It appears that there are a lot people who do not like the DRM that is implemented in Spore.  Amazon has recieved about 50 reviews bitching about the DRM in the game and driving the rating of the game down.  I do not own the game yet, so I cannot say either way.

Good to hear that some people are speaking up. Mind you, it's not going to make a difference in the end.

But it's nice to see.

Good, isn't the DRM similar to Mass Effect's? Though I don't recall if it's similar to before or after the Mass Effect DRM was modified because of the community uproar.

It's the same as Mass Effect's final DRM scheme. I'm sure the initial 're-activate every ten days' was just put out there to cause a fuss and then make EA look like the good guys for 'only' implementing the current limited installations DRM.

Laughably, the game was cracked and available for download on Torrent sites a couple of days before release. Yet again, people who haven't paid get the better version while EA's own paying customers have to put up with SecuRom malware on their PCs and face making premium rate calls should they use up their activations. It seems quite obvious that DRM is only used to kill off second hand sales, surely no major company is dumb enough to think it affects piracy one iota?

I did not have a single problem, but it's not surprising if the DRM is screwing up the experience for some people. Though it seems alot of them might be people using pirated copies.

It screwed mine, I was expecting this game since they announced it, but I´ll now wait till they solve the DRM problem, or till I get pissed and get a pirate copy, whatever comes first.

A comment from Will Wright-

He's just saying that he doesn't care to have the most highly rated game, he just want it to sell as well as The Sims games.

This issue of DRM though is more about EA than Will Wright.

As appossed to the sims that as a franchise has sold over 100 million copies? Lets not kid ourselves. Whilst the half-life franchise is massive its simply not in the same league as the sims in regards to sales. If the trade off is slightly diminished critical acclaim then most people in business would take it.

Wow. That's alot of one-star reviews.  Anyone remember that news report with Cooper Lawrence? She came on Fox news and claimed the sex scenes in Mass Effect were so graphic. When her book was released, thousands flocked to Amazon and trashed her book like no tomorrow.  After that, Amazon erased most of the reviews, and now only allow people who have purchased the item OFF AMAZON to post one.  Of course it didn't matter, people still trashed the book afterwards.

It's funny how most games with intrusive or excessive DRM measures get trashed like Mass Effect, Bioshock, and Half-Life 2, and companies still don't bother to listen.  I'm really curious how the reviews on Spore will even out. Thanks for the post on this.

Edit: Hmm looks like they changed the review policy back to allowing anyone to post one.  I guess enough people complained?? haha.