Electronic Arts has finally removed the DRM from Spore, the hit “Sim-everything” game from Will Wright. Although Spore has sold over 1 million copies, making it a definite hit, many people have stiffed the game due to the Spore DRM issue, and it’s unknown how many potential sales of the game have been missed due to the DRM issue.
DRM (Digital Rights Management) is a way for publishers to control what you can do with their software after you purchase it. In the case of Spore, Electronic Arts limited how many machines you could install the game on without contacting them and asking for permission to install more. Originally it was only three machines, but they later upgraded it to five.
The damage had already been done though as there was a huge backlash from fans and potential buyers to EA and thus many people chose to pirate the game (which meant they got a version without DRM but couldn’t play it properly).
After EA removed the DRM from Red Alert 3 many were hoping that Spore would be next, and now the day has come.
PC owners can now download a Spore De-authorization tool from EA that allows you to de-authorize your PC, freeing up a “machine slot” and allowing you to override the “five-PC-machine-install” limit.
Kudos to EA for finally fixing it. But let’s hope they learn they’re lesson and stop this DRM business in it’s current form. As it seems to be doing more damage than good. As for me, Spore is back on my list of games to get. I had sworn it off until they fixed the limit.
By the way, if you are a MAC owner, EA has yet to come up with a solution for you.
And in other Spore news, EA may finally be releasing Spore on Steam. This has been reported after the EULA for Spore mysteriously appeared on the Steam site.
Although EA has already released Crysis and Crysis Warhead on Steam earlier this year, the two games were developed by Crytek and are part of the EA Partners label and not directly developed by EA, so Spore would be the first big first-party EA game to be released on the service.
Hopefully EA will follow they’re Steam debut up with other big EA hits like Dead Space, FIFA 09 and Red Alert 3.