There is a Spore DRM protest going on. 1,962 people have given the game 1 star out of 5. I find this hilarious.

The gaming, movie, and music industries all have a horrible record with locking users out of their purchases. The are being "penny wise and pound foolish". Spore, according to the hype, interviews, and talks I have seen, is an amazing piece of art. It, like every breakthrough piece of art, has the potential to enter our collective culture, like Super Mario Bros or pong did.

Unfortunately, locking down these creations and eliminating chances for fair use, reduces the audience for your works. Greed kills that potential. The are a lot of video game fanatics. The average person will pay for a video game, but the fanatic will not only pay $50 bucks for the game, they will buy the t-shirts, the strategy guides, and the lunch box. Sure lots of kids with free time will go through the pain of finding and pirating video games, but that's why we have kids. Piracy is marketing, not lost revenue.

When I started being able to purchase mp3s more easily than buying CDs and ripping them, I bought a bitch-pile more digital music. I rarely purchase Movies and TV show, because I know that I am really only "renting" them due to DRM issues. I will really only purchase DRM video games for proprietary platforms: iPhone, Wii, etc. I don't notice the DRM there because it's a long lived platform, so I feel like I really own the game.

But will I go out and plunk down $50 bucks for Spore. Naw, the world is to fascinating and their is to much to do and create, to rent a game for $49.99.