The Constable on September 30th, 2008
Tthe Norwegian Consumer Council. Consumer Ombudsman Bjørn Erik Thon is, after two years of requests and meetings, giving Apple until November to make FairPlay-protected content compatible with competing portable music players.
Read the article at ArsTechnica for more details.
The Constable on September 17th, 2008
Digital Rights Management (DRM) sound pretty innocuous and not something that you would think could be the biggest deal breaker between consumers and the entertainment industry. After all DRM could have meant ways for you to manage all the entertainment media you have paid for.
The Constable on September 8th, 2008
Spore just came out yesterday, and already it is receiving a major backlash from users due to its DRM which allows users to only install the game three times before they have to call Electronic Arts’ customer support. However, unlike usual gamer complaints, this time the complaints are going where they are most likely to have a real effect on the general population (including “casual” gamers) - Amazon.com’s listing of the game.
As of this writing, Spore has 338 reviews, and only an average score of 1.5. Amazon customer, Brian Fox said:
DRM is a show stopper. I doubt this game will work for me after a few years given my habit of new hardware purchases and system snapshots. Like others have said, this game is for rent not sale.
The EA Spore DRM is a bit reminiscent of the Sony root kit. It installs software that you definitely don’t want or need. That software can work in superuser space, meaning it can do whatever it wants on your system. And there is no uninstall for it. In other words, by installing Spore, you install a piggy back Big Brother.
Please don’t support this product. Great game. Lousy distributor.”
Personally, between this mess and the fact that the game itself has been getting less than stellar reviews, I’m happy I cancelled my pre-order. Since I wasn’t sure if I was going to play it on my laptop or desktop, I would have opted to install on both and figure out which one would win my time… and then I’d be down to one install left, which means if the game were any good I’d have to be very picky about when I upgrade my computer and use my last install.
Thanks to Destructoid for the heads-up.
