If there's been a more highly anticipated PC title in the past five years than Will Wright's Spore, I dare you to think of it. The super ambitious game has finally released after a long and hard development to good reviews from game critics and an outpouring of negative reviews from pissed off Amazon users. Here's a recap of what the hell's going on.

Back in early May EA made the announcement that two of their upcoming and highly anticipated PC titles, Mass Effect and Spore, would be using a form of DRM, SecuRom, that would perform an online verification of the installed programs every 10 days. As it tends to do, the internet went ape shit. Two days later, EA backed off and changed it to an initial online verification instead of consistently repeating. Mass Effect comes out, there's buzz for a week or so and then the hatred backs off...as it tends to do. Meanwhile, Spore sort of hung out on in the wings awaiting its release date.

Fast forwarded to this past weekend and Spore's official launch. The news of Amazon user giving Spore a "1 star" review start to come in and more people jump on the bandwagon. As of this writing there are over 1,800 "1 star" reviews and almost every one of them blames DRM or SecuRom directly as the sole reason for the negativity. What is it about DRM and SecuRom that gamers hate so much? For some it's the simple fact that you can't just buy a game and play it. DRM in general started out in the digital age when exact, perfect copies of media were enabled to be made with ever-increasing ease. Before the dawn of the internet there was always a good amount of effort and specific equipment needed to yield what ended up being an inferior analog copy. Still companies like Macrovision provided copyright holders with technology to protect their interests. In the end DRM was something that never had malicious intentions and was only an effort to protect the revenue stream of different companies. It's hard not to understand a company wanting to protect their interests. These days DRM is a leading pet peeve of many folks who simply want to enjoy their purchases uninhibited.

A little less than a month ago Spore's executive producer Lucy Bradshaw made the following comment regarding Spore's DRM:

"We do have copy protection, it is a necessary part of our biz, but we've worked to make it something that does not punish the legit owners. You need to authenticate once at the first install. This happens online. You can install on three separate computers and you do need to register for the online features."

What's this mean? According to EA's general EULA:

“You may download the number of copies allowed by the software's digital rights management from an authorized source. However, you may use only one copy of the software on a single computer at any given time.”

OK, but we now know that Spore uses SecuRom. Why doesn't the EULA mention SecuRom specifically? According to the Spore SecuRom FAQ EA's set up:

We don't disclose specifically which copy protection or digital rights management system we use --in this case, SecuROM -- because EA typically uses one license agreement for all of its downloadable games, and different EA downloadable games may use different copy protection and digital rights management.

So what are the details concerning what SecuRom will be doing? According to an EA rep:

— We authenticate your game online when you install and launch it the first time.

— We'll re-authenticate when a player uses online features, downloads new content or a patch for their game.

— The new system means you don't have to play with the disc in your computer. And if you are like me, always losing discs, this will be a huge benefit.

— You'll still be able to install and play on multiple computers.

— You can play offline.

Dude, but SecuRom installs rootkits! Well, the registry changes made by SecuRom do resemble actual rootkits but when Ars Technica took a hard look at Bioshock's SecuRom they came to the conclusion that there were no rootkits installed. SecuRom's web site declares that anything it installs is common and used in many other applications.

It seems like there's an argument to made against SecuRom being malicious or installing a virus, which is a relief but the main issue still remains: Why are companies making people think that they're treating their legit customers like crooks? Why make them "jump through hoops" to use something they actually paid for when the pirates are getting around the issues all together? To the best of my knowledge there's no news of anyone who has purchased Spore legally being prevented from playing the game because of the DRM.

I had a long discussion with Dan while I was writing this and his stance was simple: any media using prohibitive DRM would not get his money. He stopped using the iTunes store the first time he was prompted to sign in to his account to listen to music he bought and he does not plan on buying Spore or Red Alert 3, two games he was very much looking forward to playing. It was hard for me to find an argument with what Dan was saying. In his opinion the paying customer shouldn't have to jump through hoops to play the game. And treating paying customers like they're all thieves is bad for business. There is no argument for that.

Personally I'm on the fence about the whole issue. It's not that I feel DRM is acceptable, it's more like it was inevitable and will probably not go away any time soon. It's something that I'm learning to begrudgingly live with. To a small extent we almost brought this on ourselves since back in the good 'ol days Napster was the virtual starting line for this whole issue. Would we have done anything differently back in '99 and '00 if we had known this would come about? I mean, it was a natural transition to grab some "free" tunes since we were never taught that it was a bad thing to copy a tape for a friend in our dual well cassette decks. After all we now know this practice is covered under Fair Use. This particular issue with Spore is a case where EA is trying to protect their product (and almost all of their other PC releases) against piracy when in turn it seems to be evoking more. We'll never really be able to tell how this backlash is directly affecting the sales of Spore.

As a PC gamer Spore is pretty much a must-play so what am I to do? I really want to take a look at the game and let all of you beloved readers know my impressions. Though I'd like to join the people "sending a message" with my dollar by not giving it to EA I also don't want my desire to play send me to some torrent site and pirate the game.

Will Wright has brought us a game that we should all be really excited for and chomping at the bit to try out but instead we're being sidetracked by these other issues taking away from what we should all be doing: playing games.

A big thanks to this article over at Texyt for giving me a good jumping point for information.

Comments (12)

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written by Neuromante, September 10, 2008

Nice article. I was excited with the coming of Spore, and found that if I want to play the game:
a) I have to have internet connection even if I don't want to use the online features. That's fair with HL/HL2 as long as the Steam Community it's huge and the game has no other copy protections, but with Spore, no, thanks.
b) I have to install ONE time the game and pray the gods to not have any kind of problem (viruses, HD loosing, etc etc) so I lost one of the three installs.

Then I searched a bit in torrent pages and found that the pirated versions (like in Bioshock) didn't need connection to the internets, you can install 'em the numer of times you want, etc etc
So, what we have here? The legal copy treating you like a delincuent, a pirate version who treats you like a PLAYER: No problems, no errors, no shit (sherlock).
So I was almost convinced to purchase Spore (then I saw those "spore it's too casual" commentaries) and then and saw all this DRM shit, and decided to not buy it.

Wanna rude words? Fuck you, EA. Fuck you, Will Wright. Have some RESPECT to your customers and maybe, MAYBE, when you publish something interesting (not the n-iteration of your shitty franchises) like Spore was, I'll buy it.

Meanwhile, I'm still saving to get Galactic Civilizations. No DRM. No shits incorporated. Great game.

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written by Ryan Hewson, September 10, 2008

For myself – who generally games on consoles and only occasionally on PC, and even then a Mac, which sort of bypasses the whole SecuROM thing – it comes down to one thing. Does DRM get in my way. That's the entire question.

iTunes DRM does not get in my way. I'm a little surprised by Dan's reaction, even though I fully understand it. He's just being a spaz but for the right reasons. Signing into something occasionally when I have maxed my # of allowable simultaneous licenses or whatever is inconvenient but not a dealbreaker normally – however, if it did that to me on an airplane, that's totally inconvenient.

So really the way I look at DRM is that it's a PC publisher's attempt to make an open system closed, for their revenue stream. I find this quote interesting: "It's a necessary part of our business...". Why? Because you don't sell as many PC games as console games? Or because you think you are losing money? Certainly this is true to some extent, but somehow publishers fail to grasp the concept that not everyone who pirates software would have bought it otherwise.

They've never understood this, or at least they've never given any inkling of understanding this. They just see X thousand torrents on Pirate Bay and see 100% of those as lost revenue. (Companies bitching about "satellite piracy" do the same thing.) Surely our and their understanding of the situation is a little more nuanced than that?

I forget who used this example first, but it's not mine: a guy walks into a bookstore. He sees a book he's heard about and would like to read. But it's only available in hardcover. Which means it's $25. He decides that's a little too much to pay, and walks out.

Walking down the street, he finds the exact same book in a used bookstore for $12. Hardcover and everything, someone just traded it in. So he buys it.

The lesson in this is that this guy was never a customer for the $25 book. Never. He was not going to pay that much money for it. It was not a "lost" sale, it was never a sale to begin with.

Now, lower that used bookstore price to "seemingly free". I will download practically anything if someone offers it for seemingly-free. I say seemingly because that's what piracy looks like to PC users. That's a big reason they bought a PC, to many, because "their friends have one and could give them games". Hell, Windows itself flourished under exactly these circumstances. It absolutely wouldn't have conquered the entire market if it wasn't able to so easily become ubiquitous. Of course, now that it is ubiquitous, Microsoft wants money for every copy from now on.

So the point I am laboriously trying to make is, publishers cannot whine when they try to sell a product for an open platform and then complain about it being open. EA chose to make a PC version of Spore knowing full well what that platform is like. If they don't like the open nature of the platform, don't fucking sell it for PC. Sell it for console. Everyone knows and understands what they are getting into there; a closed platform where the lack of control is counterbalanced by a smooth user experience.

So bringing this back around to my first example, DRM getting in your way – if they can magically figure out how to secure their sales then more power to them. They ought to get paid for their work and it's their product to design as they see fit. At the same time, if their copyprotection fucks with the normal operation of my computer, or my enjoyment of their product in any unreasonable way – such as making me beg for more licenses when I change video cards on my open platform – they can die in a fire. We don't need to support that. And hence, a multitude of 1-star ratings on Amazon.

In the end I don't know why they just didn't bite the much softer bullet and say, you know what, Spore is an online game like World of Warcraft. You need to be online, period. Sorry, army users, offline users, we know it sucks but this is how we designed it. Then they wouldn't be able to bitch about piracy and the furor would be small. WoW doesn't get in my way. I know it's patrolling my system for cheatbots and other stuff while I play but I simply don't notice it, therefore it's fine by me.

Meanwhile we'll definitely see other PC publishers, smaller ones, tout their lack of DRM and pick up some free goodwill. Same thing is happening in the music space with the likes of Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails.

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written by Ryan Hewson, September 10, 2008

Oh and I also meant to say – Dan what do you think of the DRM-less iTunes files? (AAC+?) Were you aware of those? Just curious.

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written by Dan Zuccarelli, September 10, 2008

Ryan: I am aware of those but the Amazon ones are still of a higher quality and usually cheaper. Besides, while I like the idea of DRM-free stuff on iTunes it bugged me launching the store to see if it was or wasn't being sold that way. I go to Amazon and I don't need to worry about it. Everything is DRM free.

Also, iTunes DRM HAS gotten in my way. A recent upgrade in iTunes software flagged a bunch of my audio files as unplayable because I didn't have rights... and these were songs I had the CD's for a ripped myself! I tried to fix the problem but ultimately just deleted the files and re-ripped them. It was entirely their fault through shittty copy protection schemes.

I probably go overboard on this one, but I feel like I'm right I have no problem with people protecting their product, but once you assume I'm a thief for buying the product you've totally lost me. There's enough out there that I have choice, and I choose now to buy that crap.

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written by Les, September 10, 2008

I'm an old gamer myself (41 years so far) and was part of the generation that got this whole ball rolling with the original PONG. Copy protection goes back way further than the Napster era as games started coming with copy protection all the way back on the old 8 bit machines. If you'll permit me a bit of cut and paste I'll include here the message I left on the EA forums when they announced that Red Alert 3 would be using SecuROM. I also crossposted it to my blog. I think it sums things up pretty well:

I’m a 41 year old gamer who has bought numerous titles from Electronic Arts all the way back to the original Archon on the Commodore Amiga back when EA was just a small company run by Trip Hawkins. That was back in 1982 and I was 15 at the time. In the 26 years since I’ve spent countless thousands of dollars on EA games for the Amiga, PC, and various consoles. I’ve watched over the years as the copy protection became more and more intrusive while doing nothing to actually stop the pirates, but the games were good and the copy protection not much more than an annoyance so I spent the money and enjoyed myself. It’s safe to say that I’m a long-standing fan of EA and many of the titles they’ve put out. Red Alert and its sequel remain two of my all-time favorite RTS games and I was eagerly looking forward to playing the latest installment when it is released.

Electronic Arts, however, has decided to reward my (literally) decades-long loyalty by making use of one of the more problematic DRM systems available. These days I make my living as a PC support specialist and there are various legitimate programs, such as Process Explorer, which may or may not run properly if I have SecuROM installed on my systems. SecuROM said this was an attempt to stop people from hacking their DRM system, but considering that Spore was cracked and on the Bittorrent sites almost a week before its release it doesn’t seem to be stopping the hackers. In fact the only people being inconvenienced by this DRM system are legitimate customers who have paid for the software. You’ve already admitted that even if it works fine without conflict for the vast majority of your customers there’s still likely to be a subsection who run into problems. I believe you called that “Life Happens” in your original post. What a great attitude to take with your paying customers. It was enough to get me to take the time to register an account just so I could let you know how I feel about it.

I’m done being treated like a criminal in order to use the software I’ve paid for. I did not purchase Bioshock despite being a fan of the original System Shocks because of SecuROM, I did not purchase Mass Effect for the same reason, I also haven’t purchase Spore in spite of following its development since its announcement, and I won’t be purchasing Red Alert 3 for the same reasons. I don’t care how many copies you allow me to install before I need to call your support line. I’m testing software and OS installs all the time which means I’m restaging my PC on a regular basis which means it won’t be long before I have to start calling and explaining why I need a 5th, 6th, 7th… 20th reinstall to some poor sap on the phone. Meanwhile Joe Pirate Boy is able to enjoy his copy as much as he wants and reinstall it as much as he wants without having to call anyone.

There are three of us in my family who were dieing to play Spore so much so that we would’ve spent $150 for three copies of the game just so we wouldn’t have to wait for one person to stop playing before someone else could start, but now its not going to happen. I still play my copy of Red Alert 2 some eight years after it was released and it still installs just fine without any need for an Internet connection or calling someone up on the phone. Will I be able to do that with Red Alert 3 in 8 years? Will you still have registration servers running for it and someone sitting by a phone ready to grant me my 130th install? Will you release a patch at some point that removes the DRM so that nonsense won’t be necessary?

In summary: Explain to me why I should spend $50 just so I can be treated like a criminal?

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written by Les, September 10, 2008

Hmmm. It appears my comment may have been eaten. Oh well.

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written by Tralfaz, September 10, 2008

"If there’s been a more highly anticipated PC title in the past five years than Will Wright’s Spore, I dare you to think of it."

Half-Life 2. Sorry, had to mention it. Of course, it's probably debatable, but I think the what? 6 or 7 years that PC gamers were clamoring for a sequel to HL may have generated a bit more furvor than Spore.

Re: DRM, I'd have to say that I'm pretty much in the same boat as Ryan, so can't say much more than that. Don't like it, try to avoid it, but will accept it if it really doesn't get in the way of me enjoying the product I purchased. So, yeah... pretty much what he said.

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written by Dan Zuccarelli, September 10, 2008

Les:

Not sure why that happened, found it in the spam queue for whatever reason tough. Rescued!

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written by Kevin Alexander, September 10, 2008

Tralfaz: It's hard to argue that one, but I think I made the statement you quoted because I think Spore has garnered more mainstream attention. Will Wright is one of the only people in gaming who has anything close to what you could consider a "household name". Gabe Newell? Not so much.

Granted, HL2 was probably more anticipated among hardcore gamers and rightfully so. It's one of my favorite games of all time.

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written by Josh Miller, September 10, 2008

The best part is that I'm sure there is already a torrent out there with a crack for Spore.

Anti Piracy doesn't work because there is always a way around it.

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written by Tralfaz, September 11, 2008

Oh, I understood why you said that, Kevin. Hence why I said it would be debatable. I'm not so sure Will Wright is as "mainstream" as you claim, but it's all moot anyway. You were indeed correct to say what you said; I was just playing Devil's Advocate, so to speak.

Anyway, more to the topic, I really wish that the PC publishing sector would figure on a different solution to the piracy problem. I of course come from a much heavier background of console gaming, but there are certain PC games that I do enjoy playing. Heck, I built my first PC in nearly a decade this past January so that I could get back into PC games. Steam has been a real boon for me, as though it essentially requires similar techniques to the SecuROM DRM mentioned, it's hidden rather well and doesn't seem to be an issue for most people that use the service. To me, Steam is just a convenient way to gain access to my games if I'm on another machine, or if Windows goes down for the billionth time, needing to be re-installed.

As it stands, all of this DRM crap is a major turn-off to me, and it certainly doesn't draw me to PC games as strongly as I otherwise would be. I guess I'll just have to use my PC as a development machine (no DRM, of course! ).

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written by Christian Olsson, September 11, 2008

This is a terrible story for 2 parties - legitimate users who simply wanted to play Spore and couldn't because the activation servers went down and EA because Spore was cracked even before it was released.

Often developers walk a tightrope with the tradeoff between protection strength and the degree of impact on legitimate users but this was a failure on both dimensions! Is this really what the publisher wants to 'accomplish'? Why not use a solution which is friendly to honest users, has no impact on development time and the strongest available protection against crackers - see the whitepaper "Is Anti-Piracy/DRM the Cure or the Disease for PC Games?" which can be downloaded here www.byteshield.net/byteshield_whitepaper_0005.pdf.

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