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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Roman" data-source="post: 4743231" data-attributes="member: 1845">Consumer boycotts and campaigns CAN work even if you love the products of the company. For example, I am a huge fan of BioWare computer games. Since BioWare was purchased by Electronic Arts, however, its games have included a particularly nasty version of SecuROM - a draconian digital rights management (DDRM) scheme, which included things like limited installs of the game you purchased, online activation with each install (so if the company takes down its servers in the future you won't be able to install the game) and so on. There was considerable outcry over this when this scheme was introduced in Mass Effect and the sales of the game on the PC (as opposed to on consoles) were probably significantly affected. The reaction was amplified when another EA game, the Spore, was released and people gave it one star reviews on Amazon and led massive outcries on websites and boycotts. Yes, we were a vocal minority (and I was pretty tame - did not engage in one star reviews and such), but a vocal minority can have a considerable impact on sales through word of mouth and although Spore still sold well and made a lot of money, EA itself has estimated that the DRM fiasco has cost it $25 million in Spore sales (and this was something like one month after its release) - that is real money. Of course, the draconian DRM scheme did not help fight piracy of Spore at all - in fact, because of its DDRM scheme Spore gained the dubious title of being the most pirated game in history. It has been about a year since this all started and I have certainly not purchased any EA products since then. About 10 days ago, it seems the EA has finally relented: <a href="http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=672765&forum=22" target="_blank">BioWare Forums: EA DROPS Securom on its flagship game: The SIMS 3</a> Note that EA is proably a far bigger fish than WotC or at least so I would guess. Alienating its customers, WotC is playing with fire. I am not saying this is the thing that will generate a massive consumer backlash, but if WotC keeps on doing things like this, a critical number of customers will eventually eventually be pushed over the threshold.</blockquote>

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