Despite the pleasure many gamers have been deriving from Spore, many were up in arms about the rather draconian measures imposed by the Digital Rights Management features of the title. Most disgruntled buyers took a more passive route to express their displeasure; whether creating creatures in-game that protested the strict anti-piracy measure or blasting the game with one-star reviews on Amazon.
One particular individual has taken this to the next level. Melissa Thomas of Maryland filed a class-action suit against the company over this issue. “Nowhere in any of EA’s discussions, responses or explanations of its DRM did EA disclose that the Spore disk contained a separately-installed, stand-alone, uninstallable DRM program” reads her complaint.
The plaintiff is seeking damages and legal fees over $5 million. She is claiming that the game violates the Consumer Legal Remedies Act, unfair competition and interfering with property. Her claim is that the only way to remove SecuROM from ones computer after installing the game is to completely reformat the hard drive.
Tags: Business, Mac, News, PC|
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2 Responses
Spore “Officially” A Hit » DigitalBattle
September 24th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
1[...] Spore after its launch is a bit of a roller coaster. It’s filled with ups, and one particular down that just wont go away. Fortunately for Maxis, and specifically Will Wright, that has not [...]
Lisa
October 20th, 2008 at 2:53 am
2Most people have the whole idea of SecuRom and the x amount of activations all wrong.
It’s not just a simple DRM, it installs separately to the game without your knowledge…if you un-install the game…it DOESN’T un-install the SecuRom, which makes it a rootkit (malware), so if you don’t know this, you will think it’s gone because it hides in “hidden folders” and in your “Registry”, not to mention disabling of some AV’s ,the damage it does to some PC hardware, and stops you from being able to use legal software that SecuRom has been programmed to black band. EA deserves to be sued over this issue alone.
The other issue I have with this type of Draconian DRM is that when you can’t afford the internet anymore, you can no longer Play a Game you Paid for, and that is wrong…most games aren’t played over the Net so why do we have to be connected to it. ( It’s to Spy on PC users, that’s why it Phones Home with Encrypted Data.)
There is a lot bigger picture than what we’re seeing here right now, this is only a baby step to the end plan. This has nothing to do with piracy, because we know that the pirates will never be stopped and it is proven once again with the amount of torrented copies of Spore downloaded so far in less than a month. Why is EA adamant about continuing to use SecuRom when they know it’s not doing what they say it was intended for and is only effecting the paying customers. I will not buy anything that is put out by EA or Sony anymore, even though I would love to buy Sims2 IKEA, Sims2 Apartment Life, Spore and Red Alert 3, but I just don’t trust EA or Sony. All they have done for the last 18 months is lie through their teeth to save their neck and not a bit of concern for their paying customers.
I’m a member at Reclaim Your Game: http://www.reclaimyourgame.com/ and we’re dedicated to helping other gamers with their issues with SecuRom and get info out to educate the public. We also have a SecuRom Removal Instruction Walkthrough Tutorial on the site for people to use and we’re in the process of updating it.
So please feel free to visit our site and see for yourself.
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