Spore's DRM to Loosen Slightly, Soon

Spore's rather draconian DRM, which besides being the already hated SecuROM limits the user to 3 installs and only one online account per CD key, has fostered extremely bad user reviews on Amazon.com as well as "protest creatures."

At least part of that DRM will get loosened up soon, via a patch, according to reports. When asked by MTV's Multiplayer about the activation issue, which is mostly a problem because you can't de-authorize PCs, as you can with iTunes, for example, EA's response was:

That will be changed, according to the EA spokesperson, who told Multiplayer that the current limit on the number of computers that can be associated with a single copy of “Spore” is “very similar to a solution that iTunes has. The difference is that with iTunes you can de-authorize a computer [that you no longer want associated with your iTunes content]. Right now, with our solution, you can’t. But there is a patch coming for that.” The official timeframe for that patch is “near future.”

Near future, eh? Still, that restriction of one online account per copy will remain, and that's unfortunate for those who read the manual. According to EA, that was a misprint, and won't be changed. Guess EA couldn't figure out how Blizzard did it for Battle.net. According to EA:

“EA has no intentions — nor will they ever — to make it easier for people to play a pirated game… than to play an authentic retail copy.”

We think that's part of the problem. Their mindset. With SecuROM DRM and all these restrictions, it's actually easier to play a pirated copy than a retail copy.