Aral Balkan: Historical Archive

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When I bought the game Spore about a week ago, I didn't know that it game crippled with a draconian DRM system that requires you to call EA up and prove that you're not a pirate after installing it three times.

I only found out when I recently started seeing reports of an uproar over the DRM system.

And what an uproar it is: Thousands of disgruntled gamers are giving one-star reviews for Spore on Amazon (and Amazon UK). They are also reportedly buying the game and then returning it, in order to inflict additional financial damage on EA. The Metacritic user score for the game also stands at 5.0 after falling steadily in the past few days.

In other news, the cracked version of the game, without any DRM restrictions, is apparently available for free on BitTorrent.

So, as always with DRM, it is the paying customers that get burned whereas the pirates get a superior product for free.

I'm just wondering when these companies are going to realize that their customers are not the enemy.

By the way, I just checked and the box for Spore Galactic Edition does not contain any indication that the DRM system limits you to three installations so it's understandable that I didn't know about this before buying the game.

Comments

Quite sad, considering the game is a far greater effort and achievement than most drm'ed pop songs.
by Michiel van der Ros on 2008-09-15 14:31:50
I have been waiting in eager anticipation of Spore since I saw Will Wright's talk about it and live demo at SXSW07, 18 months ago. My old iBook is on its last legs, so installing it on that would immediately use up one of their imposed 3-installations. I'll probably revert back to my old PC when the iBook finally gives up and before I get a new Mac, so that's 2 of those installs used up. Then when I get my new Mac, I'll use the third install, at which point I might as well throw away the game. Or I could download the Torrent version and live happily ever after without those hassles. I've genuinely never used Bit Torrent before, but I think EA's DRM might have just turned me to piracy.
by Paul on 2008-09-15 12:36:32
Are you serious? The game only installs three times? What if you re-installed your computer four times and want to play the game after that? The game becomes an ugly-looking paper-weight?
by sascha/hdrs on 2008-09-17 05:05:42
Although this time the pirates don't really get a "superior product", as you can't connect to the online portion of the game and thus can't enjoy eveyone else's creations. This is nothing new, EA have been doing this for a while, never buy anything from thier onine store as it's all wrapped in the same 3 install DRM. That's why I was happy to notice today that even though the new Crysis Warhead is an EA title it's available through Steam also, hopefully with issues like this raising awareness more developers will realise that EA are screwing up the publishing and look at alternatives.
by Adam on 2008-09-15 19:32:11
"Why the heck are you installing it 3 times anyways?" 1. System restore. 2. Losing interest, and uninstalling to save hard drive space. Then deciding you want to play again one day. 3. An important game file got corrupted. 4. New computer. That's four reasons just off the top of my head. It could be any combination of those, or something completely different. Why should I have to call EA to play my game because they disabled it when I was doing nothing out of the ordinary?
by Josh Tynjala on 2008-09-15 19:46:23
I think you guys should get used to it, it's only a matter of time before all popular software products become online activation-based. (see music software and the will-always-be-proprietary pro tools *glare*) These sort of moves are not meant to usurp the "i can steal software from bittorrent types", but rather the casual pirates. When a company spends X millions, I can imagine that they are gathering statistics and are justifying it by saying they are selling X hundreds of thousands of copies based off it. I doubt people won't play spore because of DRM. Why the heck are you installing it 3 times anyways? Either way, the comment about pirates hurting the purchasers is true. Software developers that pirate software is quite strange to me, but whatever. My only hope was that this extra profit wasn't going into executive pockets -- but rather the creative types and software engineers that make the game possible. If you know anyone at EA, you know they work them to the bone (see 14 hour days with paltry benefits)
by Daniel Hai on 2008-09-15 19:36:40
Man, you've described every single client I've ever had ;-) The saying "the customer is always right" comes from tradesmen who didn't care about word of mouth (like my father-in-law :-D).
by Lee McColl Sylvester on 2008-09-19 20:02:06
I typically play a game for half a year. I've owned a home and work computer in the past, but why would I install a game on the work machine? My guess is future Apple OS or processor updates will make the game uninstallable anyway, so I wont install this a fourth time in 2 years. And the graphics will look like crap anyway in 2 years. Besides: you all know that, if they'd drop DRM all together, there would be even more pirated copies floating around.
by Sander Spolspoel on 2008-09-16 16:39:32
Well boo friggen hoo.
by anony on 2008-09-15 17:59:06
I've always felt that, if game companies simply made what was in the best interests of the gamer, then charged only a tenner for the game, then no one would trouble their bandwidth to steal it, and the company wouldn't lose any cash. Games are costly for most, and they're always a corporate pain in the ass! That's why more and more people are looking into the indie communities, and seeing what cool, gamer friendly games they're making!
by Lee McColl Sylvester on 2008-09-15 18:30:42
I think you guys misunderstood me, I'm not agreeing with the method of DRM, I'm saying we should get accustomed to DRM in general. Hell I hate DRM too, but it seems to be the standard route everyone will be going in the future. 3 installs and done is pretty dumb, actually it's pretty n00b. Music software generally uses an online activation/de-activation or dual key system. Why the heck are you: 1) System restoring 2) Losing interest -- I love creature editor 3) Import game file got corrupted -- compare to the install file and use a hex editor ;)
by Daniel Hai on 2008-09-16 04:16:35
It's sad, just when DRM seemed to be dying the death it deserves, EA comes out with this non sense. You're right Aral, the customer isn't the enemy, or even a potential enemy. Treating them as such, simply drives them to that, weak. Maybe I'll wait to pick up a copy.
by John Wilker on 2008-09-15 15:35:15
Steven, EA must have some great PR folks if this message is so poorly communicated. Punishing the developer? That's funny... I thought DRM was supposed to HELP the content owners. Doesn't seem to be working on any front.
by Phillip Kerman on 2008-09-18 21:28:41
@Steven I think you CAN blame the developer. I suppose it's possible that he had no clue that EA wouldn't be using "bad DRM" on his product... but that's just ignorance if that was true. I can think of many analogies where people shift the blame--but I'd say the developer is complicit.
by Phillip Kerman on 2008-09-19 14:23:02
Oops EA did it again... http://www.amazon.com/review/product/B001ATHKVC/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_summary?_encoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
by Adam on 2008-09-18 23:01:46
I assume the DRM system is not in the iPhone version of the game since iTunes has its own license management? fk blog.anaara.com
by Fuad Kamal on 2008-09-15 13:24:18
In this day and age, a game as massive as Spore could not be made by any other company, except maybe Blizzard, who are quite focused on their three games (WoW, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3). EA is a behemoth and has swallowed up every decent game company. You either play ball or you don't get to make your game. I don't agree that the developer (Maxis) is complicit. Have you ever had a client that made a really shitty decision, no matter how much you warned them not to, and you had to move forward on it and build it the way they wanted? We've all been there at one time or another. What if everyone blamed you for that decision? What if you put your heart and soul into building it for half a decade (which is how long Wil has been working on it) and at the end they come along and made that decision? Should you be to blame? How would you feel about people putting up negative reviews of your hard work that had nothing to do with your hard work, but they blame you all the same? I'm not saying Aral did this, I'm saying that's what's going on right now online.
by Steven Sacks on 2008-09-19 17:14:10
Why? because they're idiots and have misguided idiots working for them. It's one thing to make bad DRM (not sure if there's even such a thing as "good DRM")... but the worst part is all those involved who know it sucks but just keep doing it. I've heard the following basic argument from software companies and developers: "the content owners want it; we're just giving them what they want". But I don't buy it--the owners want to protect their IP and make as much money as possible--that's fine. But what kills me is that no one seems to be bold or loud enough to tell the content owners this is a bad deal. Preview: the same silliness will get worse with video before it gets better.
by Phillip Kerman on 2008-09-15 19:22:21
@Daniel - Hmm, like eveyone's 'getting used to' DRM in music, that's working out well for the labels. Did you even look at the Amazon reviews linked, there's pages of people who didn't buy Spore specifically because of the DRM, and just about everyone who did buy it is complaining about it. I must have installed Doom & Quake over 100 times over the past decade on everything from a p100 to an iPhone. It's nice to be able to play Jet-Set-Willy on an emulator for 5 minutes every now and then for old times sake. Will I be able to do the same with Spore in 2020? If games are art with lasting cultural value, shouldn't I? (For what it's worth I won't be, because I found it really boring as soon as you got past the c&c like minigames and hit the galactic level, overall waaay overhyped) Software developers working 14 hour days for paltry benefits - seems pretty normal to me ;) Allowing the creation you sweated blood over to be wrapped in DRM by the publisher with the express intention of stopping people enjoying it, that seems strange!
by Adam on 2008-09-15 21:28:18
@Daneil Are you saying we should be accustomed to the failure of DRM to do anything except irritate the paying customer? Or just accustomed to the fact many companies will try various attempts that fail to satisfy the simple premise of reducing piracy or increasing money? The interesting foundation of the entire DRM argument is that it doesn't work. I have yet to see a satisfying "experience" that uses DRM on software. The part I can't stand is the false sense of security--people selling the DRM solutions are making a killing on something that doesn't work; developers who inject the DRM klooges are implying a security that doesn't exist; and so many folks do it as some kind of attempt to protect themselves. I love to see examples like this one that backfire though.
by Phillip Kerman on 2008-09-16 06:19:45
I think the very point of DRM is to irritate -- which I guess is intended to deter piracy. I've seen many a music set doomed by a cracked copy of Ableton Live. Putting in a key or two, or clicking online activate isn't that bad. If I had a popular product, I would probably do the same thing (if i didn't believe so much in open source). Just remember the good old days when a lot of software had dongles. Now I will say that DRM works better for niche software more than something like spore, since it will sell 1.5 quadrillion copies. What's even more annoying to me, is having software continue to ask me to register every other day when I continue to click "later", even when I work for that company :) - *glare adobe*.
by Daniel Hai on 2008-09-16 14:23:30
@Daniel not to pick on you--I think you're fine--but when you say "putting in a key or two or clicking online activate isn't that bad" it makes me cringe. Sort of like "well, if you have nothing to hide then you should be happy to let police search you without cause". I understand it's a totally different subject--but the folks pushing DRM on their paying customers are very misguided. I would like to see the evidence. Like what is the additional profit minus the cost and minus the PR nightmare costs? In my opinion all these arguments come back to a form of 'the ends justify the means'. Still, even though it's not a human rights issue--I mean, Adobe can make activation as annoying as Adobe Updater if they want to--it's their product... but there are a lot of creative alternatives that are getting sorted out. For example, (to take an OLD one) look at how much money PKZip made entirely as shareware. And, Radiohead and NIN. These are all unique, but still.
by Phillip Kerman on 2008-09-16 17:18:03
Hey Steven, you rant that people give you a tough time on blogs and forums, yet I never ever see a post where you're actually agreeing with people... I think you bloody well love to argue ;-) You should think yourself lucky Mike Chambers hadn't replied to this post :-D
by Lee McColl Sylvester on 2008-09-18 19:52:59
This is a one-sided, melodramatic, troll post. EA and Maxis have been extremely clear that if you need to install the game more than three times, they will grant you permission to install it more on a case by case basis. They even have a customer support number set up for this extremely rare situation. Everyone who is whining that it's not rare is just doing so to argue. I can think of other software that forces you to activate it (any Adobe product, any copy of Windows) and will not work for long if you don't. I am more likely to need Flash on a new machine than some old game I beat a long time ago (and either way, I doubt I'll need to do it more than 3 times before a new version comes out or I finish playing the game). I don't see Aral writing troll posts lambasting Adobe for their draconian activation policies for Flash. Where's your post about that? Oh yeah, they butter your bread. You know better than to shit where you eat. This is not about Spore, or EA, or this particular DRM policy. This is about distaste for DRM in general. People are using the power of the internet to punish Wil Wright by giving Spore 1 star reviews as some sort of online protest against DRM. Wil put his heart and soul into this game and people are shitting all over it not because of the quality of the game, but because of the DRM the publisher put on it. It's lame.
by Steven Sacks on 2008-09-18 16:11:31
If people continue to buy EA games, then nothing will change. In fact, it might even get worse, as they find out people are still cracking these things.
by Lee McColl Sylvester on 2008-09-19 17:06:36
@Lee All I'm saying is, argue DRM, but don't bring Spore into it as if the game has anything to do with the protection scheme. They're two separate things. I have mad respect for Wil Wright, and even though I may not love to play all his games, the man's a bloody genius and has high aspirations for humanity and its future. EA is a monster, no doubt.
by Steven Sacks on 2008-09-19 02:55:10
Clients that do stupid stuff--sure. But I also have contracts with clients and when there's a case where the client is more of a partner (like a publisher) then I read the contract. I'm sure this developer is big-boy enough to read a contract. Saying that EA is so big you either do biz with them or you don't do biz may or may not be true... but when you choose to partner with a company you become as responsible as they are for actions taken by them on your behalf.
by Phillip Kerman on 2008-09-20 14:29:01