As most folks expected, Electronic Arts use of the SecuROM trojan install has sparked up a little class action lawsuit against the publisher. At first, EA thought they could just bump the total installs from three to five to make gamers happy, but they’re out for blood.
With an amazon rating of 1.5 stars and 2900+ ratings, it’s obvious that people are not happy with the security system used by Electronic Arts for this title. Forbes mentions how pirated the game has become since the DRM news went hot and pirates are touting to download it for free to make your “voice” heard. Legally, you can make your voice heard by setting up a class action lawsuit and so it begins!
“Although consumers are told the game uses access control and copy protection technology, consumers are not told that this technology is actually an entirely separate, stand-alone program which will download, install, and operate on their computer,” read the complaint. “Once installed, it becomes a permanent part of the consumer’s software portfolio. Even if the consumer uninstalls Spore, and entirely deletes it from their computer, SecurROM remains a fixture on their computer unless and until the consumer completely wipes their hard drive through reformatting or replacement of the drive.” (gamespot)
It seems everything boils down to the how EA went about protecting their assets. Nobody faults the publisher for trying to keep their products out of the hands of pirates. The pure fact that EA has chosen to install separate products that snoop on your operations and can malfunction your system is the hart hitting point. Rubbing it in worse, pirates had the game broken and free to download prior to the release of Spore in the US.
Although the license agreement will state the product uses a digital rights management technique, it fails to explain the details of the SecuROM’s stealth install and inability to remove itself without wiping the hard disk.
The suit accuses EA of “intentionally” hiding the fact Spore uses the SecurROM.
This weeks gaming podcast covers some fun hot news topics and a gaming flashback of ClayFighter. We also cover a bit of the history on Vicarious Visions some game news, including:
Hi all.
Thanks for this episode! I really enjoy your podcast … already several years 🙂
I have a question, what I wanted to ask since several episodes: @Jonah: why do you start nearly every sentence with „Here is the thing“? Maybebi don’t get it, because I am not a native speaker, but it sounds „strange“ 🙂 no offense!!! *hug*
I would love, if you (all of you) could talk more about old games (gaming flashback) especially games you played during your youth. Which games fascinated you? Which games do you hate? Which games did you not finish because they are too difficult?
Did you ever think about playing games on twitch? Something like „let’s plays“?
Or do you sometimes play online games with your fans? Maybe a discord channel and play song Ames together?
I know you have family, and fans like me, who live in a different time zone, are nearly not able to participate, but in case of twitch, it would be possible to watch it afterwards 🙂
So far: please go on and do a lot more episodes! Thank you!
Greetings from Germany
Ralf