As of this writing, Spore, the new game from Maxis and Electronic Arts, has generated 2,015 1-star reviews on Amazon.com. The reason for this being EA’s rather draconian (can only install on three machines without calling tech support, computer needs to check-in to EA activation servers) and useless (it was pirated a week before its launch anyway, and the DRM only annoys legitimate customers) Digital Rights Management (DRM).

While many of the complaints are valid, I can’t help but feel like their legitimacy is overshadowed by the fact that >90% of these complainers would probably never get so riled up about, say, an Amazon product that was produced under exploitative or dangerous working conditions, that seriously threatened biodiversity, or that leached toxic checmicals into landfills when you were done using it.

No, these people will only get fired up if their video game doesn’t work just right. Don’t be surprised if I don’t have a lot of sympathy.