14 DAY TRIAL // As you all know, Spore is one of the most successful games out there. It gained critical acclaim by allowing you to create your own unique creature and help it evolve from single cell stage to a living breathing social being capable of developing modern technology. But a small thing, sparked by a brilliant idea of Will Wright, clouded the game: DRM, or Digital Rights Management.
The game was packed up with SecuROM, a security program that prevented users from pirating the disc. Besides the noble cause of fighting piracy, the program also restricted the number of times you could install a game, or that of the people who could play on a single copy of Spore. This didn't fare well with some of its users, which rallied up the rest of the buyers and waged a bitter scandal with the publisher of the game, Electronic Arts.
Recently, after the Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Awards, where his game won an award for Setting Benchmarks in Design, Creativity and Engineering, Spore creator Will Wright sat down with Kotaku and spoke about the much debated DRM issue with his game. He went on to say that the idea came from EA, and that he was sorry that he hadn't gotten involved in its implementation in his game.
"It was something I probably should have tuned into more. It was a corporate decision to go with DRM on Spore. They had a plan and the parameters, but now we’re allowing more authentications and working with players to de-authenticate which makes it more in line like an iTunes. I think one of the most valid concerns about it was you could only install it so many times. For most players it’s not an issue, it’s a pretty small percentage, but some people do like wiping their hard disk and installing it 20 times or they want to play it 10 years later."
EA boss John Riccietiello also spoke about the DRM issues with his company's games recently, saying that only a few people had problems with SecuROM. Will Wright also expressed his ideas on where the anti piracy methods would go, saying that online monetization, by selling updates to free games, was something that looked very promising.
"I think it’s an interim solution to an interim problem. You have games like Battlefield Heroes coming out where the idea is you give away the game and sell upgrades, which works more in the Asian markets where you need to monetize it over the Internet. I think we’re in this uncomfortable spot in going from what’s primarily a brick and mortar shrink-wrapped product to what eventually will become more of an online monetization model."