I was pretty gung-ho for Spore when the Creature Creator came out a couple of weeks ago. I bought the download, played around with the Creator, and generally had a good time with a $10 game. Only trouble was, I couldn't log in to either share my creatures or see what anyone else had created.

For a day or two, I assumed it was server overload. Then I tried re-installing the game. The problem didn't clear up, so I sent a customer service request to EA. That's been a disaster so far. Simple problem -- I can't log in. It's taken 4 attempts to get EA's customer service to even understand the problem. The latest direction from EA blames my browser's security settings.

EA has some blanket recommendations which are not encouraging. I'm to clear all my cookies and personal data, allow popup windows, allow web sites to install software, and so on. The idea that in order to play Spore I have to allow popup windows is rather upsetting. If I had to allow popups from EA sites, that would be somewhat understandable. But the instructions don't suggest allowing specific websites to use popups -- I'm supposed to allow all websites to deliver popups. What a step backward.

I'll give these instructions a try, but I'm more or less certain the changes won't work. Regardless, going through two weeks of hassle just to play a $10 demo has soured me on the promise of the full version of Spore.