Spore Gamers Sue EA Despite Adjusted DRM Policies

Frank Gibeau, head of EA Games, talked with the upset community of Spore players last Friday about the digital rights management system, and about how Spore would allow more than three installs, from then on. Not only did EA expand the number of eligible machines from three to five, but it also promised more leniency in extending additional activations, and implemented a deauthorization system. This, however, didn't stop gamers from filing a class action lawsuit against EA.

With Apple's fans being treated to DRM on a daily basis, we reckon few Mac owners had anything to say this time around. Nevertheless, the Mac installment of Spore is just as important.

"We've received complaints from a lot of customers who we recognize and respect," Gibeau stated on Friday."And while it's easy to discount the noise from those who only want to post or transfer thousands of copies of the game on the Internet, I believe we need to adapt our policy to accommodate our legitimate consumers."

Therefore, EA continued to offer channels to request additional activations (where warranted), expanded the above-mentioned number of installs possible, and promised to give users the ability to deauthorize machines and move authorizations to new machines. “When this system goes online, it will effectively give players direct control to manage their authorizations between an unlimited number of machines,” EA Games revealed. Still, Tuesday saw a number of angry customers filing a class action lawsuit against the giant developer and publisher of video games.

According to the Federal Court filing, Sony's SecuROM DRM program "is installed without notice and cannot be uninstalled, even if you uninstall Spore," and it "prevents the computer from operating under certain circumstances and/or disrupting hardware operations," reports Macworld.

What's more, the same piece reveals, an EA moderator threatened to cancel Spore accounts on the official Spore forums. Angry with gamers' ongoing complaints, he stated, "Please do not continue to post these threads or your account may be at risk of banning which in some cases would mean you would need to buy a new copy to play Spore."

Spore was released for Mac on September 7. Mac owners got their first look at the game with the release of the Spore Creature Creator earlier this year. A Galactic (collector's) Edition is available as well.