Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I played with the creature creator a bit and had a good time. I long ago pre-ordered Spore and have not had time to look further into the game as it approaches release. When I finally did, a few days ago, I discovered that they are implementing the absurd SecuROM DRM. I have no interest in paying full price for a game that I will be severely restricted from being able to play at a later point. Presuming installation is flawless, the current restriction to "three installs" is something any user will exceed long before their interest in the game does. In my situation, I would be installing it on my desktop and my laptop. I would only ever be playing one of these systems at a time so there would be no violation of the ridiculous EULA most products have. Only one instance would ever be operated simultaneously and only by me, the owner (well, renter as EA and SecuROM would have it). This would mean that as soon as I ever had to reinstall an OS on my desktop or laptop, I'd be screwed out of the game unless I wanted to buy it again for full price (and what happens if you want to enjoy the game a few years down the road and re-install it)? Think about that for a minute. Even if you never upgrade your hardware or buy a new computer or use a different computer -- how often (presuming you're using Windows of course) do you reinstall your operating system? And each time, you have to reinstall the game. If you're an XP user, you'll probably install the game. Then you'll upgrade to Vista. That'll be another install. Two down; one to go. Then you may need to re-install vista from scratch for any number of miserable reasons. And that will be your third strike. You better hope that you never *ever* need to change or adjust that system for any reason if you like Spore. Imagine applying this to other products. What if you could only watch purchased DVDs on one specific DVD player and once you've played it on that system, you could never play them on another one. No lending them to your friends. No buying a new player. No watching it on your payer in different rooms. No selling your used DVDs. And if your player dies and you buy a new one, you'll have to re-purchase the movie. Wouldn't that be silly? Perfectly good content that you have physically sitting in your hand that you paid handily for and have every right to own and use... only... you don't own it and can't use it. I only wish I had known this sooner. It is already in the process of being shipped so I can't cancel the order. Once it arrives, you better believe I'm going to hand it right back to the UPS driver and tell him I refuse to accept delivery. This is truly unfortunate. I'm a fan of Will Wright, even if some of his more recent games have not been geared toward the traditional simulation or Sim City fan and have been aimed more at the "decorate a bedroom and play house" crowd. I'd love to give Wright my support. But EA is making that impossible with this ridiculous scheme. I'm not a thief. Don't treat me like one.