmiths successfully remove the locks so that they will not be affected by any of the above procedures. It's quite easy even for you to do the same and it doesn't cost anything.

The only problem with the above description really is that the house is both representing your computer and the game itself.

Is this the way you would want your house to work? Then DRM is perfect for you.

Wow....just an awesome analogy there

[Lemur]

Good article over at Ars Technica — to bring a little empiricism to the table, they deliberately installed the game on four machines to see how bad it would be getting a new authentication key.

While the issue of the install limit is a touchy one, it doesn't look like a normal install will do much to use up your limit, and in fact we surpassed the install limit by a few times before running into an issue. Even after being told that we were "renting" the game, EA was happy to give us a new key to run the game. In this case, customer service wins, and we left wondering if the DRM controversy might be more philosophical in nature than rooted in any real-world inconveniences.

[drone]

I'm kind of surprised Ars didn't run the experiment under real-life conditions. Install the game on machine A. Install the game on machine B. Update graphics card on machine A. Add memory to machine B. Change hard drive on machine A and install. Downgrade B from XP to Vista and install. Upgrade A from Vista to XP and install.

These are the types of things that gamers do over the lifecycle of their PCs.


The fact that your ability to play the game is slaved to the activation server, which may or may not be running 5 years down the line when you dust off the disk, is the main "philosophical" controversy in my mind.