Electronic Arts has brought its very popular Spore franchise to Facebook, with the launch of a new game called Spore Islands. The game, while thematically similar to the well known PC game that was released last year, has gameplay that’s entirely different. Rather than roaming around a 3D world, Spore for Facebook is more of a stategy game: you tweak your creature and then watch how it fares against the other beasts inhabiting your island.
I took the game for a spin last night and found it to be pretty fun, though there’s a bit of a learning curve. The game is effectively broken down into two main sections: the creature builder, where you can tweak both the appearance and the attributes of your character (things like speed, reproductive rate, and over a dozen others). Once you’ve fine tuned your creature to your satisfaction, you can go into ‘observation’ mode, where you watch miniature versions of the island’s animals fight over food, eat each other, and reproduce (by way of eggs hatching). The graphics in the simulation portion are pretty basic — everything is presented in a 2D, top-down view, but they’re charming and get the job done. → Read More
Here’s the latest movie based on a video game that’s sure to be horrendous: Spore will be turned into a movie, ladies and gentlemen! Only five people will be allowed in the theaters at a time in order to prevent piracy, jkjk! → Read More
Remember when we were all excited for like three years when Spore was being developed? I remember watching that first GDC video of Will Wright demoing Spore, and nearly falling out of my chair when he went interstellar. How things have changed. → Read More
Not only are EA games going to be released on Steam henceforth—in and of itself a big deal—but the games will be totally free of DRM. It seems the largest video games publisher has learned its lesson, and the hard way: legitimate gamers (that is, non-pirates) want nothing to do with digital rights management. → Read More
Poor, wretched EA. First they have to make 600 staff walk the plank, and now they’re being sued all over the place. There are a lot of hackles raised by SecuROM’s secondary effects, like disabling certain drives or legitimate software. A commenter pointed out this page, which lists the current lawsuits (there are four) against EA on this subject. The most compelling one has to be the newest, regarding Spore’s Creature Creator, a free piece of software if you’ll recall in trial form, and an embarassing money grab in retail form. However, even if you got the free version, you got yourself some nice SecuROM DRM included, and I understand that it isn’t even mentioned in the EULA. Copy protection for a free demo? What the hell were they thinking? The other new lawsuit is a little more woolly and probably will come to nothing. → Read More
Conan O’Brien You’re going to get mad and throw the joystick panel. It’s going to rap around and go…It’s going to be the end of you. Harry Connick, Jr. Did you just say, “joystick panel”? via Kotaku → Read More
Will Wright expressed some regret that Spore turned out to be less simulation than toybox. His original vision was less cutesy and more scientifically accurate (it’s been accused of covertly approving of intelligent design). Well, looks like somebody didn’t get the memo! These cubic planets are allegedly the result of a new patch (1.02 if you must know), and are possibly intended to pacify the outcry over Spore’s DRM, lacking gameplay, and the inevitable avalanche of expansions. My guess is they just couldn’t figure out a way to charge for this. → Read More
Will Wright, the brains behind Spore, Civilization and The Sims, finally spoke his mind yesterday about the now infamous Spore-DRM brouhaha. It’s a strange reaction, I think. It [the DRM] was something I probably should have tuned into more. It was a corporate decision to go with DRM on Spore… I think one of the most valid concerns about it was you could only install it so many times. For most players it’s not an issue, it’s a pretty small percentage, but some people do like wiping their hard disk and installing it 20 times or they want to play it 10 years later. Wright also notes how EA is moving toward an authentication model à la iTunes, whereby you authenticate and de-authenticate computers from being able to play the game. That seems fair, right? Note that he also called the issue a small one, which sounds a lot like what EA’s CEO said the other day. You sorta get the feeling that Wright is like a director who has to play by the studio’s rules, whether he likes ‘em or not. → Read More
It’s hard to exaggerate just how much EA’s CEO, John Riccitiello, misses the point here. I personally don’t like DRM. It interrupts the user experience. We would like to get around that. But there is this problem called piracy out there. That’s what he said at some hoity-toity media conference, referencing the Spore-DRM brouhaha. First, the pedantic tone—“there’s this problem called piracy out there”—doesn’t really help EA’s image. Second, and more importantly, pirates got off easy; the DRM didn’t affect them at all. Go check ThePirateBay (or your private tracker of choice) to see how many pirates are enjoying the game despite the DRM. The importance of this DRM mess, the message to take back to EA HQ, is that DRM, ostensibly present to prevent piracy, did no such thing. It’s the people who went to the store and paid their American dollars who ran into all sorts of problems. They’re the ones who got bitten by the DRM, not the pirates. And until EA (and the rest of ‘em) realize this, they’re gonna have to deal with more and more angry Internet mobs. → Read More
As visionary as Will Wright is, I think Spore has been compromised by his commercial sensibilities — or those of Maxis’ marketers. An interesting article in this month’s Seed suggests that the game was originally less commercially viable than it is now, and the original vision was muddied somewhat by the need to reach a wide audience. Unfortunate, but perhaps inevitable. But this? Once again the expansion monster rears its ugly head. Not that we don’t expect it after the decade-long cavalcade of Sims expansions, but… really? Releasing a “Cute and Creepy creature parts” expansion a month after the game is released? Real classy. It’s almost as if the content was ready when the game shipped, but you decided to withhold it and sell it later for extra! I understand it’s a business, but when even Spore can lose its magic due to industry pressure, it’s a sad day indeed. → Read More
Plenty of people have downloaded Spore using BitTorrent, but EA doesn’t seem too concerned. Because on Earth 2, where EA is apparently based, people downloading torrents of the game doesn’t necessarily mean that the game is being downloaded. Nope, that makes no sense to us, either. Says an EA rep: Stepping aside from the whole issue of DRM, people need to recognize that every BitTorrent download doesn’t represent a successful copy of a game, let alone a lost sale…. We’ve talked to people that made several unsuccessful attempts to download the game and ended up with incomplete, slow, buggy or unusable code. In one case, a file identified as Spore contained a virus. Well, I’d like to meet, interview, then tease the person who’s not able to hop on The Pirate Bay, type in “spore,” then have a fully working copy of the game in a few minutes. Perhaps EA should re-consider using SecurROM, lest it run into more of this piracy nonsense. → Read More
Spore! StarCraft! Korea! It’s a triforce of fun! As you might have already guessed by glancing at that photo, some enterprising folks have re-created vehicles from the hit game StarCraft in Spore, which I have never played in my life. Not having played the game, I can’t really evaluate the authenticity of the re-creations, but they certainly look convincing. Bravo to the team behind this. Under normal circumstances I’d be playing Spore all day long, but I just re-rolled in anticipation of a certain expansion pack. via Kotaku → Read More
And now Electronic Arts has a class action lawsuit on its hands. Hell hath no fury like Spore fans scorned. The publisher is accused of violating two laws relating to the game’s DRM. The suit claims that EA installs SecuROM without notifying consumers. Then the suit lists SecuROM’s crimes, including the fact that it’s damn near impossible to uninstall. It also claims that SecuROM hijacks a PC’s resources in order to phone home, telling EA all about your system. The suit, which was filed in California, asks for rewards of $49.95 per class action participant, plus damages. You’d think that publishers would find something other than SecuROM to protect its games. Maybe that’s a business opportunity, create a DRM scheme that’s not a complete pain in the ass for legitimate users? (No DRM whatsoever notwithstanding.) Any VC money in the house? → Read More
In light of thousands upon thousands of irate DRM-hating gamers, Electronic Arts has announced that it’ll be issuing a patch to the game that’ll allow people to de-authorize certain computers. Currently, the game is only able to be activated on up to three machines. If you replace one of those machines, you’ll have to call up EA, proof of purchase at hand, and plead your case to be able to activate it again. Under the new system, you’ll be able to deactivate certain machines, similar to how iTunes works, and activate new ones. The patch will apparently be coming in the “near future,” although no specific date has been given. → Read More
If we can learn anything from the troubled launch of Spore, a videogame many people have been looking forward to for years, it is that binding products with digital rights management (DRM) restrictions hurts more than it helps. Spore, designed by Sims creator Will Wright, went on sale a week ago. It is expected to sell 2 million copies in September alone, and is currently the No. 3 best-selling game on Amazon.
But it also has one of the worst ratings on Amazon (2,016 out of the 2,216 ratings are one star) because of a concerted campaign by fans protesting its DRM. It has also been downloaded an estimated 500,000 times on BitTorrent, and is well on its way to becoming the most illegally downloaded game ever. → Read More
I’m starting to think this anti-Spore site is merely a prank. It’s worded too perfectly to be On The Real™. Right, so even though Spore has been favorably reviewed (despite the DRM uproar), a pious Christian is taking the game to task for promoting “biggest attack on Christian values to date.” Ok, terrific! The site, faithfully titled Anti-Spore, slams Will Wright, Electronic Arts and its employees for creating a game that promotes evolution (as opposed to creationism). As such, it must be outlawed, destroyed, etc etc. But again, I think this site is fake. Read this: However, I have received many comments saying that the game is more like intelligent design than evolution and I must say I very much disagree after using Craigslist to find someone who would allow me to watch how the game is played. Now tell me that doesn’t read like some smartass wind-up merchant wrote it. But oh God—am I allowed to say “Oh, God”?—you need to read he comments. Great site, really. Job well done. via ComputerAndVideoGames.com → Read More
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but if your MacBook is equipped with an Intel GMA 950 graphics chipset then you’re SOL. If you’re unsure then go to “About This Mac” and trickle down to the “Graphics/Displays” tab. If you have a GMA X3100 or a MacBook Pro then you’re okay. However, if you’re running Boot Camp then things seem to be fine. Just thought you should know. → Read More
How about that? It seems that people don’t like DRM. The highly-anticipated “Spore” has been released to a mob of angry customers, thanks to digital rights management that basically limits the game to being installed on a total of three different computers. So let’s say that Spore is one of your favorite games and you play it year after year, new computer after new computer. When you try to install it on your fourth new computer, you apparently won’t be able to without calling up EA and providing your proof of purchase and the reason why you’re trying to install it on yet another system. Or let’s say you’ve got four computers right now and you want to legitimately take the disc between all four machines to play the game. Apparently that’s not allowed. The DRM is provided by SecureROM, which has been a touchy issue in the past on games like BioShock and Mass Effect, to name a few. Those games’ DRM policies were eventually eased up in order to appease angry customers, so it’s possible that the same may happen with Spore. It’s just odd that EA would keep trying to get away with stuff like this when it turns current and prospective customers off so much. → Read More
Will Wright’s Spore officially comes out on Tuesday, and it’s already raking in the positive press. But perhaps you want to play the game this weekend, what do you do then? You turn to BitTorrent, of course. Release group RELOADED cracked the game’s SecureROM encryption, and now the game’s all over the usual sites: The Pirate Bay, Mininova, etc. (I probably shouldn’t link to it, but you know how to find it, I’m sure.) You’ll have to live with the fact that you’re helping to put Will Wright in the poor house, though. Or, you can be Mr. Noble Pirate and download the game now, then buy it when it comes out next week. That’s not too objectionable, right? → Read More
I may not understand the appeal of Spore but our very own Greglet (Greg Kumparak) had this to say, No matter what anyone says, Spore will be successful. It’ll sell a shit ton of copies, and eat thousands upon thousands of hours that would be better focused on the real world. Gaming editors around the country seem to agree and have given the EA title favorable scores. IGN’s Jason Ocampo gave it an 8.8/10, which garnered IGN.com Editor’s Choice award. I think that Maxis has made an impressive product that does so many incredible things. Spore will serve as an introduction to gaming for many; it’s clear that many nontraditional gamers will check it out. As such, this feels sort of like a sampler plate to gaming, introducing newcomers to the different types of gameplay out there. But much more than that, Spore will make you think about science, and when was the last time you could say that about a game? It’ll inspire people to learn more about the universe and imagine what’s possible out there. Spore also pushes the idea of user-generated content to incredible new heights; this is a game where users will make the vast majority of things that you encounter, and this creation and sharing is done seamlessly. Yet while Spore is an amazing product, it’s just not quite an amazing game. I can’t help but feel that Spore is ambitious and memorable, but I also admit that, save for the cool Space Stage, there’s not a lot of depth here. Rookie gamers are going to feel at home here, but veteran gamers may feel like they need more. Still, Spore proves to be one of the most unique products in recent memory, one that reaches for the stars and ends up giving us a universe in a box. Gamespot gave it an 8/10 while Gamespy gave it a 9/10. And not to exclude our nerd brethren across the pond we’ll throw in Eurogamer‘s score as well, which was a 9/10. → Read More
