EA keeps SecuRom, eases install limit

I know it seems like Spore's DRM problem is becoming my own personal crusade, but overbearing copyright laws have always gotten me angry. EA has made some very bad decisions with the game and keeps proving that it has no intentions of changing its ways. They should be trying to avoid bad PR. It's certainly not going to help them compete against Activision-Blizzard. What's really frustrating is that Spore doesn't even need DRM controls to fight piracy. EA could easily make it so new creature download/uploads could only be done with a valid copy of the game over the internet. People without an internet connection and pirates could still play the game, but they would be missing half the fun. There would be a major benefit to having a legitimate copy of the game.

Instead EA is sticking with SecuRom which really doesn't make any sense. Some people think EA is trying to fight against the used game market, but I thought that was more of a console problem since most stores don't trade in used PC games. Another theory I've heard is that EA doesn't want the cost of running a server constantly like a MMO without having subscription revenue. If this is true then it hints that they do plan to eventually close the servers which validate new installations of Spore and transfer creatures? If you read through all the EULA information then you know they have the legal right. I'm sure they don't want to anger their customers any further, but a few years down the line they probably figure few people will be playing. The ability to prevent new installations of a game could be their eventual approach to forcing episodic gaming.

I didn't think much about this theory at first, but EA recently lessened some of the restrictions on Spore's DRM controls. EA decided to increase the number of installations up to five and push a patch which would allow multiple accounts on the same copy of Spore. These address most of the issues that casual gamers had with the DRM. However, they are still going to keep SecuRom active on every copy of Spore. This tells me that EA considers keeping SecuRom more important then preventing game sharing or used game sales. Either their shareholders are really out of touch and are insisting on DRM or else EA really does plan on eventually turning off all future installations of Spore. On thing for sure is that with Spore being cracked and available before the commercial release, is that it does not prevent "zero day" piracy as they claim.

Update 9-24-08:

Class Action Lawsuite filed against EA for Spore DRM.

http://www.courthousenews.com/2008/09/23/_Spore_Hijacks_Computers_Class_Claims.htm

Spore's DRM backlash branches out

I was surprised to see that the backlash against Spore's DRM has spread from Amazon.com to other review sites. Even the famous Metacritic.com is being affected as the user review for the game has gone down to a 5.1 out of 10. Most of the comments are talking about the uselessness of such protection schemes when the game shows up on bit-torrent websites before its even officially released. Even worse some people are claiming that this version of SecuRom still accidentally disables disc-drives and causes computer crashes. This was a problem with an earlier version of the software and it looks like the problem can still occur on some machines.

Such a large number of negative reviews does tend to get noticed and not just by IT and Gaming journals. Both the Motley Fool and Forbes have released articles about EA's decision to continue including the invasive DRM in their games. They look at the issue from a financial point of view in that SecuRom actually seems to be encouraging piracy rather then preventing it. Not only that but it continues to provides bad PR which a imposing company like EA can ill afford. As more mainstream journalists start picking up this story I can only see the decision coming into question more often.

I already noticed that the Washington Post picked up the story on Sunday and highlighted some of the key problems with the DRM scheme. Other news sites have followed and found interesting things like the game not allowing multiple Sporepedia accounts on the same computer. This wouldn't be so bad except that the manual specificaly mentions that you can have multiple accounts so families could keep their creatures separate. What's worse is that common bit-torrent tracking sites have reported that the hacked version of Spore is fast approaching the most illegally downloaded game ever.

Apparently, it has already reached over half a million downloaded copies through different bit-torrent web sites. Most games quickly fall off the top spot of these illegal sites, but it seems as if Spore is bucking the trend and staying at number one. Most people are theorizing that the word has gotten out about SecuRom and its causing tech savy people to risk downloading the dangerous "warez" versions of the game. The thinking seems to be that if they are going to risk their computer crashing from a virus then its best not to pay 50$ for it. Illegal software has always had this risk and normal gamers tend to avoid "warez" because of this reason.

However, the stringent DRM on Spore seems to have created so many issues and worries that it's actually more of a problem then any potential virus. Thus a move to reduce the losses from piracy by EA has actually made them worse. As Spore continues to get negative reviews on Amazon.com the game is slowly dropping down the video game bestseller list. It seems that DRM opponents have finally found a successfully strategy for getting the word out to the average consumer. In the past, such movements for Mass Effect and Bioshock have failed since they were mostly limited to technical forums. EA has to be worried about something similar happening for the release of Red Alert 3 next month though they are raising the install limit to five for that game.

Lessons in Customer Service

EA had some customer service woes this weekend in not one, but two different games. The first example is the one most people will be familiar and involves the latest beta weekend for the upcoming Warhammer Online. The America version went off with only minor hitches and most players reported much better performance then the last preview weekend. Unfortunately, the European version was a disaster with the account server not accepting any one's key codes. This doesn't come as a surprise as Tobold suspected this might be a problem a full 24 hours before the preview weekend was supposed to start. It seems funny that a game with European origins would have worse support then the United States but local distributors always play a part in these type of situations.

The problem wouldn't be so bad except of course that EA Mythic has adopted the rather dubious strategy of running a MMO without hosting any forums. This may have been viable back in the early age of MMO development, but games now deal with much larger audiences. Not having official forums opens a company up to all types of opportunities for miscommunication. I'm not sure of the reasoning behind this move, but I can only assume it's an attempt to avoid the problems World of Warcraft has had with its forums. Whatever the reason, I'm not sure the community sites where Mark Jacobs normally posts announcements can stand up to the kind of heat this type of situation creates. I really hope EA Mythic changes their mind on the forum subject or else fan site forums are going to become a cesspit of bad advertising for Warhammer. You can't expect community websites to do the same type of moderation as a full time CM staff.

The other customer situation that plagued EA was one that I thought had been resolved earlier in the year. I remember there being quite a outpouring of nerd rage when someone found out that EA was planning on using SecuRom to DRM protect Mass Effect and Spore. The bad press got so bad that eventually EA issued a statement saying they were cutting back to a "lighter" version of SecuRom. A couple of the more draconian features of SecuRom were cut back and it seemed liked the consumer had won. The story unfortunately goes very wrong since last week Spore was accidentally released early in Australia and a cracked version of Spore appear on the torrent sites within four hours.

That's right, the supposed secure DRM was cracked in only hours and available through the Internet before most consumers could even buy the game. That might not have been enough to cause a incident, but some gamers started reading the fine print on the "lighter" SecuRom. That's when it was discovered there were only three activations allowed before the DVD became a useless coaster. There was a note about being able to deal with EA's customer service department for more activations, but most people assumed you would have to mail in proofs of purchase and other forms of documentation that no one keeps. It would be like trying to collect those rebates that CompUSA and BestBuy used to advertise on their computers until they were sued into submission.

The situation has really devolved into a situation where SecuRom is rewarding the pirates for not buying the game and hurting the honest customers. I thought Blizzard was the master of unintended consequences, but other companies can make mistakes on the same scale it looks like. The story gets even better as hordes of frustrated fans of the game have taken to amazon.com to write 1-star reviews of the game. Apparently the reviews started to snowball as people looking to buy the game through amazon started reading the reviews and then writing their own. Even the big game sites have picked up the story as the number of 1-star reviews has passed the 500 mark. Of course Spore is still the number one seller in the games category but losing sales is losing sales.