EA: We Hate DRM but Aren’t Dropping It

EA CEO John Riccitiello isn’t buying into the whole Spore-DRM controversy. As Silicon Alley Insider reports, he said in a recent interview that the game is still selling well, despite the stringent copy protection that has many buyers up in arms:

“I personally hate DRM…. But I don’t like locks on my door, and I don’t like to use keys in my car… I’d like to live in a world where there are no passports. Unfortunately, we don’t—and I think the vast majority of people voted with their wallets and went out and bought Spore.”

The article pointed to a couple of recent quotes from record label execs saying that there hasn’t been a mass movement to DRM-free music either, although Amazon’s MP3 store has captured roughly 5 to 8 percent of market share.

It’s true that many customers don’t care. But it’s also true that there’s a difference between locking the front door and, say, telling you that you can only listen to your music in the living room and not in the den, or that you can’t upgrade your computer without having to phone a bunch of companies and ask each one for permission—which is where Riccitiello’s analogy falls apart.

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