I'll just assume you know what that image looks like and just walk away.

It sounds like a typo, really. Setting their other DRM issues aside, isn't this how most games with online accounts work? You have to buy each account separately. Hence 'buddy passes' and trial periods; you can borrow your friend's copy of the game, but if you want to have your very own account, you buy it.

Wait, I'm confused. What's the problem with making people purchase more than one copy if they want to open more than one account? (Other than it stating differently in the manual) That's the case with majority of MMOs (World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, etc) out there.

From what I understand, the real issue with the DRM in Spore is that you can only install /activate the game 3 times... total. Basically if you regularly reformat, and do it more than 3 times after purchasing Spore, you're shit out of luck.

@LiquidGravity: He's part uh.... Goat. ;)

@mythago and @dianabanana: I don't play MMOs, but I do play many other PC and console games, so I wasn't aware that this is standard MMO policy. From my perspective as a gamer this is unusually restrictive, but maybe my context is wrong in this case considering Spore's MMO-DNA.

They missed the word "not" probably. I'm an editor and I have to look very carefully for this particularly mistake in conclusions of reports. It's pretty easy to skim your eye over.

@dianabanana: If there is only one computer in the household, that is effectively like telling someone to go buy a new computer if they want more than one account. Not exactly user OR consumer friendly...

Particular, dammit. Note to self: no mistakes in posts where you tell people that you're an editor.

@dianabanana: There should be nothing stopping them from allowing you to make separate accounts but restricting it so only one can be logged in at a time.

It's been a long time sense my last MMO game Ultima Online, but that game allowed for 5 characters on one monthly subscription account, per server and there were many diff servers.

@dianabanana: If you're gonna compare it with WOW, its more like forcing you to buy a new account to play more than one character.

@Corporate_guy: Exactly. You can easily log into other people's accounts from the same game as long as you have seperate usernames/passwords. This is really common these days.

Nice pic, Consumerist. You DID notice what is going on, right?

OMG, somebody really made a Spore Goatse?

So, can you play multiple games? I haven't kept completely up to date with what you "do" in Spore, but I thought it was supposed to be something along the lines of "create a creature, then create a society and guide it and evolve it". That sounds like something that could be replayed tons of different ways. I might want to make 100 different creatures and societies just on my own. Is that possible?

@dianabanana: Spore is hardly an MMO, but if we're treating it as such (or at least as an MSO) it still is a ridiculous policy. In most MMOs you have one account, but can make multiple distinct avatars/characters, allowing a family to share an account and still have their individual experiences, just not simultaneously. In Spore, that's not really possible, there is only one "universe" active per copy. You can start on another planet, but that's it.

To the once-independent company known as Maxis: You will be terribly missed. EA sucks.

Spore is not quite an MMO. You don't actively interact with other players, but through their online account, you periodically download creatures created by other players (and upload your own) but the game's AI controls the actions of those creatures once in your 'world'.

I'm glad that their current DRM doesn't require that the CD be present to play the game, unlike every other game EA has released since the original SimCity. But the requirement for each person using the same PC to buy a copy of what is effectively a single-player game absurd. They should allow a certain number of accounts per install.

so when is somebody going to jailbreak spore?

Any interactive MMO I play requires multiple licenses... nothing bizarre about this. If two people want to be ale to play together on the same server, they each have to be logging in from their own accounts.
And yes, you can play often on your own account - that's just playing your own game in your own universe.

@Crymson_77: the key here is simultaneous access to the online universe. If they have only one computer, then only one can play at one time and they might as well share the account. If they both want to play together in realtime, that requires two computers and two licenses.

Again, I see nothing noteworthy in this policy.

@shadydentist: But you can make more than one Spore creature on your account, so it's really the same as an MMO. You just have to play them all off the same account.

I've been playing Spore's space-stage for a little while now. Each time I land on a new planet, I'm afraid it's gonna be Planet of the Goatse...

@full.tang.halo: World Of Warcraft allows 10 per server, up to a total of 50, per account. But in the case of WoW, which is a true MMO, you actively interact with other players, and each player needs an account; the only way to get an account is to buy the software with the account code included. While it is a violation of their Terms of Service to share the account with others, there is an exception for household members; you can, for a fee, transfer characters between accounts with the same family name.

@Chris Walters: I'm with you. I know that on pretty much any game from Popcap or Reflexive (eg. Diner Dash, Zuma, Bookworm) you can add different "user accounts" for each family member to the game.

I think the term "Broken" isn't a fair judgment. The game itself has bugs, but is playable and enjoyable. Ultimately its the licensing/user account issues along with the DRM protection that people take issues with. Personally I'm able to play the game once I've installed it.

I do feel that the publisher didn't add any value to the game by adding DRM and the user restrictions, but I do have to say that all publishing companies are going to address what they feel is profits slipping due to people stealing their products. Also as consoles take up more gaming market share PC game publishers are going to want to do more to mimic that model. Console gaming requires more users to purchase a copy to play the game, PC gaming is easier by far to avoid having to purchase the game to play it due to piracy, particularly for single player games.

Ultimately I would just advise people not to buy the game or better yet go to a friends house and play it. If you like RTS or RPG its very poor. If you like a Sim it doesn't really get good until the galaxy phase.

I don't care about the game one way or the other, but that article picture is comment-worthy.

One of the most LOL pics I've seen on this site! Kudos!

@bsalamon:

If the game dint have such grate DRM, the game wouldn't have been uploaded to torrents and cracked days before release.

Oh... wait...

Just more crap from the big Evil Empire known as EA. Havent purchased any of their products since they lied to their MMO community in Earth and Beyond and every time I read about them screwing someone else over I am happy I walked away from them years ago.
WTG EA - keep pissing off your customers - sooner or later you will reach that tipping point.

@Suttin:

grate = great

@LoriLynn: I think "You may not have multiple Spore accounts for each installation of the game" is a pretty awkward sentence. The "not" makes the "each" really out of place. You think they'd say something along the lines of "Spore does not allow multiple accounts to be opened using a single installation", or something.

I think they've got it right in the post: the "misprint" is that it did exist at some point, and they forgot to take it out of the manual.

@MercuryPDX: And uh part... se? ;)

For everybody comparing this to an MMO...this is not an online game. Sure, it downloads content from the internet, but in no way are you interacting directly with other players during gameplay. Your account is tied to a Spore.com page, where you can upload your creations and comment on other people's creations. That's it.

It's more or less a single-player game that interacts with Spore.com, not an MMO with the same restrictions as an MMO.

Just imagine if a game like Rock Band did something like this.

Oh, sorry, you wanted to create a rocker who plays guitar? Hmmm...too bad, you already created an account for a drummer. If you want to play guitar that'll be another $50...thankyouverymuch.

Horrible decisions all around on EA's part.

@Corporate_guy: Exactly. Especially so because these are free accounts. Looking at the Xbox, I can create two completely separate and isolated accounts for free. PC games should work the same way.

@bsalamon: It was broken before the game came out.

@Macroy: the point is that they're attempting to make each person playing Spore buy a copy of the game, instead of one person buying a copy and everybody else mooching it. Tying purchase of the game to an online account is a way to limit that.

I had to install the game 3 times last night in order to get the game to work because it kept crashing when loading.

It's one thing to require you purchase a seperate account in order to play. But requiring you buy the 50 dollar game a second (or third!) time just to open that account is what's rediculous.

You're essentially buying a disk that you won't even install. You just want a scrap of paper with a serial number on it. It's something I'd compare to the used car industry, but even they seem to have some scruples lately.

Well.

Shit.

I purchased the game yesterday. This morning my boyfriend installed it on his PC (we live together, and his desktop is the newer, more powerful of the two) and got started playing.

Now I guess I have to be him when I get home.

Isn't Spore a single-player game?

One player = One user
One user = One license

Are people asking for different profiles within Spore (e.g., Tommy, Billy and Susie can all have "profiles" with their individual games)? Or are people asking to have the ability to create multiple instances of the game (e.g., Jimmy is the sole user, but wants to have multiple games running at different stages, sort of like having multiple saved games)?

The "profiles" argument to me sounds business foolish; what's to stop someone from installing the single license on separate machines?

An idea would to allow for a "family pack" license (e.g., Apple OSX), with up to X "seats" available for a single license. That way Tommy, Billy, Susie, Jimmy and Rudiger can all have their own version while paying less than full retail for all five.

So wait though.... how exactly WOULD you install two copies of the game on one machine w/o overwriting one with another?

Ah well, just like Bioshock, I won't be buying/playing spore either. I'm an avid computer gamer, but yeah...people are right. Computer gaming is dying and DRM is killing it.

So much for Spore... the DRM scared me away, and now this has scared some of my friends away as well.

Whoops!

@Chris Walters: It's not just MMOs, but many games with online ability. Well not all, obviously, but just for example, this is totally the way Blizzard does it - all access to Battlenet is controlled by your CD Key, basically, so only one copy could be online once.

@LoriLynn:@PipeRifle:

Without telling people what they cannot do, as in this case, EA should have written the sentence in the affirmative to prevent any misunderstanding:

"Spore allows for one online account per purchase. Additional online accounts require the purchase of additional licenses."

The "this is a misprint" argument tells me that the the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing. The manual authors clearly had the idea that multiple accounts would be allowed, while sales and marketing had an altogether different idea.

@MercuryPDX: Different HDs?

the restriction model i have seen with WOW and AoC has been separate keys for each PC installed; separate accounts for each person;multiple characters per account. so 1 person can buy the game for the household, but each person would need to pay for their online account. this allows someone to come over to my place and play with their account. the spore model does not allow this. bring your whole pc with you if you want to play at another location.

@Macroy: "or everybody comparing this to an MMO...this is not an online game."

What are you guys blabbering about? MMOs even let a single player have multiple characters ("accounts").

Ok, from my experience -

Both my wife and I have a Mac (1 each), and we bought one copy of spore. She installed it on her machine, set up her EA account, and started playing. I took the disk, installed it on my machine, had to use her EA account to log in, but it set me up with my own universe, and let me create my own creatures. It's hardly ideal, but it's not that big of a deal. The 3 install restriction is more of a pain in the ass.

But you can have multiple copies running, and logged in to EA at the same time - which, oddly enough.. seems to be what they'd want to prevent, and maybe they will down the road.

@coren: Wow... it's getting pricey for Tommy, Billy and Susie to play.