After reading another significantly anti-EA, anti-Maxis, anti-everything, I decided its time to get some positivity out again. For a very long time, 20ish years, I've had a standard for games and whether I feel i've gotten my money out of them. The standard is simple, for every dollar I spend on the game, I expect to get an hour of game play. Good or bad game play, just flat out I expect to play for an hour per dollar. So for Spore I have the GE, that means I expect to get at least 80 hours of play out of the game. So far, it easy exceeds this. I enjoy the game play, could care less about the DRM, have found few issues, none of these issues has stopped me from playing the game. I am looking forward to the parts pack expansion, the parts i've seen shown look like they will add a lot of interesting new looks to the game. The space expansion can't come quick enough. I knew what the plan was with Spore, and I applaud EA and Maxis for porting an extremely successful model into a new style of gaming. Now if you will excuse me, its time to pre-order Sims 3.

cor4101 wrote:he space expansion can't come quick enough. I knew what the plan was with Spore, and I applaud EA and Maxis for porting an extremely successful model into a new style of gaming. Now if you will excuse me, its time to pre-order Sims 3.

Not all of us are so eager to lap up shovelware like it was mother's milk.

Gaming value is the $50 I spent on BF2. I got 1500+ hours of gameplay out of that. Spore gave me about 10 days and 20 hours of gameplay for $50, and if I want anything more than that, I have to start shelling out more money.

FAIL.

cor4101 wrote:After reading another significantly anti-EA, anti-Maxis, anti-everything, I decided its time to get some positivity out again. For a very long time, 20ish years, I've had a standard for games and whether I feel i've gotten my money out of them. The standard is simple, for every dollar I spend on the game, I expect to get an hour of game play. Good or bad game play, just flat out I expect to play for an hour per dollar. So for Spore I have the GE, that means I expect to get at least 80 hours of play out of the game. So far, it easy exceeds this. I enjoy the game play, could care less about the DRM, have found few issues, none of these issues has stopped me from playing the game. I am looking forward to the parts pack expansion, the parts i've seen shown look like they will add a lot of interesting new looks to the game. The space expansion can't come quick enough. I knew what the plan was with Spore, and I applaud EA and Maxis for porting an extremely successful model into a new style of gaming. Now if you will excuse me, its time to pre-order Sims 3.

cor4101- thank you for adding reason and logic to the board here.

I bought a game on Friday and played all this weekend- It cost me $25- I played it for 2 days and bored stiff of it already. It was Kudos 2 - if anyone wants to know which actually turns out to be nothing like the Sims as advertised but you pay 25% of price for 1% of features and makes Spore look like a jackpot. I am sure some people enjoy it but a weekend of entertainment for $25 is good in my books so if I never play it again I have no complaints. I got my $25 worth with the say 3 days of play.

I am bored with Spore but I got a months worth of play from it and hopefully expansions will add to that- as it did for me with Sims games.

cor4101 wrote:I am looking forward to the parts pack expansion, the parts i've seen shown look like they will add a lot of interesting new looks to the game. The space expansion can't come quick enough.

lol yea all it will do is make the game look different, but heres the kicker its the SAME CRAP GAMEPLAY just a different look! you can mold crap into the shape of an apple, it wont make it taste any better! im sorry but you know what if i want to play the same game over and over again i might as well play a game that will keep me entertained for more than 15 minutes! i havent looked at spore in over a month now whats that tell you about your glorious game! any game that i can abandon within the first month of owning it wasnt worth my 80 bucks in my own opinion(and worst yet i cant hock to someone else due to the drm! all sales final dont expect to A.return the game, or B. sell it to a friend to get atleast some of your money back) the truth is the game is extremely repetitive and no amount of new parts will ever change the same dull dumbed down game play that this game has to offer

Yay positivity. Sure I am a little disappointed. Sercurom seems to be shutting down my comp if I play certain games but besides that I am enjoying spore. Im not sure If Im getting the sims 3 but I dunno.

By your standards I have yet to get my moneys worth (I have not gotten the 50 hours of play achievement). Im also not bothering with any parts pack till they come in a giant Spore Parts Pack Collection that you KNOW they are going to do. Space expansion is a big affirmative for me however. I want to make some mission(Ima wait to see how you make them before buying it).

EDIT:I checked xfire which I always have on and it turns out I've got 82 hours of gameplay. The game doesn't seem to think so but thats fine I did cheat at one point so a good amount of hours could have been lost cause I did not figure out that cheats disallow you to get achievements for awhile. So technically I got YOUR games worth out of spore lol.

TokeyMcBongRip wrote:

cor4101 wrote:I am looking forward to the parts pack expansion, the parts i've seen shown look like they will add a lot of interesting new looks to the game. The space expansion can't come quick enough.

lol yea all it will do is make the game look different, but heres the kicker its the SAME CRAP GAMEPLAY just a different look! you can mold crap into the shape of an apple, it wont make it taste any better! im sorry but you know what if i want to play the same game over and over again i might as well play a game that will keep me entertained for more than 15 minutes! i havent looked at spore in over a month now whats that tell you about your glorious game! any game that i can abandon within the first month of owning it wasnt worth my 80 bucks in my own opinion(and worst yet i cant hock to someone else due to the drm! all sales final dont expect to A.return the game, or B. sell it to a friend to get atleast some of your money back) the truth is the game is extremely repetitive and no amount of new parts will ever change the same dull dumbed down game play that this game has to offer

Hi Tokey

Have you ever given any thought to the problem of second hand games with PC games?
Just for example - ok yes you can resell it once- but after that and how it is monitored. Should gaming companies give tech support to anyone that holds the cd key and not necessarily paid them money for the support?
There are unique problems with digital media- it is not the same as selling other things second hand and the warranties can only apply to the physical discs.

Try ringing up your cellphone manufacturer after your 3 month warranty expires and asking how to run the thing that stop working- I bet they ask you to fork over $30 just to look at it. Hey do you know how many people just "find" cellphones and ring up to ask how they work?

Games however - everyone expects to ring up and get answers- god forbid they ask you for proof of purchase - how dare they treat you like a criminal- hmmmm I do not know any company or industy that does not require a receipt for free tech support or even to exchange something. Gaming companies are expected to do this for 500 resells of the game?
Oh except Myer but that was years ago and even they have changed their refund/service policies now. hehe

cor4101 wrote:After reading another significantly anti-EA, anti-Maxis, anti-everything, I decided its time to get some positivity out again. For a very long time, 20ish years, I've had a standard for games and whether I feel i've gotten my money out of them. The standard is simple, for every dollar I spend on the game, I expect to get an hour of game play. Good or bad game play, just flat out I expect to play for an hour per dollar.

I was with you right up until that last bit; I expect an hour of GOOD gameplay for each dollar spent. At the very least.

Presumably if the gameplay isn't good, you won't keep playing, and thus won't get your money's worth.

I think the expectation of a hour of gameplay per dollar is probably unreasonable in today's gaming market, but definitely is an ideal to shoot for. So many game can be completed in 10-20 hours but still cost the full 50 dollars. Of course, said games could certainly be said not be worth it, but many of them still are good games - just short. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time I beat the first time in 15 hours - after I was done with all the secrets, 25 hours. I don't feel like it was a rip off, and IIRC it was like 79.99. So as Rocketgirl pointed out, quality does actually affect the calculation, although I feel like if you manage to get 50 hours out of a game, you have your money's worth - if those fifty hours weren't fun, then you need to answer some serious questions about why you kept playing for 50 HOURS when you weren't having fun.

That said, I've played Spore for over 150 hours now, and am still going strong and still having fun, so it was definitely worth it for me.

ThrowerOfStones wrote:Presumably if the gameplay isn't good, you won't keep playing, and thus won't get your money's worth.

Unless you're uber-stubborn like me, and spend a disproportionately long time trying to wring some--ANY--genuine enjoyment out of the game.

After so many years of waiting, anticipating--and, yeah, fantasizing--about this game, I wasn't about to decide that it was crap without a fight. Hell, I spent ten years trying to convince myself that I liked Star Trek before I realized it just wasn't gonna happen; I've got a lot of faults, but giving up quickly isn't one of 'em!

ausdreamer wrote:

TokeyMcBongRip wrote:

cor4101 wrote:I am looking forward to the parts pack expansion, the parts i've seen shown look like they will add a lot of interesting new looks to the game. The space expansion can't come quick enough.

lol yea all it will do is make the game look different, but heres the kicker its the SAME CRAP GAMEPLAY just a different look! you can mold crap into the shape of an apple, it wont make it taste any better! im sorry but you know what if i want to play the same game over and over again i might as well play a game that will keep me entertained for more than 15 minutes! i havent looked at spore in over a month now whats that tell you about your glorious game! any game that i can abandon within the first month of owning it wasnt worth my 80 bucks in my own opinion(and worst yet i cant hock to someone else due to the drm! all sales final dont expect to A.return the game, or B. sell it to a friend to get atleast some of your money back) the truth is the game is extremely repetitive and no amount of new parts will ever change the same dull dumbed down game play that this game has to offer

Hi Tokey

Have you ever given any thought to the problem of second hand games with PC games?
Just for example - ok yes you can resell it once- but after that and how it is monitored. Should gaming companies give tech support to anyone that holds the cd key and not necessarily paid them money for the support?
There are unique problems with digital media- it is not the same as selling other things second hand and the warranties can only apply to the physical discs.

Try ringing up your cellpnone manufacturer after your 3 month warranty expires and asking how to run the thing that stop working- I bet they ask you to fork over $30 just to look at it. Hey do you know how many people just "find" cellphones and ring up to ask how they work?

Games however - everyone expects to ring up and get answers- god forbid they ask you for proof of purchase - how dare they treat you like a criminal- hmmmm I do not know any company or industy that does not require a receipt for free tech support or even to exchange something. Gaming companies are expected to do this for 500 resells of the game?
Oh exvept Myer but that was years ago and even they have changed their refund/service policies now. hehe

first off i wasnt complaining about not being able to resell the game, to me its an 80 dollar lesson! lesson learned NEVER BUY ANY EA TITLE EVER AGAIN!!! no sims 3 nor any spore expansion pack! im sorry Will but you lost my money and dedication after the first 2 days of playing spore when i realized wow its the same crap over and over again no matter how much you try to tell yourself it isnt! if i start a new game and it takes me say 2 to 3 hours to get to space, now it wasnt really 3 hours of game play it was more than likely 40 minutes of gameplay while the other 2 hours and 20 minutes were spent in the creators! quite frankly i dont want to get in to this argument again. i have had this same argument so much its about to give me an aneurysm! i should have learned this lesson months ago when i bought army of 2 and got extremely bored after an hour of playing the game and beat it in less than 5! spore WAS an amazing concept but either Will bit off more than he could chew(made more promises than he could keep) or EA stepped in and forced will to dumb down gameplay to make it easier to pitch to 5 year olds and adults that arent going to buy the game because they arent gamers! or forced Will to make his UNFINISHED game just playable because they were tired of waiting for the butt load of cash they were supposed to bring in(if you look at sales reports they havent even come close to breaking even on this game they still have to make roughly 50 million more in sales to just break even on the costs of production and advertisements! i have a sad feeling that this game will kill maxis like sim copter did years ago, although im not sure if sim copter actually killed maxis or not but it was the last game maxis made before going bankrupt and being bought out by EA! all i know is your values are just you trying to make yourself feel better about the money you wasted on this game! i think a dollar a day seems a bit more reasonable for each dollar you spend on a game it should get you a days worth of gameplay!so in truth you should have gotten almost 3 months of good solid gaming from spore when most of us got 2 maybe 3 weeks of enjoyment out of this steamy pile of crap called spore

Anyone can rant, anyone can applaud this game. Sigh, humanity continues to make me lose interest in online gaming. Especially after being introduced to Xbox Live.

Visko wrote:Anyone can rant, anyone can applaud this game. Sigh, humanity continues to make me lose interest in online gaming. Especially after being introduced to Xbox Live.

Well, this, to me, was part of Spore's original appeal; the so-called "massively single player" model, where you're gaming with other people indirectly, meant that I could get all the benefits of online play without all the drawbacks. And had Spore been a genuinely good game...

But, alas, even the online part of the game got reamed; a lot of the promises made about that aspect--like getting reports on what other people did to and with your creations in their Sporeverses--turned out to be paper tigers. Alas.

Visko wrote:Anyone can rant, anyone can applaud this game. Sigh, humanity continues to make me lose interest in online gaming. Especially after being introduced to Xbox Live.

i noticed on your signature you play eve online how is it? i played the 14 day trial but 14 days doesnt even come close to showing you what the game can be like is it worth it? and is it true that if you make enough in game money you can spend in game earnings on buying gametime and quite possibly play the game for months at a time without having to spend real money besides the money spent to initially start playing the game? i saw somewhere that if you make enough game money you can buy gametime with your earnings. this would be a giant plus in my book

dont hate xbox live hate the players lol i love xbox live i play call of duty 4 all the time lol, i hate how some people treat kids that play the game! one time there was no lie a 6 year old playing call of duty 4 online and people were bashing him pretty badly but in my own opinion what kind of parent lets their 6 year old play call of duty 4 let alone online!

RocketGirl wrote:

Visko wrote:Anyone can rant, anyone can applaud this game. Sigh, humanity continues to make me lose interest in online gaming. Especially after being introduced to Xbox Live.

Well, this, to me, was part of Spore's original appeal; the so-called "massively single player" model, where you're gaming with other people indirectly, meant that I could get all the benefits of online play without all the drawbacks. And had Spore been a genuinely good game...

But, alas, even the online part of the game got reamed; a lot of the promises made about that aspect--like getting reports on what other people did to and with your creations in their Sporeverses--turned out to be paper tigers. Alas.

I was under the impression that events described what other people did. My event page hasn't been working (after like, a week of normal usage, it suddenly got spammed with "aftermath 24 epicized the duckilusling" and hasn't changed since), but I thought it did work for most people? Or is everyone's bugged out?

Good discussion going on here. I've given what in my opinion is how I judge a games value, i'm not saying its right or wrong for everybody, just for me. I have to make the assumption that my values don't equal everybody elses values. I am curious to see how other people judge the value of the game. In some cases, less time with great game play could make up for the time factor. Also how many times do you play a game to finish and never go back and try it again, maybe a different method. Some games, Spore included, i've dropped a game and started a new one because of a game play effect i've found and wanted to dive deeper into. There aren't many games that drive that, Spore definitely does. Rocketgirl - by BAD gameplay I do not mean that the game itself is difficult or lame, I was more on the line of frustration at difficulty, things on that line. I agree with you poor gameplay does not equal value, to me poor gameplay would be something like the UI doesn't function right or the game as stated in the manual doesn't work the same.