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Greetings Sporelings,
A game we all know and love, Spore, incited the imaginations of enough gamers to have 100 thousand creatures created within the first 22 hours of the release of it’s “demo” Creature Creator. A million within it’s first week. 18 days after it’s release the total known species on Earth had been exceeded by the creations in this tiny fragment of the game. With numbers like this, no one could deny that Spore was going to be a gigantic hit among not only fans of the Sim-Game genre but a wide variety of gamer.
But it seems that Maxis and EA made one tragic mistake when releasing the full version of Spore. They tried to protect their game with DRM (Digital Rights Management) software and it appeared that this decision didn’t sit too well with people who had been anxiously awaiting it’s release. Because of this, Spore received over 2500 single star reviews on Amazon.com which drove it’s rating down and made it drop off the radar for the average consumer who shops on the site. Almost all of these reviews cite it’s “draconian DRM” and for the most part were filed on the site before anyone had even had a chance to really try the game out.
Undoubtedly, DRM issues will be resolved in time. In fact, the restrictions have already been lowered to offer a game owner 5 installs instead of the initial 3 it launched with and they are working on a way to refund install credits when you uninstall the game without having to contact customer support. The majority of us will never even have to lodge a formal complaint because they were posted all over the internet before the game was even released and a solution will be found before most people use up their 5 installations.
Personally… I’m not worried. Here’s why.
Let’s look back at BioShock from 2K Games. Released in August 2007 and bundled with it’s own version of the “draconian” (yes it WAS described using the same terms) SecuROM copy protection, BioShock allowed gamers 2 installations over it’s lifetime and there were many claims of the system itself being quite buggy and not doing what it was supposed to do to begin with. Indeed, it seemed to be a big mistake for 2K to have included such a horrible affront to their customers’ gaming rigs in with their game. BioShock had sold a million copies of the PC version of it’s game by the time they removed the SecuROM requirement in June 2008. Not exactly a failure despite it’s DRM issues.
What I’m getting at is that the DRM make no difference to the average gamer. If it were not such a media bomb, most of us would never even have known about it. The majority of the PC gaming community is not looking for Big Brother over our shoulder nor do I feel that we have to be. This big a stink was raised by a community of people who felt such a sense of entitlement that they seemingly decided that they would rather pirate the game than buy it when the publisher did something that they didn’t agree with. Those of us that bought the game could only sit back and be horrified because in a game that relies heavily on user-generated content being shared, anything that would hurt it’s popularity would only hurt us in the long run.
Now that we’re roughly a month since the release of Spore, how has it done despite the controversy?
Reports claim that though a million copies of Spore have sold within the first month, 500 thousand copies were also illegally transferred via P2P clients. While this might seem like a lot, honestly, it’s not. If you’ve never downloaded anything either through torrents or file sharing programs, I will personally tell you that it’s usually a gamble. A good half of everything you download can be either corrupted or a mislabeled file leading to all sorts of nonsense such as viruses or winding up with the newest Power Rangers episode instead of that sweet new release starring Christian Bale. Besides, other games have been far worse off when it comes to ratios. Crysis for instance. EA and Crytek’s project sold about the same amount of copies as were estimated to have been pirated within the first month of it’s release.
In the end, piracy isn’t going to stop any time in the near future but either is the practice of including copy protection with games. I’m not saying that either side of this debate is right or wrong. I think that both the fact that games are pirated in such record numbers and that game companies have to go to such great lengths to protect their investments are BOTH the wrong way to do things. Honestly, I don’t have a solution either. But let’s forget who forced whose hand in all of this and move on to bigger and better things… like playing Spore!
October 15th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Nice editorial, it gives a good point.
October 26th, 2008 at 6:07 am
I love spore, but I am heavily against the copy protection.
Why? it is not just about the activations limit, but also the other more sinister uses.
A friend of mine was contacted by EA when he accidently started downloading Oblivion via bit torrent, he downloaded 34 megs and cancelled, but EA contacted his ISP and got his details, asked him to prove he owned the game or they would take him to court… Luckily he owned the game and got off scot free
You know how they found out he was downloading it? the spore DRM reports to EA all computer activites as well as torrent downloads, which is not only a breach of privacy but also creates situations like this.
The DRM can NOT be removed with the software, even when (or if) the activation limit is removed this spying style DRM will still be in place.
The only reason EA isnt acting on these torrent downloads right now is since they are being sued for a breach of privacy by another worried consumer.
Also, about bioshock? Bioshock’s Securarom never reported computer activites, on top of that, unlike spore bioshock’s DRM activation limit was long promised to be removed, unlike spore who just says a patch is comming “soon” to change things.
500 thousand copies is a LOT for a game of such size esspecially since most of those are just protesting EA’s desicison for that style of intrusive DRM.
And I dont know how many torrents YOU download, but personally ive never had a mislabeled file, or one with a virus.. the closest ive had was one movie in spanish when I wanted it in english.
Before you say I am just complaining since I am a evil pirate, I am not. I purchased Spore Collectors Edition, and I am pissed about this issue of DRM more then the people pirating.
I only pirate things I would never ever buy, which isnt very much, I mainly buy my games and I refuse to ever pirate any game without copy protection.
I proudly say I pirate any game that has draconian DRM, previously starforce, I never buy games that compromise the saftey of my compter and the only reason I bought spore was out of respect for will wright, NOT EA and their idiodic stance on copy protction.
I dont like being treated like a criminal when I buy my games. I just dont. Is it so much to ask for a game that doesnt put me under house arrest?
October 26th, 2008 at 10:13 am
@Weisty - Thanks very much Weisty. Hope you’ll come back in a couple of days to read the next one.
October 26th, 2008 at 10:30 am
@SirCabbage - Hello SirCabbage and thanks very much for your input. Trust me, any discussion, even that which disagrees with my own point of view is quite welcome.
I can state these points because I personally never HAVE had any issues with DRM and I highly doubt that I’m in the minority.
I could argue the rational explanations to your friend’s story because I do doubt that that’s all there is to it but that’s not something I’d like to get into. We can just leave it at the simple fact that you don’t care for the DRM and you have your reasons for it and that is where I’d like to go with my response.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not in love with the idea of DRM myself but I personally can see WHY it’s put into use. Excessive? I want to say yes but given the fact that people go to such great measures to crack the game no matter what a company does to try to protect it (sometimes BECAUSE of what a company does) I’d have to say that they’re not trying hard enough. They ARE looking at protecting their games from the wrong angle since they are indeed potentially infringing on a person’s privacy but if it’s naive of me to think that a company will not abuse the power these DRM programs give them then I guess I’m naive.
Don’t get me wrong either. I’m not calling out everyone who has ever pirated anything and saying that they’re evil. I know myself that a large majority of computer users DO pirate something at one time or another. It happens. I can’t even count myself out. But it doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do no matter what the circumstances in my opinion. I just personally believe that if someone creates something that you want, you should have to pay for it. As simple as that. If they do something, like including a DRM program, that you don’t want… don’t get it. That is what would have made a point. If nobody had even cared that the game had released because EA dropped the ball by including this software that made so many people angry, then they would have taken a much harder look at it I imagine. But the sales for the game were respectable upon launch, it was pirated fairly well too despite the stink that was raised all over the internet. People wanted this game and the future looks bright for Maxis and EA on that front.
The biggest reason that I wrote this article to begin with was because of the incredible fuss that was kicked up before the game was even released and even now, almost every article about Spore involves some reference to the dark, evil corporation including it’s brand of copy protection. Sensationalist claims that I personally am tired of reading.
This gamer…. just wants to move on.
But again, thanks for commenting. I do like getting feedback and hearing that people are actually reading.
Cheers.