Not Buying Spore

I've mentioned before my opinion of Electronic Arts and their use if overly aggressive Digital Rights Management (DRM) software. For these reasons, I will not be buying Spore. The SecuROM DRM software that EA is using on the product will allow you to install it 3 times, after which time you will need to call EA on the phone, wait on hold for hours, and then try to convince an underpaid, overworked, and unappreciated phone worker that you are not a dirty filthy pirate by providing proof of purchase, reasons why you've had to install it more than 3 times, and information on which of your friends are commies too.

Oh, and if you want to uninstall Spore, don't think that will uninstall SecuROM. It is rootkit software and you'll have to go find some third party application to clean it off your system. Because we all know how safe it is going around the web looking for dodgy software that claims to remove stuff like this. After your done doing that, you can go down and see if your local crack dealer has any safe medication for your headache.

People are currently expressing their opinions of this by posting 1-star reviews on Spore's Amazon page. Small story on Game Politics about that here.

It seems like the more I try to be a legitimate user, the more companies appear to be trying to make things difficult for me. The pirates are doing fine by the way, game was cracked and available before the game was even in stores in some areas.

First 24-hours of Data

Now that Google Analytics is working I took a look at my statistics and in 24 hours I've had over 100 hits! WTF!? One hundred people! The map chart on the Analytics page shows that they are from all over the world.

This didn't sound right so I looked into it. I found that 80% of them were coming from Ron Gilbert's often incoherent and bitter ramblings about the Game Industry. He says that not me, that is his sub-title for his blog Grumpy Gamer. Just didn't want you to think I was the saying that about his blog. Granted it's completely accurate description, but I still thought it a good idea to point out that he said it not me. The man created Monkey Island and shouldn't be trifled with. Point being Ron posted about Spore's character creator and penises, but really who hasn't this last week? Anyway here is the basic post:

Sporn
With the release of the Spore Creature Creator, it should come as no surprise to anyone that the first thing most people want to do is create genitalia. I certainly hope it's not a surprise to Wil and the crew at SporeCo. I have no doubt that smart scientists using today's modern super computers could calculate the "time to penis" of any game editor.

Looking through the comments I found:

Posted by Andrew Herron
Why make genitalia when you can make animals that look like porn scenes? :)
http://working-as-designed.blogspot.com/2008/06/user-created-content.html

So first off, thanks for the link Andy! I call him Andy because that's the name of his blog, Andy's Blog. So I'm assuming he isn't a nut case like me who feels he has to correct people who call him by a shortened version of his name. Really though, my dad and I have the same name, so he is Joe and I am Joseph!

Granted all these hits on this site starts me off with completely unrealistic expectations for what future traffic data will show, but I'm getting used to disappointment. sniff... its not like anybody but Bughunter comments. Even my mom who occasionally reads this blog, and wants one of those mugs by the way, doesn't even comment. Though on second thought maybe its best that she doesn't... yeah probably for the best.

User Created Content

It seems with every new publisher I deal with, there comes the point where we have that talk about why user created content isn't a good idea... at least for a game they don't expect to have an "Adults Only" label slapped on it. As evidence, I give you the following two videos created with the Spore Creature Creator Demo.