EA Games president Frank Gibeau addressed anxious gamers last Friday on the touchy issue of digital rights management as it pertains to Spore, which originally allowed only three installs.
“We’ve received complaints from a lot of customers who we recognize and respect,” Gibeau said in a statement. “And while it’s easy to discount the noise from those who only want to post or transfer thousands of copies of the game on the Internet, I believe we need to adapt our policy to accommodate our legitimate consumers.”
As a result, Electronic Arts expanded the number of eligible machines from three to five, promised more leniency in extending additional activations, and implemented a de-authorization system, much like the one used in BioShock for PC.
That didn’t stop gamers from filing a class-action lawsuit on Tuesday, however. According to the Federal Court filing, Sony’s SecuROM DRM program “is installed without notice and cannot be uninstalled, even if you uninstall Spore,” and it “prevents the computer from operating under certain circumstances and/or disrupting hardware operations.”
Incidentally, an EA moderator on the official Spore forums threatened to cancel accounts of still unsatisfied Spore owners. “SecuROM as been discussed and discussed so much and it causes arguments in threads,” the moderator quipped. “If you want to talk about DRM SecuROM then please use another fansite forum.
“Please do not continue to post these threads or your account may be at risk of banning which in some cases would mean you would need to buy a new copy to play Spore.”