Spore fans in uproar create DRM protest species

Users within Will Wright’s latest game, Spore, have been creating creatures protesting the game’s draconian DRM measures. The animals, pictured above, are rapidly populating the Universe of user-generated-creatures online. Although it’s certainly not the strangest thing we’ve seen within the menagerie of creatures brought to life by the game, there’s a certain charm to these shambling monstrosities.

As previously reported, the game features heavy restrictions on what consumers can do with it. Users can only install the game three times, and each time it must be activated by contacting EA’s servers. This has led to huge internet protest, with some describing purchasing the game as “renting” it. Stratospheric illegal download figures have been published, resulting in a bit of an own-goal for EA, whose PR team we recently praised.

Fans signed up to online shops, such as Amazon, and have posted over 2,600 one-star reviews of the game, compared to less than a hundred of each other rating. EA have responded, but just meekly said it wasn’t a new system – merely an extension of their existing DRM setup. Needless to say, fans weren’t impressed.

Back in the real world, I hope that genetics researchers don’t start getting similar ideas to protest lack of funding or the closure of labs. The results wouldn’t be pretty. Can you imagine monkeys with “save Huntingdon Life Sciences” growing out of their back? Nasty.

EA (via GamePolitics)

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