Spore DRM
An Electronic Arts “Spore” forum moderator threatens to disable the entire game for a user’s simply having asked about SecuROM in EA’s forums. This would seem to confirm that Spore does in fact have a kill switch built in, which is something that the EA apologists have continually dismissed.
“SecuROM as [sic] been discussed and discussed so much and it causes arguments in threads. If you want to talk about DRM SecuROM then please use another fansite forum. If there is any change you will be able to read it on the official Spore site.
Please do not continue to post theses [sic] thread or you [sic] account may be at risk of banning which in some cases would mean you would need to buy a new copy to play Spore.”(emphasis mine)
The admission of the existence of some type of “Kill Switch” is very interesting. EA seems to say that you must conform your speech to only what they want you to say … or else.
Quite a revelation!
I’d love to see them do it actually, as it would place an exclamation point onto the Spore class action suit. That we talked about on SlashDot last week. Not only mislabeling, deceitful practices and hidden malware, but threats, intimidation and possibly a total loss of the use of the game if you say something that may irritate EA.
Over at the Spore forum, it seems like anything even remotely speaking ill of the game is now immediately locked, not just discussion of DRM. Look here and here and here and here.
Anything negative about the game is being locked and/or tossed.
Wow … way to stay classy EA!
Update: It looks like some of those locked threads have now been flushed down the memory hole entirely!
With the above in mind, here is a screenshot of the EA forum entry under discussion…
(click to view in full screen)
Filed under: DRM, Freedom of Speech, Software, Tech, Technology, Video Games, defectivebydesign
EA is stupid and closed minded fools.
Simply said.
Interesting article: Will definitely visit again.