So, the creators of Spore, Electronic Arts, created an online discussion forum where people could talk about Spore.  Unfortunately they made the mistake of offering a feedback forum where people could post feedback about the game, and the reviews are positively ghastly.  So many people are irate about how shallow the game is and the various bugs in it that last week EA released a patch for the game, only a week after the game went to market.  Anybody in software development knows what happens when you rush a patch out the door.  And it happened big time... the patch made the game experience WORSE for a lot of users, fixing some bugs but creating a whole host of new ones.  Interest in the game is visibly on the wane, online Spore traffic has been pretty much falling since day one and people are already clamoring for "expansion packs".  It's generally not a good sign if you are looking for game expansions after owning the game for one week. By comparison I've owned Oblivion IV for over a year now and I only purchased one of the available expansions.  I haven't needed to buy any more because there is plenty of content there to keep I (and my family) entertained.  But I digress..

The interesting thing is (as you might expect) a number of EA's customers are not at all pleased that they are limited to 3 installs of their game before it won't install anymore, and some are unhappy with SecuRom being installed on their machines without their consent.  So along with feedback about various other flaws in the game, EA gets plenty of feedback about DRM and the headaches it is causing their customers.

Which they delete.

Yeah, you heard that right.  If you post feedback about the DRM in Spore, they simply delete your feedback.  They don't want customers discussing DRM or complaining about DRM.  And the reason is quite simply this:

DRM does not stop pirates. It never did.  The day Spore was released, there was already a DRM-free hacked version available for download from the various piracy sites.  ANYBODY who did not have an ethical problem with stealing the game, could simply download a fully functional pirate version.  Personally, I think game makers should be paid for their efforts, so this is not an option for me.

Electronic Arts isn't staffed by morons--they have tech savvy engineers working there who know full well that DRM will not stop pirates.  So why do they keep claiming they put it in there to prevent pirates from stealing their game?  Why is it really there?

My theory (and a lot of other people think so too) is they want to control (or basically kill) the resale market.  If you want to play Spore and figure you'll buy a used copy in a year or so, think again.  By putting the install limit on the game, EA prevents you from selling your property to a third party when you tire of it.  Why would anyone buy Spore if it had only 1 install left, or less?  So if someone wants Spore six months from now, they're going to have to buy it from EA--or they will get stiffed on reinstalls if one is ever needed.

That's fairly evil and a number of people (including myself) have posted threads to that effect on EA's feedback forum only to have them quietly disappear.

Which is also evil.