Spore Sells One Million Copies Amidst DRM Woes
Source: Tom's Guide | Keywords: spore, DRM, securom, ea, sued | Themes: Digital Entertainment
Without a doubt, Spore was one of the most anticipated games of 2008, made even more of a star by the fact that it was designed for the PC during the age of consoles.
In less than a month since its release, Spore has sold more than one million copies since shipping on September 7. Mind you, that one million mark was spread across PC, Mac and Nintendo DS, making that number seem slightly less impressive.
“Spore is a hit,” said Frank Gibeau, president of the EA Games Label. “Will Wright’s latest delivers an incredibly diverse game that appeals to casual gamers and the core alike. We’re off to a great start moving into the holiday season and believe Spore will deliver a platform of creativity for gamers of all stripes for years to come.”
Spore players have been largely productive too, uploading more than 25 million creatures, vehicles and buildings to the Sporepedia.
“We’re humbled by how quickly the community has taken to the creativity tools in Spore,” said Lucy Bradshaw, vice president of Maxis and Spore’s executive producer. “It’s amazing to see the sheer imagination represented in the hundreds of thousands of creatures, vehicles and buildings that have been uploaded around the clock since launch.”
Spore’s success hasn’t been without several hurdles, however, as the game was met upon release with outcry from its fanbase for the restrictive and inconvenient copy protection methods in place.
Amplifying matters even further was a class action lawsuit filed against EA also complaining that the game forces the user to install SecuROM protection software along with the game, causing some undesirable side effects.
The ongoing plight of PC piracy continues as legitimate, paying gamers are suffering the pain of copy protection while the anti-piracy measures have done nothing to stop cracked versions from being distributed on the Internet.
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90% of copies are probably on the Mac since they have nothing else besides Warcraft III and WoW to play >
Most people have the whole idea of SecuRom and the x amount of activations all wrong.
It's not just a simple DRM, it installs separately to the game without your knowledge...if you un-install the game...it DOESN'T un-install the SecuRom, which makes it a rootkit (malware), so if you don't know this, you will think it's gone because it hides in "hidden folders" and in your "Registry", not to mention disabling of some AV's ,the damage it does to some PC hardware, and stops you from being able to use legal software that SecuRom has been programmed to black band. EA deserves to be sued over this issue alone.
The other issue I have with this type of Draconian DRM is that when you can't afford the internet anymore, you can no longer Play a Game you Paid for, and that is wrong...most games aren't played over the Net so why do we have to be connected to it. ( It's to Spy on PC users, that's why it Phones Home with Encrypted Data.)
There is a lot bigger picture than what we're seeing here right now, this is only a baby step to the end plan. This has nothing to do with piracy, because we know that the pirates will never be stopped and it is proven once again with the amount of torrented copies of Spore downloaded so far in less than a month. Why is EA adamant about continuing to use SecuRom when they know it’s not doing what they say it was intended for and is only effecting the paying customers. I will not buy anything that is put out by EA or Sony anymore, even though I would love to buy Sims2 IKEA, Sims2 Apartment Life, Spore and Red Alert 3, but I just don't trust EA or Sony. All they have done for the last 18 months is lie through their teeth to save their neck and not a bit of concern for their paying customers.
I'm a member at Reclaim Your Game: http://www.reclaimyourgame.com/ and we’re dedicated to helping other gamers with their issues with SecuRom and get info out to educate to public. We also have a SecuRom Removal Instruction Walkthrough Tutorial on the site for people to use and we’re in the process of updating it.
So please feel free to visit our site and see for yourself.
This game was suppose to be at the scale of Grand Theft Auto IV in sales from the casual gaming community. The fact it only sold 1 million copies means its a failure to its potential. I know I am not the only one to refuse to purchase this game on the grounds of the DRM. There are atleast 500k others that agree.
Just read today that EA is being sued over this.
Have a look at this article - http://www.physorg.com/news141578440.html
IMHO, anyone that installs unnecessary software, not to mention damaging software, on a customer's computer even if it is mentioned in the EULA deserves to be sued.
So selling a combination of one million PC, Mac and Nintendo DS versions is a success? Really? OK so the PC and Mac versions are very similar but the DS version is technically a totally different title. So one million copies sold between 2 games is a considered a success from a game that took 6-7 years and had something like a 50-60 million dollar budget? OK guys, whatever.