EA responds to Spore DRM

EA has given an official response to the Spore DRM controversy. Unfortunately, given the response, it really doesn't give any hope for future EA PC games. Which is a real bitch considering that BioWare are now owned by EA (my precious Dragon Age!!!).

I'll dissect the areas of the response that I have issue with below. Meanwhile, I just want to say again that this is a real bitch considering that BioWare are now owned by EA (I was really really really looking forward to Dragon Age).

"We felt that limiting the number of machine authorizations to three wouldn’t be a problem."
WTF?!?! How can you not think that this would be a problem? Don't the fucking morons at EA keep an eye on the gaming industry? I mean, considering that EA s in the gaming industry to begin with, you would think they would have noticed all the negative reactions to DRM. For example, Ubisoft getting slapped with a lawsuit re DRM and the whole brouhaha regarding BioShock.

But then, maybe I'm being unfair. After all, the above happened to other companies and maybe EA really don't pay any attention to other companies in the industry. Oh wait, never mind - I just remembered the whole DRM controversy surrounding the PC release of Mass Effect. I guess EA are morons after all.

We assumed that consumers understand piracy is a huge problem – and that if games that take 1-4 years to develop are effectively stolen the day they launch, developers and publishers will simply stop investing in PC games.
I guess this sounds reasonable. After all, with the official release date on 5 September (7 September in the US), EA will be looking to get as many sales as possible post launch, when hype for the game is at its highest, before the game gets cracked and posted on bittorrents.

Oh look - the game was cracked during the weekend of 30 August and by 3 September, there were already over 10,000 downloads. In other words, even before the game was launched in the US, it had already been cracked and downloaded over 10,000 times. So much for EA trying to prevent the game being stolen on the day they launch.

In case its not clear - I just want to add that in this case, pirates not only get the better product (no DRM) but they also get the game sooner than people who buy the game. The truth is that if you look at the history of piracy, cracked versions of games generally appear within a couple of days of the games release. DRM has NEVER been effective in stopping piracy - it has only ever been effective at punishing honest game buyers.

We have found that 75 percent of our consumers install and play any particular game on only one machine and less than 1 percent every try to play on more than three different machines.
And again, EA shows that they just aren't listening to their consumers (despite any claims from themselves to the contrary). The problem with this isn't that consumers install on more than 3 machines.

The problem (as has been fully explained in numerous forum posts) is that the game counts the below situations as an extra install:

1. Reinstalling the game - I have lost track of the number of times I have installed my PC games. There is this little thing called nostalgia which, believe it or not, means that people will come back to their favourite games again and again. Christ, I'm in the middle of replaying Baldur's Gate at the moment and that was released in 1998!
2. Upgrading hardware - Even upgrading hardware, not exactly an unknown occurrence for PC users, will be treated as a separate install. I'm guessing the reason for this is that the game just assumes you reinstalled it on a new PC.

In other words, if you use your PC like a PC, you are going to run foul of the 3 install limit - at which point you need to contact EA if you want to play the game again. EA have said that they will increase the install limit to 5. Although this helps slightly, all it really does is delay the inevitable.

We assured consumers that if special circumstances warranted more than three machines, they could contact our customer service team and request additional authorizations.
This would have actually meant something to me if it wasn't for the fact that a lot of forum posters are complaining about how EA gives shitty customer service. Granted, not everyone (dare I say most?) is going to have a problem contacting EA support - and I'm sure this will be a great consolation to you when you happen to be the unlucky bastard who has to call them and can't get hold of a CSR with half a brain.

The thing is, considering that DRM doesn't work at all, this is just a useless extra hoop that gamers have to jump through (which pirates don't). Can you blame people for being upset?

Wrapup
EA say they are "disappointed by the misunderstanding surrounding the use of DRM software". Well, I'm disappointed by the misunderstanding shown by EA with regard to gamers concerns (and I'm being kind by saying misunderstanding).

They then go on to say "Without the ability to protect our work from piracy, developers across the entire game industry will eventually stop investing time and money in PC titles". Bullshit. Stardock have shown that you can still be successful without using DRM. Gamers have also shown that they will accept DRM if it is unobtrusive - Steam is highly acclaimed by gamers precisely because the DRM on it is unobtrusive.

Frankly, this sounds like EA threatening gamers with "deal with it or we stop developing PC games".

This response from EA is entirely unacceptable and I, for one, have had enough. Until EA changes its policies, I will no longer be buying any EA game. Luckily for me, I didn't buy Madden 09 and that Fifa 09 hadn't been released yet (Fifa 09 for the X360 was the next game I was looking to buy). As I said above, the real bitch is that this means I will also be missing out on Dragon Age (and all future games by BioWare).

EA - Fuck you.