What about people who have no internet? Or what happens when they pull the plug on the authentication server?

Oh, as for not needing a CD — I find cracks work better and every game has one! Even for patches; amazing!

The upshot of it all is this: The SecuROM DRM and the install limit is less about stopping piracy (Spore was cracked and on the net five days before it was released to stores) as it is about eliminating the resale potential of the game in question. The folks at Gamestop are making a killing on buying up games people don’t want anymore and then selling them at nearly the cost of a new game. A new copy of Call of Duty 4 for the Xbox 360 retails for $59.99 and the “used” copy is selling for $54.99. If you were to trade in your copy you’d probably get $25 for it. The game publishers aren’t happy at all with this secondhand market because they don’t see a dime from it. Limiting the installs on a game is one way to eliminate that market (there are no listings for Spore at this time).

Checking the Spore EULA we can see that this is exactly the aim they have in mind as it says transfer are allowed up to the point that you’ve used up your maximum number of installs:

Transfer. You may make a one time permanent transfer to all your rights to install and use the Software to another individual or legal entity provided that: (a) the technical protection measures used by the Software supports such transfers; (b) you also transfer this License and all copies of the Software; (b) you retain no copies of the Software, upgrades, updates or prior versions; and (c) the receiving party accepts the terms and conditions of this License. You may not be able to transfer the right to receive updates, dynamically served content, or the right to use any online service of EA in connection with the Software. You may not be able to transfer the Software if you have already exhausted the terms of this License by authenticating the
Software on the allowed number machines. Subsequent recipients of this License may not be able to authenticate the Software on additional machines. EA may require that any end user of the Software register the Software online as a condition of use and/or purchase additional licenses. NOTWITHSTANDING THE FOREGOING, YOU MAY NOT TRANSFER PRE-RELEASE COPIES OF THE SOFTWARE.

In other words, maybe you can resell it when you’re sick of it and maybe you can’t. It’s up to us and how we feel about it.

That’s a minor quibble in my book, though, as I rarely ever sell off games I’ve bought. The technical issues that arise due to SecuROM as I talk about in my blog entries are the main reason I won’t buy the game or any other that use SecuROM. I’m not about to plunk down $50 to be treated like a criminal or to lose control over what I am allowed to run on my PC.

I gather maxis is addressing this with ’screen names’ (basically sub-accounts or alts), but that seemed like a really strange tack to take, and indicates they were still tinkering with their restrictions late in the dev process, given the misprint in the manual.

I much prefer the MMO model. Allow me to install and uninstall it as much as I like and register the install to my email and allow me to just run it on one device as it knows that I connected. Then again, I am a mmo player and used to that model.

Also if they really followed the model of Apple and its DRM for iTunes, that would be great to be able to Authenticate and Unauthenticate an install, thus saving the problem.

The reason it came to head now? By far this is going to be the most popular game that uses this style of DRM at this point, what better opportunity do people have to unite and let the industry we don’t like poorly thought out copy right protections.

For example, I’ve noticed a lot of people around the net complaining that they’re shelling out $50 for Spore and not getting to “own” it. This is far from new, read the EULAs of the majority of the games you own and there’ll be something to the effect of “this software is non-exclusively licensed (nod sold) to you”. You almost never own the game, you simply pay for the right to play it. And all your derivative works like maps, skins, mods, etc.? They’re just that, derivative works, which means you don’t fully (if at all) own them either.

I also have to wonder if the average consumer (which will usually take precedence over the “hardcore”, also nothing new) is really going to feel restricted by a base limit of five installs. I mean, let’s take an “average” family, we’ll say two kids and two parents. Odds are that the parents will share a CPU and we’ll assume each kid gets his/her own computer. That’s three installs right there with two to spare just in case. That’ll suit most people just fine.

To anyone who’d like to answer, why do you think this all sort of came to a head with the release of Spore? I would very much like to know the concrete reasons why you feel this is so much worse than what came before it.

We bought the game only because we already shelled out money for the Spore Creator and it looked like a pretty decent game despite all this drama going on about it.

I think no matter how you look at it, you’re screwed if you pirated it and you’re screwed if you buy it.The game seems like it’s totally revolved around playing online. All your content is downloaded from other players. So of course if you don’t play it online, all you will be playing with is stuff you’ve created and default content. Atleast that’s what I figured out after our internet went down and we ended up playing it offline. It’s lacking a lot when played offline so I can imagine everyone who pirated it had to of been pretty disappointed. Even if you didn’t pirate it, like I said if the there is infact a 3-5 limit for installation, you’re still screwed because you’ve paid around 50 bucks for a game you don’t even “own”.

Now I know what your thinking: You can get keys by calling up some customer service number, but who in the hell wants to do that when you’ve already paid money for the game. Oh yeah, good luck with that. I’m sure you’ll have to beg to get one. Everytime your computer crashes, you get new hardware, or even if you reformat your computer regularly.

Anyway my point was, you shouldn’t have to pay that much money for a game if you don’t even fully “own” it after purchasing it. It is a pretty decent game when you’ve got the full working version and online access, it’s just a drag that EA thought this would be a good idea. -_-

My husband is an IT/hardware guy and my PC gets used quite a bit in testing various and sundry bits and pieces of hardware. So, either every time my husband tests a friend’s hardware on my PC, I loose an authorization or I tell my husband that he can’t use my PC. Plus, I play old games all the time. I’m constantly shifting out old games for new, or old games for older games. No. No, I don’t think that’s going to work.

MMOs are much freer than this. Certainly, I’m authorized every time I log in. However, I can install/uninstall any of my MMOs as many times as I like and change hardware as often as I like with no problems.