This is why Electronic Arts doesn’t care what you think about DRM: Despite a tsunami of nerd rage following its release, Spore is a big hit.
In spite of the uproar over the game’s harsh copy protection schemes and EA’s condescending response to a flood of complaints from legitimate owners, Spore, Will Wright’s latest sandbox sim, has sold over one million copies since its release earlier in September. According to a GameSpot report, EA also claims the Sporepedia, the online component of the game that hosts the various creatures created and uploaded by users, currently contains roughly 26.5 million of the home-built beasties.
“Spore is a hit,” said Frank Gibeau, president of EA Games. “We’re off to a great start moving into the holiday season and believe Spore will deliver a platform of creativity for gamers of all stripes for years to come.”
“We’re humbled by how quickly the community has taken to the creativity tools in Spore,” added Executive Producer Lucy Bradshaw. “It’s amazing to see the sheer imagination represented in the hundreds of thousands of creatures, vehicles and buildings that have been uploaded around the clock since launch.”
That Spore is a big sales hit isn’t terribly surprising but it is some welcome good news for EA, which has faced both lower-than-expected review scores as well as withering fire from consumers over the game’s DRM. At release, Spore could only be installed on three computers (although that number was recently increased to five) and even more frustrating for many gamers, each copy was good for only one online account, while support for multiple users on that account was non-existent. EA’s response to those complaints was to suggest that the system worked fine for the vast majority of gamers, and that those who had a problem with it simply failed to comprehend the problems created by piracy.
