Electronic Arts has a hit on its hands with the creator-creation and evolution game Spore, but the company has certainly run afoul of many of its users through a SecuROM authorization scheme that requires users to authorize individual computers and gaming sessions in order to play the game. Disgruntled users launched a class action suit against EA over the DRM scheme and EA raised the number of computers on which users may install Spore to five. However, if a computer crashed, was stolen, or simply wiped out, there was no way to remove valid authorization from one computer and transfer it to another.
Now, three months later, EA has released a Spore de-authorization tool for Windows, enabling users to remove authorization from a machine on which Spore has been successfully installed, freeing up one of the games five installation “slots” to be used by another machine. Users don’t need to uninstall the game in order to de-authorize it, although if a de-authorized game is launched, it will try to reauthorize with EA. However, the de-authorization tool only works with Spore installations conducted through the tool: pre-existing Spore installations can’t be de-authorized.
EA hasn’t yet released a de-authorization tool for Macintosh users. Windows users will also need to turn off Vista’s User Account Control (UAC) to use the tool.
Despite DRM restrictions, TorrentFreak recently ranked Spore as the most pirated game of 2008.
