Emphasis mine.

Argh where's the edit button when you need it!

Anyways: even EA? Hello? EA has always been at the forefront of draconian (and counterproductive) initiatives to benefit the company at the expense of the customer.

erm the free version does not have DRM on it. And you can use the trial version without logging into EA servers.

Frankly I no longer care, my EA cheque book slammed shut long ago. Its going to take a lot to prise it open, which is a bummer, because not all their games are blow-outs by any measure. I just cant get myself to trust them any more, its as simple as that.

I teach my Clients "The Customer is not King, Understanding them is"

EA dont have Customers in their philosophy, they have revenue robots, and they sure as hell dont understand them. Watch their Management Team after Bonus payouts hit accounts first week Feb 09, at the very latest post annual bonus round Feb 2010 - I'll bet my pension there is wholesale change as the old guard will know full well by then, that they have gone as far as the MilcheCow will let them, and they will move onto the next Company wanting to expand its Market Share.

Amidst Crys of Thanks for: "gifted leadership" "inspirational strategic leadership in the difficult times we have battled through" "setting the standards others will follow" "leading us into a new era". Geez, its all been done before....

Once that drivil dies down, EA will then settle down. What happens then will set the scene for EA for a 5-10 year period. It'll be interesting to see which way it goes.

Regards
Zy

Boycotting EA has so far done what? Is DRM evil, will you not buying it make any difference? Come on now, to be surprised by EA and DRM is like saying "I put my hand in the fire...and I got burned."

Stardock has the right model, but so far it is the Tucker of this electronic world. A bit to far ahead and in the shadow of giants. Maybe EA will return to its roots and make good games, but then I am sure that will be right after Hell has frozen over. Maxis was purchased by EA and like any good pimp, EA is milking its electronic ho Maxis for all its worth. To make sure its ho is safe it has a deal with the devil DRM.

Look at the brick and mortar stores, hey there is Sins and about a dozen Sim expansions. Now I love Sins and it gets the most play time from me, but I have to say that I took the evil of DRM to use the Spore Creature Creator. Now to say "Oh noes it phones home..." you must also look at your OS and every other application running on your machine. How many phone home, oh your smart you say nothing phones home, nice to know that and you can remove that tin foil hat to.

You get food from the store, you have to be dressed right? You want to play this game you have to suffer DRM. Actualy the day you can shop for food naked you will probably see EA have a DRM free game. If you grow your own food and get it naked, consider yourself in a small minority and try to boycott Walmart...hmm the same effect as boycotting EA.

PS - The Spore creature creator rocks. Yep I bought the full version, but hell its FUN. Ok remember that people to have FUN you have to pay the piper of DRM in this case, but hell what else is like it? Well I am waiting...

no the trial version does not contain DRM. You know why? because EA will have to pay DRM a small fee for each download.
So with EA and there greed, this makes no sense for them to add it on something that wont give them money back.
If the Pro version contains it, i dont know.

and it actually still sends the stuff to EA. No difference.
what stuff? the trial version does not even send a single bytes to EA when your logged off.

Dont get me wrong im no fan of EA, but your saying something that is untrue.

Yes. EA probably buys a royalty-free license or a contract deal (they let them out it in the demo, they continue buying) to get the demo's DRM free. And they give the darn thing away. Also, I've heard reports it phones home, though I cannot verify, even before the system logs you in? either way, I'm no fan of Securom or StarForce. Both have screwed me over.

Advocating any kind of piracy is forbidden on any Stardock forum.
Consider this the only warning. 

To bad this isn't going to matter. There are lots of people hyped about Spore thanks to the trial, who will no doubt run out and buy it day 1.

It really saddens me that companies continue to increasingly screw the user with their 'protections' that DON'T STOP PIRACY. I stopped buying from Valve after the Half Life 2 protections (can't play or even install a SINGLE PLAYER GAME unless you're connected to Steam), and I have since added EA and Bioware to this list for severe Spore and Mass Effect protections. I am disappointed to hear that Ironclad is going to force you to connect to Impulse to play Sins online with the next patch. Aren't cd-keys good enough to prevent pirates from accessing multiplayer?

I have no problems with supporting good games and good companies with my money, but if you're going to treat me like a criminal then you've lost a customer. I don't care how good the game is. It's too bad, I really liked Bioware but they had to go and partner with EA. Not a smart move guys.

Yes, the problem is that you have to go through protection that won't work at all in order to play. I'm fine with impulse, but you install Starforce or Securom on my PC, and you waste my hard-drive space and slow it down more than it already is (though I do optimize it often enough).

Granted, pirating it is a bit too far. I'll just boycott it, since piracy is illegal. Plus, I don't want that crap on my PC anyways.

wow now that is a chilling look at the future.

i don't like ea at all either but.... i am a slave to battlefield and c&c.
but securom is horrible, whenever i try to play star wars empire at war it says im using a backup disk and i have to re-insert the disk so i can play, some times i have to put it back in so many times, i just give up.

and p.s. does battlefield (2142 or bf 2) even have securom? if it does i don't notice it often.

I don't think Battlefield 2 or 2142 has securom.

Piracy is bad. The best way is simply a boycott. Remember, if it's not worth playing, don't.

I'm not gonna pirate. That was the heat getting to my temper. I had to walk in 110 degrees.