SPORE!

[chovynz]

Customer (Nathan)
09/14/2008 06:46 PM

Hi Samuel (or whoever replies to this)

Now that I have calmed down, i would like to continue asking some simple questions that I would like some answers to, please.

1. We have established that Spore detects 'significant hardware changes'. Could you please let me know what that means and to what extent 'significant hardware' changes are detected?

2. What is the difference between: authentication, and an installation? What would cause my copy of Spore to fail the authentication?

3. Does it count as an 'install' when the OS is upgraded or just when reinstalled

4. If I uninstall the game, will it give me one license back? (for example if I wanted to format my Hardrive would I have to uninstall Spore first?)

Regards,
Nathan

Response (Sean M.)
09/15/2008 04:11 PM

Greetings,

Sam is out today but I can answer your questions. The truth is there is nothing concrete as far as what significant hardware changes means. If you were to install the game on a system for the first time it would authenticate, uninstalling and reinstalling on the same system does not cost activations as you have already activated it on that hardware profile.

I believe there is an activation tick for an OS reinstall because windows isn't aware of the previous version.

Nothing "gives back an activation."

All these points are moot though, as there has been no cases where we refuse activations. Its as simple as asking for more when you run out. For example, if you reply back with your registration number I would gladly give you more activations. Its really that simply and not worth all the worry and distress I have seen online.

The only time that I would say no would be where I saw the code had been tried to be activate an obscene amount of times (10,000 for example). This would tell me the code was compromised.

Thank you,

Sean M
Electronic Arts Customer Support

I still dont like how in ten years time I may not be able to play spore if I choose to, and that I have to ask them to play again after the 3rd install.
But this guy has calmed me down somewhat, by actually answering my questions instead of referring me to another website.

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Seek fun and you shall find it. Seek stuff to Q_Q about and you'll find that, too. I choose to have fun.