EA’s Spore Spawns Class Action Lawsuit

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.

0 thoughts on “EA’s Spore Spawns Class Action Lawsuit”

  1. “Two words:

    Non. Sense.

    This case will get thrown out in roughly 2.6 seconds.”

    Funny you say that. Sony already lost this battle once for the same thing.

  2. “Two words:

    Non. Sense.

    This case will get thrown out in roughly 2.6 seconds.”

    Funny you say that. Sony already lost this battle once for the same thing.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Post

Episode 419: Virtual RealityEpisode 419: Virtual Reality

This week’s episode is full of pop culture… well, most of it got sliced off as outtakes, but there’s still plenty of pop culture. What there is a lot of these days is virtual reality, and none of it even involves the Virtual Boy. Jonah, Scott and T.J. discuss some of the rumors going on as well.

The news this week includes:

  • Fallout 4’s Far Harbor will be bigger than any previous Bethesda expansion
  • Outer Rim DLC for Star Wars: Battlefront still having issues
  • Sony hints PlayStation VR may come to PC

Let us know what you think.

Episode 273: Flinging GutsEpisode 273: Flinging Guts

This week’s Gaming Podcast is a fairly routine one, with no Gaming Flashback or even a Question of the Week. However, this week features a ton of great news and industry discussion. Paul also announces that he will be unable to do the podcast in a few weeks for an extended period of time due to surgery.

The news items for the week includes:

  • Yoshida admits absence of Vita at E3 was a mistake
  • Irrational Games now includes 85+ Metacritic game requirement for employment
  • UbiSoft patches UPlay rootkit issue
  • Paradox Interactive announces dungeon builder Impire
  • EA: Current CEO John Riccitiello’s job is secure

All that plus Reader Feedback, check it out.

Rumor: EA Buying Popcap?Rumor: EA Buying Popcap?

Tech Cruch is reporting that Electronic Arts is about to acquire casual games giant Popcap Games for a cool $1 billion, which would exceed EA’s market cap by over 13%. If true, this would be EA’s definitive entry into the casual games market, a field they broke into 7 years ago.

Despite consuming a significant chunk of EA’s reserves. buying Popcap would bring them IPs such as Bejeweled, Plants Vs. Zombies, Peggle, Zuma and Bookworm.

We’ll keep an eye on this deal as it happens.