Good I'm glad their getting sued. Specially when its something worth being sued over. I just hope they don't settle easy and the people really take EA to the bank.

Personally I don't think it is as bad as most gamers think (e.g. Crysis Warhead allows 5 computer/motherboard changes, and unlimited reinstalls). Don't see the problem there, do you? They have to try to stop piracy somehow (though I know it's still easily cracked).

I am done with EA. They obviously can't be trusted. "They have to try to stop piracy..." It doesn't even slow it down. Spore has already been cracked and distributed. The only thing it hurts is the purchasing public.

"The secrethttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret SecuROM program is "secretly installed to the command and control center of the computer (Ring 0, or the Kernel), and surreptitiously operated, overseeing function and operation on the computer, preventing the computer from operating under certain circumstances and/or disrupting hardware operations."

Once upon a time this was called hacking wasn't it

This program itself seems like a virus... they should be sued for sure...

@ Viking.. DRM in no way.. I repeat no way even makes a dent in piracy. It only hurts legit people. Spore was cracked damn near as soon as it came out. Just like all other games. They can say its all about piracy but bottom line is DRM's are directed at resellers.

Spore wasnt cracked as soon as it came out, it was available for download a week before it hit the shelves. DRM does NOTHING to stop piracy. It only pisses off the folks like me that actually buy games to help support a company.

I'll be up at midnight november 3rd waiting for my copy of L4D to unlock. There's no way in hell I'm playing Spore unless I pirate it. And even then it's not worth the payoff.

EASUKS!=buttholes ! I'm sooooo glad and happy about EA being dragged into court. I really hope they get sued to... they really earned this time. V1per I agree and that should be the main focus of the lawsuit. Installing a Root/hack into the OS WITHOUT notifying the user is hack! Sony got sued over doing this with their DVD's if I recall correctly. Now it's EA's turn to get their Pee Pee smacked but I think a MUCH stronger message needs to be sent to businesses. Don't rent the game five times for $60...just pathetic and stupid. I got somethin EA can't root!

The Silent Majority

Good its about time EA got taken down off its high horse and have to come good about all of this stuff. Honestly i decided to buy a copy of bioshock for my 360 (witch recently died) instead of my computer so i wouldn't get securom but like an idiot (or the casual gamer) i installed spore without checking for DRM.

As already stated, DRM is no end all solution to piracy, but to be honest this is getting silly.

Half a million downloads of spore before it came out? Piracy is sickness, and needs to be solved. If not, YOU CAN GUARANTEE that great games will never come to the computer.

So this is for all of you out there who are getting mad at EA. Take one second to actually THINK! EA is reacting (or trying to react) to piracy, not the other way around. Get mad at the people who feel that they are entitled to every game just because they have a freakin internet connection. Pirates make me sick, and they are ruining it for us all.

No Madden next year, no Live, no NHL, No force unleashed. It has already begun, damn pirates. BUY A GAME.

i'm proud of the fact that i did not buy the game or pirate it. EA is getting what they deserve for this. I'm voting so to speak with my dollar, and ea isn't getting a cent from me unless the game doesn't have drm / securom. Personally, DRM doesn't have to be bad. Steam is a fantastic platform that i have never had an issue with.

The core problem with ea stance is that your renting the game! There are better methods to solve piracy than do it the way they have chosen.
For example: Steam. I find this method of purchasing and maintaining games without having to keep the cds by far the best choice.

I agree that EA is getting what they deserve. They shouldn't be shady about software as hardwired as this. But don't you think that the very existence of DRM shows that pirates are making us get what we "deserve."

Either way, all games should be steamed, i know it's a hassel, but the alternative is to buy a console, plain and simple.

there comes a point, and this is definately IT, where DRM restrictions actually encourage piracy, rather than discourage it.

i was actually going to BUY spore because of it's uniqueness and it looks fascinating, but do i want that crap rootkit software on my pc?

Hell no.

i may decide to buy the game from EA, but if i do i'm not installing it from the retail packaging. i'll go out and get a cracked, non hack-tool ridden copy to install

why pay someone money to mess up your pc?

Valis

WaveBossa, you're missing the point. It's not about piracy. Read the other comments and your own... SECUREROM did NOTHING to the pirates, never had a chance. If it's true there were "Half a million downloads before it came out" you've proven my point. What it will do is prevent resale, screw up a few PC's and piss off alot of paying gamers.

@ WaveBossa

You know not everyone has money to buy the games... I mean come on... 60$ on a game when you earn less than 400$/month is not that appealing... of course I agree that we should buy the games to support those who produce them, but on the other hand, they too have to be reasonable.

All I'm saying is take a freakin' look at a country's minimum wage before setting the price... and I guarantee you that nobody will be interested in having a pirated version of the game, it won't be worth it... and yes it seems fair to cost more in America than in Eastern Europe

Playing Spore is a lot like playing golf. And one great man once said, "It's like watching flies f*ck."

All this talk of PC game piracy... people seem to ignore the fact that xbox 360 games get pirated quite a bit as well. In fact, the recent Activision lawsuits are ALL targeting people sharing xbox 360 game disc images.

It is funny how all the idiotic pirates seem to think it is a RIGHT to get games... IT IS A LUXURY. If you can't afford it, try IMPROVING YOUR STATION IN LIFE rather than blaming others for items you can't afford, try earning it. DRM is because of all you idiots that can't handle what a luxury is, and I hope all of you that steal it rot in hell.

Since this is a class action lawsuit anyone who bought the game should be able to join it correct? Any idea how I can join it? I bought Spore the day it was released so I should qualify.

If they made the games $5 instead of $50, nobody would think about downloading a pirated copy, but go and buy a legit copy. It wouldn't in fact decrease their revenue, as their sales would skyrocket and no piracy at all.

I'm not defending EA here nor the way SecuROM does it's "thing", but...

Isn't SecuROM just another "piece" of software? If there's a way for it to be installed, there has to be a way for it to be uninstalled, right? If EA provides a tool for it's removal, it shouldn't be much of an issue here, am i wrong? Or at least the "true" developer for it (Sony?).

Esop!

I just joined the suit, but I'm settling for free EA games instead of money. lol.

Games are a luxury not a right. I don't go out and steal a ferrari because I can't afford one. If the price is unreasonable you have two options. A) Make more money. I know it seems difficult but even on my salary I can swing a game or two a month. B) Wait until it comes down in price. Believe it or not, after the market is saturated most games come down in price.

And if they made games $5 instead of $50 the gaming industry might not be worth as much as it is, the quality of productions would go down, etc. It's not realistic to sell the product at such a reduced cost if there's demand at the higher cost. If there is a way to make more money, then the video game companies will exploit it just like any corporation.

Also any ideology where someone says "I wouldn't have paid for it anyway so it's not really stealing" is completely false. If you're not going to pay for it anyway, just don't play it. If you really want to play it, pay the people that created it for their labor.

And....Steam rules. I just wish that they sold X-Com that would work in Vista

I thought spore was a really dumb game. I was hoping drm would crash its sales and it would flop. It's like a real time 3d children's version of civilization. But I didn't like civilization either.

Wow alot of you sure fell for that bait.

What Crytek and EA and other companies (and most of you people here) do not seem to understand is that there are still a lot of games that sell like crazy that have little or no DRM.

I'm pretty sure Sins of a solar Empire had none, and it was big. Even if they have some light DRM...you don't see crap this extreme with WOW, or most of blizzard's other stuff (they probably think this is hilarious). These games still get pirated but they are still profitable, because they are ACTUALLY GOOD.

Its real easy to bitch about piracy ruining your sales, but you just look stupid when you're one of only a handful of publishers where its that big of a deal. If they'd just shut up and spend all this time and effort making better games they wouldn't be in this boat.

REGARDLESS of the crap they want to make up about piracy making them have no sales. If that was true, every other company would be in the same boat, and they aren't. EA is a joke.

No bounty, i'm not missing anything. I know that securerom did ntohing to stop pirates. I even said that if you would have read my post.

I guess i gotta repeat myself. EA is at fault for what they've done, but THE FACT THAT SECUREROM EVEN EXIST is evidence that piracy is out of control. so while your bashing EA, don't forget to bash the pirates as well.

And thank you WasteOfTime for respoding to Balshoy idiotic comment for me. My God, this is the age we live in. An age where people feel entitled to software because they can't afford it and they have an internet connection.

EA = Fail
Pirates = Fail
And sadly computer gaming might follow suit.

Lmao WOW.. Wave you just eat the stuff EA tells you don't you? This had nothing to do with priracy in the first place. Online cd checking that had to do with piracy, and it actually worked. You can hardly find any good game and play them multiplayer unless you have a legit copy now days.

Securerom is simply to stop reselling. That is its only purpose. And to install anything on somebody elses computer without that person knowning is wrong, and that is what EA did.

In my mind EA has just proven itself to be just as bad pirates, and I hope they get burned for it.

If only someone would just TRY this for once...

Considering that a fair portion of what you are paying when you buy a game (or any sort of physical media, really) is the cost of packaging it, shipping it around, and then with those costs taken into account, reseller markup added on top of it, and that games are still often sold for $10 this way, why in the world couldn't someone offer direct downloads for at least that price, if not less?

Because companies like EA are just that greedy. Please stop buying their games. Even though they somehow get their grubby little hands on a whole lot of big name titles, I can't remember the last one that wasn't a disappointment. It's not worth it.

If the PC game industry is dying, then LET IT DIE. Bury it already, and start over. I am tired of not only the DRM, prices, and companies like EA bitching and moaning about piracy when they clearly bring it upon themselves by screwing over paying customers to no end, but most of all, THE CRAPPY GAMES THAT AREN'T WORTH IT TO BEGIN WITH. That's the real problem.

Only a idiot could actually think this would go through, PC gaming is dying, Piracy is bad and hurts sales, and that feet size is connected to penis size.