I have more hope than last week of a better Spore.

I have more sadness than last week of what happened to Spore.

I still have yet to give up all hope of what Spore could be.

As long as what it could be does not involve expansions.

Eekwotsthat wrote:

ghadis wrote:Well, I hope this decision harms your sales, Maxis and EA, to such an extent that you quit dumbing your products down.

It won't. Those people who wanted "science spore" went and brought it anyway despite the fact that it was obvious prior to release spore wasn't what they wanted/expected. You only had to look at the trailer to see that. Naturally we hear a lot of complaining after but the sale has been made and EA have the cash. Then we have the vast majority of people who actually brought and enjoy the game as is and there are a lot of them. All told probably a lot of units sold and a successful game in terms of getting your hard earned cash.

This is partially true, but the lukewarm critical reception and drastically low user ratings on several important sites do matter. On Metacritic it has an 85, and only a 4.6 out of 10 (!!!) from the users. The Amazon user rating is at 1.5 out of 5 (reading the customer reviews shows that that rating is only partially due to the SecuRom nonsense--shallow gameplay is repeatedly mentioned).

People do consider these things when buying a game. I'm sure that the "casual" audience--those in the name of whom all our mental processes above the animal level have been sacrificed--are the people most likely to be turned off from any casual interest they might have had in the game. They are not the ones who've followed the progress of the game for years and would have bought it regardless. In addition, word of mouth matters. I'll wager that very few people indeed are hearing that Spore is the great one, that it has met its lofty aspirations and realized its potential. Instead, and as many user reviews around the internet and anecdotal comments on the forum suggest, the game already has a reputation for childish simplicity and shallowness. The joke is that, as mentioned in this thread, even children--who are generally far more savvy with games than your average EA/Maxis employee, evidently--dismiss this game as beneath them.

No, their sales will definitely suffer, relative to what they might have been. The game might still reach some financial target of theirs, and thereby secure them their fast buck, but that doesn't mean this was the sound business decision. Like I said before, the fact is that their financial interests always lay in making the best product (contextually) possible. In the long run this would make them more money.

Their perception of a conflict between the intelligence of their game and its profitability was the result of short-range, pragmatist thinking on their part. They should have been working on intelligent ways of making the game casually appealing but still packed with underlying substance. It could have been done. In large part, it seems that the fact that it wasn't is due to some cynical and ultimately condescending prejudices of certain members of the design team.

For the reasons I indicated in a previous post, Spore had the potential to appeal to casual and "hardcore" gamers alike. They weren't in any way forced into the incredible compromises they committed.

We can only hope that the better ideas among the designers have not died, because EA's very rational and, for us, mutually beneficial model of sustaining a game over the long run with many expansions still allows for the opportunity to salvage Spore.

It's really sad that the team had to camp up like that. Really this is the same old Simulationist vs. Narativist stuff that's been going on in Pen and Paper games for a long time, but here I think it would of been possible to serve both masters. Let me give you an example. Take two goals that seem to be incompatable.

1. Creatures should function no matter how the user builds it.

2. The enviroment should have a real impact on the evolution of the creature.


Solution: Death Bonuses

Create four stats; Feirocity, Poise, Robustness, and Awareness.
Feirocity enhances all combat by a percentage.
Poise enhance all social interations by a percentage.
Robustness improves total health by a percentage.
Awareness gives a bonus to stealth and speed.

Whenever the creature dies, based on how it died, the next generation gets a boost to one of these stats (at the cost of some progress).

This solves #1 because no matter how stupidly you build the creature, it will eventually get enough of these bonuses that you can continue.

It also make sense scientifically because not all evolutionary changes are morphological. If a species for whatever reason stubbornly refuses to develop legs- that it will select for members that are very good at sensing danger. If a species like a badger, is underarmed for it's enviroment, than any of the meek will be eaten and you will be left with a ferocious species that uses it lackluster physicall gifts to extrodinary effect. (I saw a nature show once where a badger stared down a bear.)

Unfortuneatly, these ideas don't come up if you divide into camps that are preocupied with proving there way is better.

I think spore should be able to teach some science and tell amazing and improbable stories. The universe is afterall a crazy place.

I always thought many of the organisms of nature (which is pretty much almost all of them) are pretty creative. People made different breeds of dogs and agricultural crops.

well Will...hopefully you're able to take the reins back from the Cutesies.

I'd like to have seen his original idea come to light.

hammarskjold wrote:
The article says Will Wright was sort of overturned on a lot of sciency simulation stuff by others on the team concerned about marketing and playability.

These people have my money, so sadly the real debate, which is always about money, can't be decided.

That doesn't stop me from disliking them and making sure not to buy Maxis again.

The concept is all science, and no cuteness. Casual gamers usually only take a look at the box/idea behind it then decide, they dont care about the gameplay. So why give the concept this scientific approach but then make the gameplay boring and aimed for casual gamers?

That games with shallow gameplay sell alot doesnt mean that alot of people like shallow gameplay, and noone would choose a game just because of its shallow nature.

Acccesability is nice, but have you ever heard someone say how good a game is because the gameplay is easy to grasp? And you've probably heard someone tell you that a certain game is great because theres so much to do. These two could have been combined, but they choose to compeltely focus on the first one, thats a really bad move.


On a side note, who likes cute anyways? For some it doesnt have to be scientific, but that doesnt hurt, on the other hand who would love the game becauseof its cuteness? Maybe 8 year old girls, but theyve never bought alot of videogames.



Well theres at least one good thing that can be said about spore, itll teach other gamedevelopers that decisions like these are really, really bad. (Oh and it teaches EA about the drm thing, but thats a different matter)

Take this post of mine as you will.
If you dont believe me thats your deal.


I've told the regulars that i'm a digital musician.
I'm on a contract.
It often happens that me and my crew go into the studio
(my crew being me and my 2 friends )
with a brilliant idea for a song. We get the tunes going, we wrap it up. We drive up to my chiefs house get him out of bed, make him listen to the SPORE tune .....and he says: 'Guys its great! But unfortenatly it will never sell.'
'Sure it will sell, but we wont get the costs out of the sale of the single.'

Same goes for the game industry.
Will must have had to make a choice at one point.
Artistic freedom by EA by giving them a project that actually earns money.

Or to make a game that will keep his fanbase loyal but that frankly...might cut of his future in developing games.
I'm sure Will had to make a decision to either dance with the devil or to walk away.
For our sake he danced with the devil in the hope that some of the original ideas would come thru in the end.

thats my take on it at least.

I think many post have said exactly what you are saying. But it is a short term profit vs long term profit thing.

Now, I don't think we can ever know which would have made more money, long term OR short term. But games like starcraft, diablo 2, simcity 4k, civilization series, WoW, and C&C are also made for "causal" and "hardcore" (what ever the HECK those two mean) alike and made bank.

You can make a ground breaking game and it can spring board your company to fame, but I guess Maxis and EA didn't need that.

aznparker wrote:.

You can make a ground breaking game and it can spring board your company to fame, but I guess Maxis and EA didn't need that.

Yup, suprisingly most of the big compagnies are very cautious about innovation.

Chris Hecker should be shot.

They just need one good game to earn them big bucks and put them on spotlight and then they slowly squeeze the spotlight for all its worth. Am I right? =)

Yup, how much more FNL or madden do we need? (you know them big sport games that just keep on going and going and going )

Will Wright, in his ever incessant promoting of his own abomination, kept saying how "science is fun." And that somehow Spore would show people the fun side of science. This article just goes to show that Will's own beliefs (which he happily sold for just a little more) and his own convictions were not enough to keep the powers-that-be from raping this game til any sense of science was removed. Will has shown us, apparently, that science is NOT fun. You know what's more fun? Gobs of money.

The idea the game would not be fun because there was "too much science" is a load of crap from people who study science by reading the "Lifestyles" section of their local paper. Dumming Spore down is an idea that stems from greed, and one of the reasons movies in Hollywood tend to suck so badly. They don't want to turn anyone off, don't want to offend, don't want to confuse, don't want to alienate. And all Wright did was turn off the loyal fans who were waiting for the game HE HIMSELF sold to us before it was launched. He alienated his "base." He's no better than a politician who whores himself to the independents at the expense of his base because he figures he's got his base "locked up".

I have fun with Spore, but I also have fun with Lego's. And while lego's are nothing knew, neither is Spore. It's not innovative. It's a hodge-podge of different games slapped together with a common logo/theme, neither one of which is particularly that much fun on its own (space stage and creature a little).

What I think we're going to need (those of us who wanted Spore to be something other than Hello Kitty Island Adventure on steroids) is a Spore Science Pack that puts all the elements the geniuses took out back in. Fat chance of that happening but we can always dream.

Nykara wrote:

darwintheory wrote:That guys a freakin idiot (not Will he cool). I simply fail to understand why the
cuteness was nesscary. Look at other games (hunting, RPG, FPS) they don't need
cuteness and they sell millions of copies. *sigh* maybe some day they will create
a realistic add-on to make the game look better. Don't get me wrong, I like the current
Spore but that "Cute Man" should be fired as I see him as the reason Spore dissappointed
many, he killed Science Spore!

Yeah but then you need to look at World of Warcraft over a lot of the other MMO's that are out there. It's the *most* popular out of all of them and it is cartoonish. The fact is cute sells. There's also a reason why the alliance side in WoW was always more popular then horde - again because people want cute little gnomes or night elves instead of things that look like Bulls or have huge ugly tusks.

Some people in here have made some very realistic and not-cute designs and other people have made cute designs. My personal tastes is for cute (That's why my favorite animals are things like rabbits and koala's and dogs and cats because they are all cute) the way I see the current set up though is that it caters for all kinds of styles and preferences.

hey now im straight up horde DOWN WITH THE ALLIANCE!! i have not a single alliance character in wow lol, looks like its time to reactivate my account now that im bored with spore, i was hoping spore would help my wallet a bit by keeping me from wow for a while but looks like thats not gonna happen lol