EA sued over Spore DRM

Posted at: 4:59pm 25th September 2008 by Ben Hardwidge

Case alleges that the stealthy inclusion of SecuROM in Spore violates Californian law

EA is already facing the wrath of thousands of PC gamers after including SecuROM on new PC games such as Mass Effect and Spore. However, the games company is now being taken to court in California by a plaintiff who believes that the surreptitious inclusion of SecuROM actually breaks the law.

According to the legal document, Melissa Thomas is suing EA ‘on behalf of herself and all others similarly situated’ after buying Spore. The case alleges that ‘When consumers make their purchase of Spore, they are told that they are purchasing “an exciting new simulation game that lets you develop your own personal universe.” However, the document adds that ‘What purchasers are not told is that, included in the purchase, installation, and operation of Spore is a second, undisclosed program.’

That second, undisclosed program is, of course, the much-hated SecuROM, which the document details. ‘Although consumers are told that the game uses access control and copy protection technology,’ says the document, ‘consumers are not told that this technology is actually an entirely separate, stand-alone program which will download, install, and operate on their computers, along with the Spore download. Consumers are given no control, rights, or options over SecuROM.’

The document goes on to say that ‘even if the consumer uninstalls Spore, and entirely deletes it from their computer, SecuROM remains a fixture in their computer unless and until the consumer completely wipes their hard drive through reformatting or replacement of the drive.’ Complaints about SecuROM aside, though, the main crux of the case appears to be that EA doesn’t tell you about it.

The case document alleges that ‘Electronic Arts’ intentionally did not disclose to any such purchasers that the Spore game disk also possessed a second, hidden program which secretly installed to the command and control center of the computer (Ring 0, or the Kernel), and surreptitiously operated, overseeing function and operation on the computer, preventing the computer from operating under certain circumstances and/or disrupting hardware operations.’ This, according to the case, violates a number of California laws, including the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act and California’s Unfair Competition.

Spore’s DRM system first limited the number of installations of the game to three, but this was later expanded to five installations after a public backlash, with thousands of one-star reviews appearing on Amazon. Spore’s DRM system also faced a backlash after it became apparent that you couldn’t set up more than one account in the game on shared computers.