Maxis,
You have a great game concept on your hands, but your current position is that of the Titanic. There is a gaping hole in the deck that you seem to be ignoring. You need to address this now and focus all your attention on the critical issues of face ruin.

Spending any time at all on the "Cute and Creepy" parts pack or anything else is like worrying if you should charge for appetizers when the ship is sinking.

All you attention should be on preventing the ship from sinking and nothing on peripheral issues. Nothing.

These are the steps you need to take to save the sinking ship.

Admit there is a problem
You must first admit that the current game cannot sustain your company. The game cannot survive if it is not very fun to play. It has no sandbox, creativity or replay value. The editors do have creativity, but it is dashed once the creations leave the editors. Very few people will want to add parts when it has no impact on game play.

The crashes and problems with DRM are serious and you seem to be dragging your feet on rectifying the issues.

People with game problems will not purchase expansions and will resent that you are trying to rake in more money when they can't even play.

There are many, many game issues as well. Those issues will also prevent people from wanting to purchase expansion packs.

Create a rescue plan
The game play needs to have what everyone says it lacks, depth. Its need to have consequence, interaction, experimentation and exploration. The creatures should behave like creatures, not mindless drones locked to a nest. There are many, many ideas in the forums that could improve the game, so I'm not going to go into that here, but you need to make a game that is fun to play and has replay value.

One thing that is lacking in the game is the connection to other people. It is virtually absent.


Publish the plan
Make a public statement. So far, the silence is deafening with only the interruption of the "cute and creepy' parts pack. I know that it was part of a marketing roll out, but you can't afford to go down this path. A course correction is required.
Tell everyone that you know that SPORE has problems and you are doing nothing else except to fix issues right now. Forget the expansion pack, or give it away as a sign of good faith. Get beta builds out every other week and get feedback on problems. Take input and respond to the community. Your silence is just interpreted as ignoring. Get involved in the community that you want to sell your product to.


Execute the Plan
Do NOTHING else except the rescue plan. No time should be spend on anything that does not directly affect game rescue. Spore will be an afterthought if the game play is not improved and no amount of parts or expansions will change that.

It is inconceivable to me that you are putting any effort into work that is not related to making your customers feel like they have a good game framework that can support expansion.

An open ended game that is full of wonder, exploration, interaction, communication (with other players and game creatures), danger, consequence and learning is worthy of expansion and replay.

SPORE, as it is today, is not.

Maxis/EA has not officially announced a parts pack just yet or even a release to one. If you have proof actual factual evidence of it please post so the rest of us can jump on the hate Maxis bandwagon instead of actually playing the game.

Some people only play this game for the creators. just a fyi, check out some profiles out there. There is alot of people who dont have achievements but have 300+ creations. Theres more to this game then just the stupid easy game itself

I hate to be the harbinger of bad news, but EA has bought and destroyed so many companies that the only reason Maxis is still Maxis is due to profitability and brand name.

Once Will Wright quits making games for/working for EA, Maxis will follow the same fate.

Smokeya wrote:Maxis/EA has not officially announced a parts pack just yet or even a release to one. If you have proof actual factual evidence of it please post

Now someone is going to post the links to the shopping websites where the pack is still available to see in the Google cache and claim that is proof that it's being made. Then someone else is going to "jump on the bandwagon" and pretty soon this whole thread will be all over the place.

If Spore did bankrupt the company, it would be because of the SecuROM lawsuit and not poor sales.

Besides, EA can easily crank out another round of repetitive sports games to cover the costs.

The post is not about the cute and creepy parts pack, it was just an example.


I know there are people that enjoy making creatures, but that does not give a game "legs"

Maxis is an extremely successful company, there are alot of very talented individuals there with more degrees then a thermometer. They certainly don't need advise on how to run their company.

Apparently they do. At one point they had a layoff and were sold to EA.

I hate to be the harbinger of bad news, but EA has bought and destroyed so many companies that the only reason Maxis is still Maxis is due to profitability and brand name.

Yes indeedy.

I cant stand EA, but this is actually a great game. Needs some work but im sure they will get to that. This game hasnt been out long but people are already giving it up because there is something they dont like. All computer games that come out have bugs,problems,whatever and need tweaks to them. Patches cant be made overnight or they just cause more problems which leads to more patches and crap like that. Just be patient and all will be well. Find another game to play for now if this one isnt running good or whatever. Or play on the boards all day like i do while playing harvest moon wii lol. My spore was fine until i patched it. Now its super laggy takes forever to do anything on space and creature stages. No biggy they will either fix it or i can go back to 1.0 and crash all the time in space :-p

I fully support absolutely everything in the OP.

Maxis, get off yer duff and listen to the people. No, seriously.
I mean, as angry as some of us are--and we are--some of us still want the Spore that hooked us so. And some of us are quite willing--eager, even--to do whatever it takes to get it from you. We could be your worst enemies...but we'd rather be your greatest allies.

Think about that. I'll wait.

I was psyched for Spore. I could be again. I WANT to be again. I've stated and restated what it would take on these forums multiple times, and there are hundreds of users posting essentially the same things every day. Do you REALLY think we're all wrong? Do you REALLY still think Science Spore was a bad idea? Seriously?
...or if the bottom line is really important, do you think you can't milk us for another $50 apiece with the Science version of Spore, with deep, deep gameplay that might not appeal to the Pokemon/Neopets crowd?
Because there is a forum of posts here that should be clearly telling you otherwise. What does it take to get someone to sit up and listen? Hell, if I were Will Wright, I'd be calling a staff meeting and saying, "See? See? I WAS right; people didn't want Cute Spore! ...half of you are fired." Of course, that would be AFTER the private tears of shame in my office after I realized that I hadn't just betrayed the gaming community, but also myself; that speech I gave about wanting to make a tool for kids to learn about the deep mysteries of the universe through experimenting with a tool that allowed them room to fail wasn't just bullSPORE.

So, c'mon, Maxis; yes, Spore may well be your downfall...but it could also be your biggest public relations coup. "The people spoke, and, dammit, we listened! Our gift to the gaming community: we're fixing Spore. And we're sorry for the inconvenience."
I would shell out for champagne and dance a jig. On national television, if that's what it took.

Are you seriously telling me this doesn't move you at all? Not even a smidge? Because honestly...I'm one of Spore's harshest critics, I know that. But I'm also one of its strongest supporters if you look at this from another angle. Think about it.

I'll wait.

Apparently they do. At one point they had a layoff and were sold to WA.

Just because that happened doesnt make them a bad company. Sometimes things go wrong in business. Economy being bad in america certainly doesnt help games sell. When it comes to food or video games i always choose food. Im sure america isnt the only country that isnt doing so hot either. (i just cant name any others off hand)

Like i said though give it some time before anyone should be getting upset about spore. Things take time to do and money. Unless you want a patch or expansion to be a piece of junk and do more harm then good like the last patch seems to have for me and some others i have seen on the boards. I have yet to complain about the problems im having because im sure it will be addressed asap.

I think spore will be a huge cash cow for Maxis if they do expansions and other things, fixing bugs should be high priority though at this point since its still so early to be talking expansions.

Smokeya wrote:

Apparently they do. At one point they had a layoff and were sold to WA.

Just because that happened doesnt make them a bad company. Sometimes things go wrong in business. Economy being bad in america certainly doesnt help games sell. When it comes to food or video games i always choose food. Im sure america isnt the only country that isnt doing so hot either. (i just cant name any others off hand)

Like i said though give it some time before anyone should be getting upset about spore. Things take time to do and money. Unless you want a patch or expansion to be a piece of junk and do more harm then good like the last patch seems to have for me and some others i have seen on the boards. I have yet to complain about the problems im having because im sure it will be addressed asap.

I think spore will be a huge cash cow for Maxis if they do expansions and other things, fixing bugs should be high priority though at this point since its still so early to be talking expansions.

They aren't a bad company, I think they are having a problem with priorities.

Its way too early to discuss expansions is my point. If they are spending one second on expansions, its too much.


It could be a cash cow if there was a reason to expand. What would you want? Another editor or more parts?
It wouldn't make it more fun. It needs to have a fun open ended framework, not a linear, nothing to do game.

this thread has no proof and makes no sense.... therefore this is on-topic... BASEBASEBASEBASEBASEBASE

Sikyanakotik wrote:If Spore did bankrupt the company, it would be because of the SecuROM lawsuit and not poor sales.

Besides, EA can easily crank out another round of repetitive sports games to cover the costs.

Its Maxis I'm worried about and SecuROM is a nightmare.

Smokeya wrote:
This game hasnt been out long but people are already giving it up because there is something they dont like.

No, people are already giving it up because they haven't found enough that they DO like.

Every game I've ever played has had some aspect to it that I didn't like, but I continue to play them. Spoor, on the other hand, is fundamentally flawed from top to bottom. That's more than peevishly throwing it out because the HUD wasn't the right color or somesuch, as you imply. Much more.

All computer games that come out have bugs,problems,whatever and need tweaks to them. Patches cant be made overnight or they just cause more problems which leads to more patches and crap like that. Just be patient and all will be well.

BullSPORE. All will NOT "be well".

Do you really think Maxis is going to broaden the gameplay to be even a shadow of a ghost of the game that was promised to us in 2005? That they'll underlie the weak gameplay with scientific principles and actually add more conversation and interaction options to the Tribe, Civ and Space stages, actual procedural behavior patterns and evolution to the Creatuer and Cell stages? That they'll add the functionality to make the placement of parts matter, the height and weight of the creatures matter? The ecosystems actually be functionality instead of shallow 1-2-3 checklists?

Because that's what it'll take to make "all well".

And that would require such fundamental changes to Spoor as to make it an entirely new game...the game Spore was talked up to be originally, the game most of us actually wanted to play.
Do you seriously think they'll just pop up with that in a month or two? Seriously?