“one of the importent questions to ask is: If it was a rent for the lifetime of your current windows instalation would there still be a market for the game.

I kind of think yes and thats wry DRM is’nt a big marketfailure.”

Look at Steam. Using Steam is a bit like using World of Warcraft. What you have is an account and you have games associated with that account. You can play the games you’ve bought with Steam on any PC you want.

Its DRM but the only major downside is the possibility that Steam will go out of business and leave you stranded.

That’s a nice model. In fact, in some ways its providing a very nice service in handling patching, etc.

The EA model is the opposite — the install is tied to the computer rather than the account. So I have Spore installed on 3 computers right now, and I know I’m going to be replacing 2 of them in the next 6 months. Great — I get to go out and buy the game again, or crack it.

That just doesn’t make sense.

I kind of think yes and thats wry DRM is’nt a big marketfailure.

The same can be asked of the online model surprisingly many people would probably accept a call home function if they knew there was a decent privacy policy.

As for Daniels suggestion that books may go web based, I for one would be extremely reluctant to purchase/read web based books, or for my book reader to phone home to check whether I am allowed to read my books.

The majority of the negative reviewers have not had any experience with the actual game; they simply heard about the DRM on it and want to say they won’t buy it because of that DRM. Some of them probably would not buy it even if it did NOT have that DRM.

That being said, the DRM is intensely obnoxious, and a lot of people are suggesting that it is not even meant to prevent piracy in the first place—it is meant to make an end-run around the Doctrine of First Sale and kill the secondary market in used and resold games (which those game publishers hate with a passion).

It will be interesting to see how EA responds.

Your going to see the same happening for ebooks the kindle platform will remain completely locked and the competitors will go the same way, soon(tm) someone will make a web based reader and add content to it in a way that works the same way as steam do, they are like stram going to add community software in the mix.

1. I bought a copy of Spore, despite the DRM.

2. I was aware of the three install limit, but EA does a horrible job of making it clear that you’re limited to three installs. You really have to do some digging to even find this limit.

3. There doesn’t seem to be any way to deauthorize a machine, which is insane with a three-machine limit and a game that is likely to be viable for 3-5 years at least with all the inevitable expansions. I’ve bought plenty of games that required authorization but they almost always have a way to deauthorize a computer.

3. A crack will be out soon enough, and I will have no moral qualms about installing the crack to remove this limit. As I’ve argued ad nauseum, all DRM does in instances like this is normalize piracy. I can guarantee you I know people who bought this game who don’t even realize what copy protection is on games who will be asking me how to fix their Spore game so they can install it on a new computer. Every time someone realizes they have to break the law to use the product they paid for, the less they actually care about breaking those laws (copyrights IMO are quickly becoming like speed limits … we wouldn’t generally break them in the extreme but we see little wrong with routinely violating them in small increments, especially if the posted speed limit seems inconsistent with the actual driving speed on a road.)

4. Spore was really over-hyped. A bunch of crappy mini-games with a deep end-game. Give it a couple patches and an expansion or two and it could be an awesome game. As it is, its some very nice customization tools to a Star Control/Elite-style game.

The negative is that the DRM is just shifted to the steam server. If they ever go out of business you could lose the ability to play any of the games you purchase. Other than that it is a sweet system. Games automatically update, install without problem and play flawlessly.

For the most part I think the huge game publishers like EA would prefer that PC gaming fade away and everybody play on a console. Only the more nimble publishers like Valve and Stardock are really looking for a solution that benefits both them and gamers alike.

I have to admit I am becoming a pirate. Whenever I purchase a game the first thing I do is check around for a patch to get past the protection schemes. I got sick of having to cart around the Cds just so I could play the games, as I am terrible at getting them scratched.