This was something I've felt like commenting on for a while and one of the reasons I decided to start this blog. Now anyone who follows the gaming news, and in particular PC based news will already know about this, and anyone who has will likely have an opinion and this here is mine.
Now http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3169913 this is the kinda of story I'm refering to, just so you know. But first i'll backtrack, a bad habit of mine is just to write things as they pop into my head, there isn't much order. But anyhoo, copy protection has been around for donkeys years , and for donkeys years minus a little bit people have been trying to break it. For some its the challenge, much like cracking into computers was in the early days, others its the more obvious piracy angle. To my memory theres only one real game I can think of that didn't really have any copy protection, and if it did, well it didn't make a blind bit of difference. This was Championship Manager 97/98, a series (now Football Manager) that I still play today, in fact pretty much the only pc game I play for the last 3-4 years despite what my collection implies. As I recall this game had the option of the full install, which meant that after you'd done this, you no longer had to use the disk at all and therefore were free (ethical argument aside) to sell it on and still enjoy the product. Obviously this is going a little far in the wrong direction but i'm sure there must have been other products like this, the whole community and companies were a lot more trusting. Things obviously changed and progressed, software and pc games started coming with licenses, and it was this license - not a physical product that you were paying for. When this happened things began getting complicated, and copy protections started getting out of hand.
Now over the past 3-5 years there have been a few incidents like this, but to my recollection never really with such a hyped mass-market product like spore. The copy-protection on spore allows for only 3 activations, meaning if you're a family with multiple pc's , or a dedicated (I hate the casual-hardcore thing) gamer who is likely to mod/update their computer or for some reason have to reinstall windows, you can only do this a further 2 times before you get locked out of the game. Now there are plenty of other products that do this too, Microsoft Office for example has a limited number of activations, but with games its not such a common occurance, and its not like you take office online regularly plus people don't like the idea that they're only seemingly renting the product from EA after paying £20-£30 etc. The other issue of course , the family one, where you can only go on one at a time is a major frustration but one I can almost buy into to an extent, but only if this copy protection actually did its job.
Surprise surprise the copy protection was broken, and the game has been available for download around a week before its official release. In fact thanks to the crackers certain annoying aspects of the drm have been dealt with and a pirated copy is in fact superior in many ways to the version that actually costs money. This has lead to HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people pirating the game rather than buying it, I'm sure its still selling fine but thats not really the point. In going overboard with their copy protection they've actually driven a bunch of their consumer base to piracy and really what has it been for? It can't have been much harder for the crackers its been available for download a full WEEK before it was available to buy in stores. And before you ask no, this isn't me condoning piracy or saying its a good thing in any way.
But piracy aside this has had other effects too, I mean just look at the amazon site for the game
for what has been a highly acclaimed game and much anticipated release, its review score is barely 2/5. But look at the break down, around 20 people each have reviewed it between 2-5 stars, whereas 162 have rated it at 1 star - a clear reaction to the frustration being caused by copy protection that made no difference. It is this kind of thing more than the piracy that I believe will hurt EA's pocket. Piracy will always be there, but thats another rant for another time, but this is the kind of game pretty much anyone can play, and much like the Sims will be played - in my opinion - by people who don't play games often , unless you count solitaire while at the office or a facebook application. To people like this, people who won't have seen the article like on 1up will be put off by such a low amazon store and more than likely will opt for something else.
But at the end of the day companies will be idiots and EA's large enough to be able to take this on the chin, and fingers crossed will learn something from their mistake.
Anyway daily non-me rant over, some facts may not be entirely accurate because its not like I research any of these, I just rant on things that bug me on stories I've often just skimmed. Anyway, not like this'll be read anyway 
Dork Knight out