Although in recent times, EA has lowered the restrictions in regards to the limitations presented by the SecuROM Digital Rights Management included with it’s release of Spore, there is little to no doubt that the damage has been done and consumers have been left with a bad taste in their mouths. After all, Spore’s DRM did absolutely nothing to stifle piracy of the game.
In response to the unwelcome SecuROM DRM contained within Spore, a class-action lawsuit has been filed within U.S. District Court.
Electronic Arts, a leading maker of computer games, defrauds consumers through its “Spore” game, which “completely wipes their hard drive” and replaces it with an undisclosed program that prevents the computer from operating under some circumstances and disrupts hardware operations, a class action claims in Federal Court.
The class claims that “Spore,” a virtual reality simulation game, contains “a second, undisclosed program” called SecuROM, a “form of Digital Rights Management (DRM) for computer games.”
Consumers are not warned about the program, which is installed without notice and cannot be uninstalled, even if the uninstall Spore, the complaint states. The secret SecuROM program is “secretly installed to the command and control center of the computer (Ring 0, or the Kernel), and surreptitiously operated, overseeing function and operation on the computer, preventing the computer from operating under certain circumstances and/or disrupting hardware operations,” the complaint states.
[ GamePolitics ] - This story is also available on Otaku Times
Glad to hear it. If I am going to pay good money for a game I don’t want it to come with a load of DRM crap, especially hidden DRM crap. Obviously the pirated copies don’t have DRM, and they cost nothing at all! Spore is supposed to have been way too over hyped anyway, so all the more reason to boycott it.