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Spore's DRM: Love it or Hate it? Gamers fight back

September 09, 2008 in News comments 10

Along the lines with my previous article about EA customer support- it seems that gamers are not as happy with spore as they thought.

You are required to activate the product over the internet, and if something goes wrong- you have to call EA (we all know that will be a joy).

The game is barely pulling 1 star reviews on Amazon (With over 1200 1 star reviews!) Not bad for a game that has been filled with anticipation for almost 10 years now.

Right now the game has 222 customer reviews, with 194 of them giving the game one star. The game also has nine five-star reviews, two of which were written in 2006, while the other reviews spend significant amounts of time complaining about the one-star reviews. The game's rating sits at 1.5 stars as of this writing.

So what are the people complaining about? Taking a look at the review Amazon tagged as "the most helpful critical review," it's pretty clear. "First of all, the game incorporates a draconian DRM system that requires you to activate over the internet, and limits you to a grand total of 3 activations," the disgruntled user wrote. "If you reach that limit, then you'll have to call EA in order to add one extra activation. That's not as simple as it sounds, since when you reach that point EA will assume that you, the paying customer, are a filthy pirating thief. You will need to provide proof of purchase, reasons why the limit was reached..."
Deathsythe via arstechnica.com »
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  • 0
    kik36 Sep 9, 08
    Holy shit dude, didn't realize the game was doing that bad!!! I definitely pay attention to Amazon reviews and 1300+ 1 star reviews versus only 30 or so 5 star definitely makes me walk away from this game.
    • 0
      Slumpy monkey Sep 9, 08
      Dont, Almost all of the 1 star reviews are because of DRM and comments like "Its a virus and kills your pc dont buy this game".
      While not actually commenting on the game.
    • 0
      tekmosis Sep 9, 08
      The game is good. Like slumpy said it's getting 1 star reviews because of the DRM.
      • 2
        kik36 Sep 9, 08
        The DRM used for this game is relevant to why I wouldn't want to get the game in the first place and mainly why I don't purchase PC games.

        DRM is great for some applications, poor for others. I have no doubt that the game is decent but there needs to be better ways to stop pirating.
  • 0
    giroro Sep 9, 08
    Someone should send this article to EA and tell them "this is why people pirate *your* games because you do stupid shit like this one copy DRM"
    http://www.gamegrep.com/news/12323-developers_want_to_learn_from_pirates/

    Albeit, EA's been really good lately with listening to the community and changing things they've been doing wrong. I don't know why they just don't get consumer feed back on things like this to begin with so they can avoid 1300+ 1 star reviews, bad press, etc.
    • 0
      chautemoc Sep 11, 08
      Interestingly, they talked to gamers in a live chat not long ago, and someone asked about the DRM, to which they responded they want it to be as little of a hassle as possible, and outlined what was planned...I guess its just a difference in opinions..
  • 1
    Livewire_19 Sep 9, 08
    This DRM protest has probably done way more damage to the sales
    of Spore than anything pirates could ever do. I know I won't buy the game until they remove the DRM. Hopefully the Wii version will turn out to be a decent game.
    • 0
      chautemoc Sep 11, 08
      I'm still hesitant to buy console versions of games from companies that support DRM, personally.
  • 0
    Seproth Sep 9, 08
    Pirates no how to deal with this shit. It's only hurting the people who actually buy your game.

    That being said most people shouldn't need four activations. Unless they're sharing with they're friends. Which is what this is meant to prevent in the first place.
  • 1
    huntyr Sep 10, 08
    why limit the activations though? If I bought the game and installed on 2 of my computers, I can only ever install a game that I bought 2 more times? What happens if I need to reinstall the OS, now I'm down to 1 more install for a game I bought.

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