The Australia-first thing also had the effect of allowing a bunch of normal people to play and report on the game before the US audience got it. I saw some forum threads (SA in particular) that really cratered as people started saying that the game wasn’t all that great. I think the game has some serious flaws besides the DRM. I’ve decided to skip Spore for a while despite being really hyped 6 months ago. I think I agree with the opinions that Spore will eventually be a really good game. (After a few $30 expansion packs. Go EA!)

Actually, Spore was pirated several days *before* the US release. Torrents were out on the 4th. Due to the frankly weird decision to release in small-market Australia first, the pirates got hold of it nice and early. Several aussie stores even broke their release date: people had the game in their hands on Sept 1st.

I have not once seen copy protection that has slowed a pirate release. Ever.

At this point publishers are just looking for 1 week of sales before the game is pirated; they seem to want the same profile as a blockbuster summer movie. Bioshock had a week before the pirates cracked it, which some people have said helped make strong sales. (I’ve heard this from the GWJ crew on their podcast. I think the quality of the game was more to the point.)

There were some StarForce games that weren’t hacked for quite a while. I sat on a uninstalled copy of X3 that I bought without looking at the avoid list for quite a while until a no-cd finally came out (and later they removed starforce via patch). But the small market for that game was a big factor.

Anyone have thoughts on the “arcade” xbox with no hard disk for 200 bucks? What about a refurb for 200?

Nelson: it seems to me this is an online activation issue. But to some extent, I don’t want to even think about it, from a customer perspective. Xbox live, as you point out, “has DRM”, but it just works.

I bought a PC download direct from EA and have had no troubles other than the third step: regular interaction with EA’s servers. They seem to be down a lot, presumably the usual first-week load. Are their flaky servers breaking activation, too? Or are you having a problem with SecuROM I’m told Spore doesn’t require the disk in the drive to play, so I’m not quite sure what good SecuROM is.

I hate to say it, but the DRM experience on the Xbox 360 is way better. Every game is copy protected but the only way a casual user knows it is they have to have the disc in the drive to play. Xbox Live login handles the online activation part, and the secure hardware / trusted computing crap in the 360 takes care of disc verification. It’s possible to pirate 360 games but it’s hard enough that few people do.

Which is another user-friendliness rant, by the way. Most of the games I buy, if the developer isn’t the same as the publisher, the developer’s name *isn’t* on the box. Or you go looking for it, and find a logo the size of your pinky-nail in the bottom corner, or on the back cover. Which is why you complained about EA, the publisher, rather than Maxis, the developer.

I expect this DRM issue is EA’s fault, but in general, it sucks that the publishers conspire to prevent reputation from accruing to their developers.

Spore was pirated and working days before the release. I have not once seen copy protection that has slowed a pirate release. Ever.

Frankly, I don’t see why they should bother. At all. I seriously think some salesman convinced them it would help, and they’ve stuck with it out of stubborness.

Keys, fine. Keys still work. For games that need to be played online with a unique key they work perfectly. But all the knife and dagger software stuff is a dead end.

Make a superior product and it will sell.