DRM Is Really Hurting Spore, EA Reacts

When I last wrote about Spore, my parting words asked the question about EA’s reaction. Well, we have a response, but it’s not the one gamers are hoping for.

Now, the reaction is a one-liner, so let me bring you up to speed before we get to it. Because of DRM, you can only install Spore three times. Yes, a whopping three. If you want to go over that, you have to call EA and have a rep unlock more installations for you. And yes, this is what’s happening to legitimate owners of the game. Now, how about the pirates? They’re the reason why we have DRM, right? To protect games from piracy?

Spore is one of the most pirated games in history, with an estimated 500,000 downloads on BitTorrent alone! The reason? Well outside of sending a statement to EA, the pirated version is also DRM-free, although you can’t play it online for that reason.

Yes, folks. The pirated copy has no DRM. You can install it as many times as you want.

Don’t get us wrong here. We’re not telling you to go out there and download the pirated version. What I’m actually pointing out is much more obvious: DRM isn’t working here. Legitimate users are being punished with the three-install limit while pirates do not have that restriction.

Which brings us to the one-liner reaction from EA. Because of the backlash that Spore is getting, the publisher is going to give us some slack. The retail version of Red Alert 3 is going to allow five installations instead of the original three. Gee, thanks EA. That was really thoughtful of you.

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