EA backpedals on new Securom Protection

Just a day ago we have reported that Electronic Arts had plans to publish some of their upcoming PC blockbuster titles with a new Securom copy protection, that would validate the game every ten days online. Failure to validate the game in that time period would result in the game not starting anymore, until revalidation with an Electronic Arts online server. That's obviously bad news for users who like to play offline games, or have no Internet connection at their disposal for an extended period of time.

It seems that the press coverage and outcry of the gaming community made EA change their minds. The games will now run perfectly fine after an initial online activation, and additional checks will only be performed before additional content for the game is downloaded by the user.

That's definitely great news for the computer users who wanted to buy Mass Effect or Spore, the two affected titles, but did not like the proposed anti copyright infringement measures, or simply were not able to connect to the Internet every ten days to reactivate the game to keep playing it.

The updated FAQ by Bioware's community manager Jay Watamaniuk specifically mentions the armed forces and international users. I personally think that they still have not understood the real reason for the outcry, but that's probably just me wondering why companies do use copy protection for games, when cracked versions of the games normally make their appearance before or during the initial game release.

For me personally, it's the wrong approach when it comes to fighting copyright infringements, as it is punishing legit customers, and not the pirates who enjoy cracked game versions without DRM, need for online activations, and other implementations that decrease the experience for buying customers.

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