It seems EA is finally responding to the complaints of hoards of gamers (and about 15,000 Amazon.com reviewers) and is loosening its grip on the DRM and Spore.

They have agreed to increase the number of activations from 3 to 5, and will allow users to deactivate a machine without having to contact customer support.

Too little too late? That is for the gamers to decide - so I turn the question to you gentlemen (and ladies).

The install limit for Spore will be upped to five, from three, and EA promises it is working on a way to deauthorize the game on your machines so you can move your installs between five computers without having to contact customer service, an expensive proposition in places like Australia where the call costs nearly $3 a minute. Talking to MTV Multiplayer, EA claimed that it was rare for gamers to install the game on multiple machines, or almost unheard of for gamers to want to put the game on more than two systems.

Here is a look at the data EA provided, although they stress that these numbers are a sample, and shouldn't be taken as indicative of total sales:

* Total activations: 437,138
* Users activating on only 1 machine: 86 percent
* Users activating on more than 1 machine: 14 percent
* User trying to activate on more than 3 machines: 0.4 percent

Deathsythe via arstechnica.com »