A Spore on the Spore Buyers

EA recently released Spore, the brainchild of Will Wright, known for the entire Sim Series, including The Sims, probably the worst thing construed as a computer "game". Somehow I don't understand the relevance of a game that lets you play yourself in a virtual world. I always imagined the idea of the video game was to let you play a role in a story, to help people escape what could be viewed as the boredom of reality. But The Sims takes the idea of reality and instills a bunch of graphics and emoticons into it. Yeah, I don't get it either.

Spore, while still a decent game, is still true to the idea of the older Sim games: creating and nurturing a bunch of virtual beings while giving them the ameneties of a world you create.

However, in a move to combat piracy, the Digital Rights Management have placed a copy-protection mechanism onto the CD, which limits users to installing the game 3 times, before they have to purchase another copy. That is, if you install the game, and then uninstall, one of your installs have been used up. And what would happen if your computer locks up during an install? Does the install get wasted, forcing the user to throw the game packet at the wall, set it on fire and proceed to urinate on the remains all while cursing EA for their idiocy?

Personally, I purchase games legally, but mostly stick to freeware as a distraction from work/real-life. But the DRM has gone a little far on this. What would have been a better solution is a hidden file or log which keeps track of whether the game has been installed on that particular machine, as well as tracking the computer's identity on the CD. That way, should the user uninstall the game, there is no consequence of LEGALLY reinstalling it on the machine for playing later. In the end, the game can be installed only on 3 machines, as opposed to being installed only 3 times. If this is the future of Digital Copyright Protection, then they may have lost more than the gaming fanbase.