Comments on: Botched 'Spore' launch could learn from open source

Electronic Arts screwed up the release of Spore by choosing absurd DRM. Perhaps a page from the open-source world could have helped offset all the piracy.

[ashley186]

Botched is a nice way of putting this. I hope EA reads this. I was about to go out and Buy Spore.. until i read about the DRM and i cant install it more than 3 times.. or i have to call EA or something. What a hassle.. Do you know what EA.. YOU JUST LOST $100 bucks from me because of your DRM and im not the only one.

My friends just downloaded a copy... because it was LESS HASSLE. I was happy to pay for the game because it looked so good until i found out about the complications.

What happens in 10 years when i wanna play Spore again... can i still call EA and reactivate or whatever trash it is your pushing.

EA.. Challenging .. Not Everything.. Just my Patience.

Ashley, Australia

[dez82]

How come companies like EA, who have been in the market since Adam was a schoolboy, haven't bothered to spend any time/money observing trends in consumer behavior and buying habits.
Pretty much every successful MMORPG, MMO, MUD, M...Etc has offered some sort of trial version, using full capability, with a restriction on time only. Including that benchmark of MMO marketing and development, World of Warcraft.

If companies are to succeed in the current market, especially in an online, global market where the innocent act of downloading can cause a loss in profit, they need to start providing roducts/services that people will actually pay for, not begrudgingly fork out for because they have no other choice.

Take products like ZOHO, companies like Canonical.
Anyone can freely use their product or service, and for a fee, will be provided with red carpet service and support which keeps them coming back for more.

EA, get a clue, this is no the 1960s, you don't need a news stand to sell newspapers, and sure as hell, you don't need an overpriced pimp, aka games shop, to sell software, especially in a world where torrent downloads and "peer to peer" are seen as legitimate methods of legal software distribution.

[AlohaMilton]

John Madden and Tiger Woods made EA what they are. The names of those two men carried EA to the top. When EA screws around with dumb ideas enough that the next 'name' they want to use says 'no your reputation will hurt my brand identity' this will stop. Maybe. Master of Puppets was a favorite album, I have not listened to one single track since the whole episode when those spoiled brats started telling the world to stop turning as progress was taking penny's away from their millions. Their are plenty of good bands and they just make me feel weird to listen to now, to much drama and complaining associated with them. Well its about the same with EA now. There are other fun games that don't require I deal with tech support phone lines so I will play those and only miss spore for like, umm... what was that i missed again I can't remember? Someone else was working hard to earn my trust and my hard earned cash, and I forgot all about that other thing. What was it again?

[tcampb01]

I suppose there are probably those at EA who are holding to the position that all those people who protested by downloading a non-licensed copy of the game would have done so anyway and that they haven't really lost any sales. I was really thinking I might buy Spore until I learned how restrictive the DRM is. As a result, I'll stay away from this one.

I'm not actually opposed to DRM technology itself -- its how vendors who implement DRM manage it. I think makers of software, music, etc. should be paid for their work. The problem is that none of these vendors who use DRM stop to consider that while they want customers to be supportive of their use of DRM, they aren't supportive of their paid-customer population when those customers are left with unusable products. When DRM goes bad and the customer calls, they aren't sympathetic.

EA could easily have told consumers that if they register the product, EA will guarantee the DRM. E.g. go register your serial number & email address (or whatever). Later if you exceed the 3 copies, or if your media is damaged, or even lost, they'll re-issue additional installs or even replace the media because the customer can show that they legitimately bought it.

Instead these companies seem to ignore any arguments on the part of their consumers because, quite frankly, even when honest buyers of their software end up not being able to use it, EA makes more money by insisting they re-purchase if they want to continue to use it.

[QuadFather]

hear hear!

[dustinsherrill]

It makes me sad. I was just about to buy this game too. I won't though until EA fixes this. I would be fine if they changed it to just requiring the disk. I'm glad I saw the news articles on CNET.

[QuadFather]

I also will probably stay away from this game as the result of the atrocious DRM news. ... And like everyone else, it was this news that made up my mind to save my money rather than spend it.

[spacydog]

Although I'm not a fan of DRM (I stay away from any music services that encrypt the songs I download), I think this whole story has been overblown. My copy of Spore came free with the new gaming laptop I purchased recently from Best Buy as part of a deal they had. If I had to pay for my own copy, I would have. The game is quite enjoyable and worth the $50. I don't see myself re-installing the game for more than one time, so what is all this loathing and sadness people seem to have for EA? And trutfully, in 5-10 years, how many people see themselves re-installing an old game to play it again? It's just $50 and it's just a game, NOT the end of the world. If you still want to sabotage or boycott the game, that's your prerogative. All I know is I'm enjoying the game while you aren't. These posts on Cnet seem to be way too political at times.

[zcline]

Spacydog, it doesn't matter if you don't understand people's frustrations. DRM is intrusive at its very core and the message has been sent to EA in the form of missed sales. Check around, it's not just CNET writing about EA's blunder.

After dealing with DRM on music CD's I've purchased, I will be staying the hell away from this one. It's been years since I've been interested in a video game and I can certainly live without. Too bad, looked entertaining.

[HighwayHome]

Folks, EA is not the only game developer out there. Maybe some other publishers will take advantage of EA's fumble (they're used to fumbles, since the quality of the Madden series has been hurting to say the least) and use it to their advantage by advertising "No DRM" on their software titles. Yeah, 50 bucks for one game is not a big deal, but when you have bought about 100 titles, you're talking about a nice piece of change.

[firefoxluva95]

It's not the fact that you are going to install Spore 3 times on your computer as soon as you get it. It's the fact that accidents can and will happen. Computers may have to be reformatted. Also don't forget, people do upgrade their operating systems. That means you have to install Spore again. Wow so you install it on your computer (or it came preinstalled) that's 1. You decide to rollback to XP, the second install. You get another computer in the house and want to install Spore on that. You've used 3 installs. Windows 7 is coming and you decide to get that when it comes out. Oh my...now I have to call EA and be put on hold for many hours.

No, EA needs to realize we're human, accidents happen. People think they won't use up their three installs but they can never insure that.