nogoodnames wrote:Seriously though, 1 billion creations? assuming we ever get to that number, which I am 99.9999999999999999% sure we won't, do you have any idea how much storage that would take up? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that a spore creation is about one megabyte. Now, one billion spore creations would be roughly equivalent to 909 exabytes or 1 * 10^21 bytes which is in short, a very big number.

:headache:
The cake is a lie?
At least it isn't a YOTTABYTE or a ZETTABYTE! Scary.

It will probably just be an awesome prize. Maybe an ASUS laptop or something.

I bet the billionth creation will be "tah kilor", a big, white, unpainted blob with machine gun turrets and covered in engines.

BlueMonkey555 wrote:When we hit one billion creations, we all get a pat on the back, free money, and free expansion packs for all eternity.

That is where Spore addicts go when they die.

Ocelot-Adamska wrote:

ashkelon wrote:I just hope they don't start charging fees for service like the other subscription models.

That scares me silly. Service for this project has to be huge.

Explain yourself. Enlighten me maiden of knowledge.

Right now, the sharing is an integral part of the game that's sitting on the shelves. So unless they pull what's on the shelves, they probably won't/can't change the service model.

So right now, the game as it is sold depends on all of us seeding each other's games. And paying for the hardware and the people to do that are part of the cost of doing business.

But there can come a point where the servers and the people doing maintenance to them cost more than the game sales can pay for.

So they have a couple choices. They can abandon the whole thing, and leave use without a server -- which would really make a big stink -- the second one in spore's history. OR they could start charging a monthly fee for access to the creations on the server.

Typically that starts with caps on service, like "nonpaying" can up load and download X creations a month. "Premium" customers may, for example, pay a small fee for unlimited downloads.

This is similar to the models used by many companies.

But that's all silly speculation on my part. I just know that it is actually really interesting that Maxis offers this data service -- which is not cheap -- for just the cost of buying the game.

So that's why I answered like that to what happens when the database becomes hugely, horribly, big.

FlyingPigBoy wrote:

BlueMonkey555 wrote:When we hit one billion creations, we all get a pat on the back, free money, and free expansion packs for all eternity.

That is where Spore addicts go when they die.

Could you repeat that

nogoodnames wrote:Seriously though, 1 billion creations? assuming we ever get to that number, which I am 99.9999999999999999% sure we won't, do you have any idea how much storage that would take up? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that a spore creation is about one megabyte. Now, one billion spore creations would be roughly equivalent to 909 exabytes or 1 * 10^21 bytes which is in short, a very big number.

The expanded form: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes

Also, isn't that one quintillion bytes?

A sextillion, I believe.

Seems like I made a slight error in my calculations. It actually comes out to about one petabyte (rounding up). Still a lot of data. EA would definitely either abandon the server or institute some sort of fee if they had to build and maintain that much storage.

I think they'll just start culling old creations before we get to 1 billion... so it could take a long time to reach that total. And since GA was already in production when the 100 millionth creation was uploaded, EAxis will probably just give a free copy of the next expansion/game to the person who uploads the billionth, no matter how important they make the milestone sound like.

If we hit one billion creations the mods would put up a stickie saying "Great job everyone, we just hit one billion creations! Buy Creepy and Cute today!".
As for the servers, I think that EA is going to have a server cap that'll keep people from uploading until either the mods or the players start deleting all of the three-part piles of rubbish on the servers. Getting rid of a few Clark and Stanley adventures wouldn't hurt as well.

spore servers explode.

Tw1nk3rs wrote:spore servers explode.

SPORE, now 2 people have beat me to it

I hope EA chooses the best cost effective solution,which is to say: Culling unpainted creations and orange/red face creations. That would get bump off a great deal of noob creations.

:O But, then it would be un-fair and mean! What if that certain player thinks there amazing?

they will came back to earth? ....... <-<