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After seeing early online videos describing this game, my son and his friends kept asking when they could get a copy. I had to wait a long time to even be able to pre-order it from Amazon. I had high hopes...
Then I found out about the graphics requirements that forced me to upgrade my son's PC (and his friends also had to upgrade their PCs). Somewhat of a disappointment.
Then I found out about the stealth installation of non-removeable DRM software, at which point I decided to never install this on my own PC. I wanted to cancel my pre-order for two copies, but my son still wanted his copy, and I didn't want to somehow delay shipment, so I ended up giving away "my" copy when it arrived.
After my son installed the game, I found out about the limited number of activations, so when I replace my son's PC (soon), we'll have used up two of the three activations.
What was EA thinking? I will never buy an EA game again (if it has DRM or limited activations), regardless of how much hype there is.
BTW, to add insult to injury, the game play is much less than what was originally/implicitly promised, after being watered-down so much. Also, the graphics are less impressive than expected (yet still required a hardware upgrade).
This fiasco cost me several hundred dollars and left me without a copy of my own, nor any interest in ever playing this game. EA's bean counters ruined for me what promised to be an interesting game.
I hear that there is now a class action lawsuit against EA, good! And even though I'm unlikely to be compensated for my damages, since the lawyers generally get most of the money, at least EA may suffer a bit and reconsider DRM's negative impact on customers or come out with a DRM removal tool.
As a counter example to Spore of a good game software experience: I've been able to reinstall StarCraft on each new PC that I've bought over many years (to replace systems with dead motherboards and bad hard disks). I've been able to easily buy inexpensive copies of StarCraft when the CD-ROMs have been lost or become unusable. Blizzard now offers a downloadable patch to allow gameplay without the CD even being installed (sort of the opposite of DRM). Now my CD-ROMs are less likely to get scratched.
When EA goes out of business, everyone trying to reinstall Spore when they eventually upgrade their PC will be out of luck. Contrast this with a game like Total Annihilation which you can still buy or reinstall years after the company went out of business.
If they charged $5 a copy, and got rid of the DRM, I'd give more stars to Spore. It is overpriced and installs stuff you don't want and cannot remove.
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Spore DRM is a bait and switch tactic is an article about
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Anonymous, posted to Zergwatch on 09/28/2008. It
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