i've just noticed something VERY problematic with spore. the grubby fat company of EA games is slapping the almost-malware of securom to "protect" the game of spore. what is the issue? securom installs itself along with games like mass effect and spore, along with the spore CC (not under the EULA btw) and is a program designed to watch over your computer. the new polity for EA seems to be 3 installations for the game and you've won a spore-dvd coaster/frisbee. unless you call a not toll-free number, try to convince a dude in inda who bairly speaks english that you own the game and (after looking at mass effect) probly not get another go at playing spore.

securom runs itself as a program with complete control over your computer. that's right, even more than you. why? well it has to have that much control to tell if you've made any hardware changes. the program is even to stupid it'll even demand you activate the game again if you update your drivers.

and just what is the purpose of this? to prevent people from making illegal copies of the game. yup. you gotta sacrifice security of your computer (securom has busted macbooks because it installs at the kernel-level) and limits you to 3 installations so you can live safe and sound as only paying people get to play the game. aka ur f***'ed.

if securom remains on spore, i'm quite certain that the only people actually having fun with the game are the people who pirate it. what would you rather have- 3 activations and screwy secret software or a perfect and free copy that's been pirated? sure you don't get online capabilities, but i'm sure people without internet wouldn't mind. or people that have removed securom and cracked their legal game and retained online capabilities.

doesn't make much sense that you get so much hassle for a game you paid for while pirated copys are out there having more fun than you. there's a petition on spore.com- i suggest you check it out.

why can't EA and securom just lay off and let us pay for a game and play it? what next, will they require you to be online for a single player game? or give you a 60 hour limit for playing a 30$ game? don't make much sense does it.. but with them it's a possibility!

now let's all give a round of applause to the smart people running these companies that suggest these stupid DRM ideas. almost seems like they want to go through all the bad ones first. i used to belive in computers to be better than consoles. now... not so much.

nice going EA, your turing the greatest game ever into the biggest falure ever.

You know.... One of my favorite quotes about this, slightly para-phrased "Isn't it always funny how security and DRM only affect the legal users and not the pirates?"

Besides... Not much to worry. Reloaded will turn out a crack within a day. They pride themselves on that fact

would be a shame to get the game only to realise that i couldn't play it. I've had other games not run because i'm supposedly running hacks. Turns out it thought NERO burning rom was a hack.

if you have a dvd burner- there have been issues with secu rom making them not work anymore.

Yeah - was the same with Starforce - the russian protection system. It underclocked ur burner until it stopped working iirc - a driver that killed hardware - think it was the first.

I lost two before i vowed never to buy anything with ott protection. Casual security is enough to stop the vast majority - no security will stop the determined.

I recently read the review of lego indiana jones, and it had an excerpt in which it said this.

How do you piss off an editor-in-chief? Get a game with software that thinks your harboring illegal copying software-secu-rom. Why did it have to be secu-rom?

That enough for me. Ive never experienced this first hand, but if i ever do,