Imagine a Spore Engine, Might Be Real

Electronic Arts may be considering the Spore system as an “Engine” for licensing to other developers to build RPG’s, action games, web-based games and many other options. Much like ID Software and Epic Games have done, this could be a build system for new creative additions to the industry.

Considering the amount of crazy Spore mini-games that have hit the street in the last few months, it seems possible EA’s already using this technique in-house to build hype and extension to the Spore product line. Usually such engines are licensed by smaller developers (smaller compared to Electronic Arts anyway) and not a big publisher such as EA.

Frank Gibeau, president of Electronic Arts’ Games Label says, “What’s so beautiful about Spore is that it’s extremely malleable, you could add RPG or action, you could take it to different platforms, like (Web-page) flash games, the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360, Nintendo’s Wii” (kotaku)

While EA did use the word “you could” they may be referencing the fact that “one could do it, if they worked at EA.” Electronic Arts wants to win the battle of the publishers, no doubt, and they continue to grow in size; would they let loose the Spore engine on outside developers? Or, would they keep it as an in-house engine for their own groups to leverage in future projects?

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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.