It seems that mighty EA is showing signs of cracking under the stress of the thousands of angry gamers who complained about placing the DRM, SecuROM, on Spore.
No, it isn’t going to remove the DRM, but EA is going to make slight modifications.
Electronic Arts says that they will allow the game to be "de-authorized," or removed from a computer, which essentially gives you back an installation of the game. SecuROM only allows you three installations of Spore before you have to call EA and ask for more.
EA explained:
That will be changed… the current limit on the number of computers that can be associated with a single copy of "Spore" is "very similar to a solution that iTunes has. The difference is that with iTunes you can de-authorize a computer [that you no longer want associated with your iTunes content].
Right now, with our solution, you can’t. But there is a patch coming for that."
The patch will be coming, according to EA, in the "near future."
The next issue EA tackled is the concern that SecuROM is spyware or malware that imbeds itself into a computer. EA responded that it is the gamers, who have downloaded Spore illegally, that are at risk.
"There’s no viruses, no spyware and no malware…We have located a download off of one of the Torrent sites that is a virus.
The thing I would say to the consumer audience is that, if you’re concerned with a virus on your computer, the chances of that are infinitely higher when you’re downloading off of a hacked version than it would be downloading the authentic game.
We would never put any spyware on anyone’s computers. That’s not going to happen."
Spore gamers were concerned about the online portion of the title. Spore automatically authenticates the game each time you play online. What happens if EA shuts down the servers in the future? This happened in 2006 when servers were shut down for 29 games, thus rendering online play worthless.
"If we were to ever turn off the servers on the game, we would put through a patch before that to basically make the DRM null and void. We’re never walking away from the game and making it into a situation where people aren’t going to be able to play it."
With over 500,000 illegal downloads of Spore, EA has seen the light and has felt the wrath of the gaming community. Gamres are generally ok with DRMs, but they’re not ok with overly restrictive limitations.
[via mtv]
