Over 3000 negative posts about Spore on Amazon

[vecki]

Interesting that Amazon.co.uk is pulling the reviews, but not the discussion board. It's making them look worse.

[asthehind]

Whatever the reasons behind it, they've made the news.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7604405.stm

[MrMugg]

The bad reviews are over 1800 now.  Geez.

I would get an "arrr" version, but it told me it would take 5 weeks to download.  Guess I'll just wait for them to put it in the bargain bin and wait for something to kill the activation requirements.

[vecki]

We already have a thread about this.

Go there.

[MrMugg]

Why does it take 5 weeks to download the cracked version?  I must be looking in the wrong place or something.  I sure as heck don't want the Sh*trom version.

[Gus Smedstad]

The version I found took maybe 10 minutes.  Well, actually, I have no memory at all of how long it took, but it was a typical 130 kbps download.  I basically followed the link from GameCopyWorld.

Of course, I was only looking for the fixed executable, since I did purchase the game.  The full thing is huge, it comes on a DVD and takes a ridiculously long time to install.  I think it's probably something like 4 GB.

 - Gus

[Skadi]

It took 15 hours for my download. All 3.2gbs. If you want an invite to funfile, PM me.

[BastDawn]

We already have a thread about this.

Go there.

Merged now.  It looks like he was first, though.   

[Zazazu]

Why does it take 5 weeks to download the cracked version?  I must be looking in the wrong place or something.  I sure as heck don't want the Sh*trom version.

Probably. I got it from btarena or whatever. I normally go through Pirate Bay. Took about 6 hours, and that was the first night it came out.

Yeah, it took about a half hour to install on my rig, which is kind of ridiculous. Especially when you get up at 6 am to babysit it.

Does anyone have a link to the US Spore forums? I can't find them or this supposed fansite listing. No idea why they are hiding all that.
EDIT: Duh, Yahoo!. Why they couldn't link from the site is beyond me. Forums here.

[vecki]

We already have a thread about this.

Go there.

Merged now.  It looks like he was first, though.   

Meh.  Mine's better.

ETA: Actually I didn't even look at the times, just saw how many responses there were and decided his had come along later.

[EntropyGuardian]

Spore is great and nerds need something better to complain about especially things that don't really affect them at all.

*says he will never buy the game because of DRM*
*pirates the game because he wants to play it anyway*

Keep sticking it to the man. Its sort of like the Bus boycott only you're riding the bus without paying for a ticket in protest.

[Chain_Reaction]

Spore is great and nerds need something better to complain about especially things that don't really affect them at all.

*says he will never buy the game because of DRM*
*pirates the game because he wants to play it anyway*

Keep sticking it to the man. Its sort of like the Bus boycott only you're riding the bus without paying for a ticket in protest.

Are you serious? There's something wrong with wanting to play a game that you would normally buy to support the creators but don't because it'll FUBAR your computer if you try to do things legally? It's not just "nerds" complaining. Have you had this DRM cause issues with your PC? My CD drive doesn't work anymore because of it. Should I be deprived of completing my sims game collection, a game I enjoy, because of SecuRom when I bought all the ones before EA made such an airhead decision? I don't think anyone should be deprived of a game just because the suits are retarded.

Anyway I think its a real shame that Will Wright spent all this time on this game and his work is going unnoticed because of EA. If he was smart, which he obviously is, he should kill all ties to EA and find a publisher with some common sense. I think he's already proven his worth and shouldn't have issues publishing his games somewhere else. I wish he'd get the sims away from EA but thats not possible now.

Also I'm shocked that Amazon caved with contact from EA. Amazon sales their products, they should be offended that a company sent them a, *probably* intimidating, email asking them to remove the reviews. I was entirely ecstatic when Drea got no cheese with her whine when she came here!

[lowbart]

Also I'm shocked that Amazon caved with contact from EA. Amazon sales their products, they should be offended that a company sent them a, *probably* intimidating, email asking them to remove the reviews.

Amazon wants more sales to go through their site. If EA goes to them saying "OMG, lots of criminals are fradulently giving our game a bad review to screw with us", it's in Amazon's interest to believe them.

[vecki]

Amazon.com still has almost 2000 reviews, most 1 star.

If it were EA breathing down Amazon's neck, I would have put my money on them going after the Amazon that's in their home country.

That said, the reviews that are getting through on Amazon.co.uk seem to be more about the gameplay, and the average is still only 2.5 stars.

[maxon]

But then you have the problem: How does EA know why they are getting less money? So what if a few people have written them letters or emailed them. Everyone knows that pissed off people are more vocal, so it's quite possible that they only lost a few hundred/thousand sales to continued use of SecuROM. So what if they see posts around forums from fans saying they are pirating the game due to the DRM? Everyone knows they are just thieves anyways, looking for any excuse.

I suppose the thing for them is going to be a comparison of how many sales are lost through the Securom fiasco against how many sales they think they are losing through piracy - or perhaps more pertinently through second hand resale of the game.  Personally, I find this a far more convincing reason for why EAxis uses Securom.   What they don't seem to have quite twigged is that they are still losing the piracy sales and are also now losing otherwise legitimate customers which in a roundabout way (sort of) supports the notion that Securom is as much about resale as about piracy.

You make it so obvious they can't help to see that their use of the DRM is affecting not only long-time fans who would normally buy the product, but also prospectives who see this information freely shared at the point where they would be making their purchase. And you do it somewhere very, very public.

This campaign is extremely obvious. It's also extremely effective. Who doesn't glance at the rating for something before purchasing? When seeing a low rating, who doesn't glance at the comments?

I am enjoying the campaign, I admit it freely, but the thing that is actually going to stop all the stupidity properly is if we find a game we like as much made by some other company which doesn't use a DRM and piss off and play that instead.  Something like Second Life kind of got close to making inroads into EA's captive audience though a) that isn't a game and b) some of the people on there make my flesh creep big time.  Mind you, I have room to talk, I spend a large part of each day posting on sims boards.

[Soggy Fox]

The game is neat, if you like a variety of simulation games in one.  But, I won't buy it either - a housemate did, and then got me a no-cd patch so I can play too, but I'd have been happy just getting the whole thing rom online.

The only reason I could see for Will selling out to EA is that running Maxis took time from creating - the problem is, now his creations are being whored out with STDs and it makes him look bad too.

[Mandapotpie]

Why does it take 5 weeks to download the cracked version?  I must be looking in the wrong place or something.  I sure as heck don't want the Sh*trom version.

Utorrent said it would take 6 days when I first opened it, but it really only took about 7 hours. It might say 5 weeks but it probably won't really take that long.

[Gastfyr]

Whatever the reasons behind it, they've made the news.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7604405.stm

I think the article focused too much on the limited instillations, when as far as I understand it, that's not the main issue with SecureRom.  I've heard it demands the deletion of various legally obtianed programs from the computer before it even lets you play the game.  Also, that it does serious dammage to the computer all on it's own, like a virus.

Also, the comments by the ea person about the DRM preventing you from making 1000 coppies to distrubute on the internet were pretty silly imo.  Aren't coppies allready available online, dispite this DRM that's supposed to "prevent" that?

Overall, the article seemed a bit biased and left me feeling the main point of it was, "A bunch of pirates and hackers are mad that they EA is making it harder for them to illigally copy and distrubute Spore."

[Doc Doofus]

I have to admit, when I first heard about Spore, a year ago or more, I was enthusiastic.  But having seen all the previews, it looks pretty but boring.  There have been quite a few games like this, where you play it once, and after you finish the tutorial, there's no point in playing it again.

Will Wright is brilliant, but his goal of creating "toys, not games" depends on the toy having enough interesting emergent possibilities to sustain itself. 

[Faizah]

I have to admit, some of the Spore previews I saw were a tad underwhelming. (I won't lie though, I always intended to at least try the thing. I've never been easily won over by promotional garbage, nor lost by it. Stuff that makes it impossible to play the game legally, that makes me keep my money. Bought BV, it refused to run, claiming the CD in the drive was not the CD. Haven't bought another EA product since.) The game though, that's anything but. People may like/dislike different things about it, but there's definitely a lot to explore. Especially once you get out into space.

Every time I think of the space stage, I think of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. '"Space," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."' (Yeah, I looked it up.)

Spore is also very customisable. Even I can make things in it. (I'm better at creatures, I had time to practice with the creator that was released earlier. I made a crappy Enterprise-based space ship, and was actually quite proud of it, until I noticed that there was already a better ship of similar design by Maxis.) And you can customise everything. Even the colour of the planet's land, sea, and sky. (May not be available on home planet, some tools aren't, but you can go to town on any colony planets you might have.) Honestly, you could sit around all day just creating things, if you felt like it. (Though that'd get dull quickly, for me.)

[kazebird]

EA is going to have so many lawsuits on their hands, that they won't even think about a DRM ever again. They will most likely never use anything from Sony either.

I absolutely am cheering this protest on! Try to take away our rights, AND try to get money for the same game more than once! Who do they think they are!

[vecki]

Noticed the DRM issue even made it into the local paper's 3 paragraph review of Spore.  It's not just 'serious' game reviews that are bringing it up now.

I still lurrve it.

[J. M. Pescado]

Overall, the article seemed a bit biased and left me feeling the main point of it was, "A bunch of pirates and hackers are mad that they EA is making it harder for them to illigally copy and distrubute Spore."

This is, of course, rubbish, because it's easier to get a pirated version than the real thing.

Of course, the protesters have ultimately proven to be UTTERLY SPINELESS, since apparently 84% of them bought it anyway.

[Mandapotpie]

Someone is using the Amazon reviews to bring a class action suit against Ea over SecuRom. http://www.courthousenews.com/2008/09/23/Spore.pdf

[Zazazu]

I'm so happy, and now everyone at work thinks I'm more of a dork than before. Impressive!