Will Wright Speaks on Spore DRM

There’s nothing like jumping on the Spore DRM bandwagon... again.

It appears that Will Wright’s latest creation, the widely popular game Spore, can’t stay out of the negative light. Whether it’s a lawsuit filed in courts or Will Wright himself speaking out, the game has certainly made a name for itself despite positive or negative reviews. Surprisingly enough, Spore recently earned a "Breakthrough Reward" from Popular Mechanics, recognized for its achievement in design, creativity, and engineering. Unfortunately the game’s DRM plague and the super-secret software it silently installs on consumer PCs may make its achievements that much less spectacular.

Last night at the Popular Mechanics annual Breakthrough Awards ceremony in New York City, Kotaku’s Jim Reilly approached Will Wright after the event and asked about his involvement with the DRM decision-making process.

"It was something I probably should have tuned into more. It was a corporate decision to go with DRM on Spore. They had a plan and the parameters, but now we’re allowing more authentications and working with players to de-authenticate which makes it more in line like an iTunes," Wright told Reilly. "I think one of the most valid concerns about it was you could only install it so many times. For most players it’s not an issue, it’s a pretty small percentage, but some people do like wiping their hard disk and installing it 20 times or they want to play it 10 years later."

Will Wright couldn’t be more off the mark. While many gamers did complain about the installation limitations, the biggest issue was the installation of SecuRom without notifying the consumer. Thus, the anti-piracy silent infiltrates the system and cannot be removed without wiping the drive entirely. And as for the installation limitations, educated PC gamers wipe their drives on a regular basis, getting rid of junk that collects in the operating system over time. While installation limitations are understandable from a anti-piracy standpoint, in the long run, it only antagonizes the consumer, thus making them less likely to purchase a PC game in the future, but rather a console version of the same title.

So is DRM a permanent fixture in the PC gaming forecast ? Will Wright had an answer for that question too. "I think it’s an interim solution to an interim problem," he told Kotaku. "You have games like Battlefield Heroes coming out where the idea is you give away the game and sell upgrades, which works more in the Asian markets where you need to monetize it over the Internet. I think we’re in this uncomfortable spot in going from what’s primarily a brink and motor shrink-wrapped product to what eventually will become more of an online monetization model."

Will going digital help prevent piracy ? It’s possible. Many publishers including Electronic Arts and Atari- are already considering going totally digital. Online retail outlets such as Direct2Drive and Valve Software’s Steam have already proven that digital purchases are a lucrative business. But in the meantime, gamers will have to suffer with DRM while the industry tried to find its footing in the fight against piracy.

The unfortunate aspect about the entire DRM controversy is that Will Wright’s current game -while an honest attempt at originality and innovation- is taking the heat, and in the long run, the Spore name may turn the stomachs of legit gamers understandably sour.

You can read Tom’s Games’ review(s) of spore by heading here and here.