Spore, touted as the god game of the year, is being sunk on bulletin boards, thanks to the daftest DRM software anyone has ever seen.

EA games has a draconian DRM system that requires you to activate over the Internet, and limits you to a grand total of three activations. Once you reach that limit you'll have to call EA in order to add one extra activation and provide proof of purchase and the reasons why the limit was reached.

It could have been worse. EA originally had wanted to get the game to authenticate online every ten days, changing it to authentication whenever new content was added to the title. Currently, reviews of the game are one or two stars mostly, as game owners vent their spleen on the game's DRM. Casual gamers who aren't aware of this campaign may not bother to read the content of the reviews and only assume the game isn't very good.

Ironically, the DRM is already cracked, and people can use illegal versions of the game without having to bother with it. So, it is only the legitimate users who are suffering from EA Games' DRM.