EA’s heavy-handed DRM policies have caused some serious backlash from the gaming community, but it looks like the publisher is mending its ways. Having bowed to pressure and released a tool for unlocking Spore from your system, EA has now extended the gesture to another 17 titles released since May 2008. You can download it here.
This is still quite an abrupt turnaround for EA, which at times seems hell bent on locking up its customers in digital handcuffs while those who pirate the same games, ironically, get away scot-free. Despite EA’s decision to drop DRM from The Sims 3, we were still so surprised that we suspected early April Fool’s day shenanigans but no, it’s right there on EA.com.
One small caveat – this is not a complete DRM striping tool. It’s not a magical EA bullet that will pulverise your Mass Effect DRM into a faint mist. What a shame. All it does is allow you to uninstall and de-authorise the game on your computer, so you can keep an eye on your remaining activations and avoid ending up with an unplayable game simply because you’ve upgrade your PC and/or wiped your operating system too many times.
Here’s the list of games now getting EA’s de-authorisation treatment:
- Burnout Paradise
- Red Alert 3
- Crysis Warhead
- Dead Space
- FIFA Manager 09
- FIFA Soccer 09
- Littlest Pet Shop (disappointingly not an FPS)
- Lord of the Rings: Conquest
- Mass Effect
- Mercenaries 2
- Mirror’s Edge
- My Sims
- Need for Speed: Undercover
- NHL 09
- Spore
- Spore Creature Creator
- The Sims 2: Apartment Life
- The Sims 2: IKEA Home Stuff
- The Sims 2: Mansion and Garden Stuff
It’s a good start, but let’s hope EA can continue this moment to put pay to DRM once and for all.
