So on Saturday I bought the game SPORE. This game had been in development for at least five years, and I’d been hearing about it for at least the last three. After all the hype and anticipation, I finally got to play the real game! Was about to call it the “finished” game, but you can’t say it’s finished just because you can buy it at the store! Today’s electronic entertainment is an ever-evolving thing. Games always have patches available for download that fix bugs and enhance gameplay.
Pervasive Internet means that developers can produce games with multiplayer features, but it also means they might be more inclined to push a title out the door instead of taking the extra time to get it right. This is one of the reasons game software pirates give for downloading the games without paying for them.
One thing that came to light about SPORE just as it was going to be released was how Electronic Arts planned to limit illegal copies of the game using a DRM scheme called SecuROM. This revelation was all that it took for several anti-DRM zealots to “bomb” Amazon with negative reviews of SPORE. Many of the posters actually admit to not having played the game.
Is this fair? I think that as long as a company’s DRM doesn’t impact the performance of products that I have purchased– including software from other companies and the computer itself– it’s fair game. After all, they’re just protecting their intellectual property, right? Using SecuROM to prevent copying of the game disk along with requiring activation that ties a particular installation of the game with your real name and information about your computer sounds fair. As long as you can reinstall the software on your computer in the event you have to rei-install.
Of course, DRM is mostly experienced by the public in the form of Apple’s iTunes Music Store. It’s what keeps you from playing music you downloaded on more than five computers– technically each paid-for song file has to be “authorized” to play back in iTunes, and only five different accounts’ downloads can be attached to a single installation of iTunes.
The rest of the music industry has seen Apple’s Music Store take off and has started to put up a unified front. As of last week there’s a new alliance of consumer electronics and media giants poised to take on Apple and deliver on something that Apple can’t– the promise of “buy once play anywhere.”