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… → 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… → 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… → 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. → 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… → 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… → 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… → 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… → 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… → 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… → 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… → 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… → 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… → 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… → 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… → Read More
The Spore coverage doesn’t stop for Team CG, no, sir. I’m trying to wrap my brain around this game, but I’m currently pre-occupied by Team Fortress 2 and Portal. What’s the big deal? It’s like The Sims with little creatures, right? Heh. → Read More
Whoo! With just about 2 weeks left before we’ll all be roaming the Spore universe as questionably shaped creatures of our own design, I’m finally letting myself get excited about this game. While we’ve known what Spore: Galactic Edition would include for some time now (Game/Art DVDs, 128 pg Art of Spore book, 100 pg manual, and a poster), no one has really seen much of the goods… → Read More
Everyone’s favorite yet to be released game is up for pre-order at Frys for $41.99. This one is for the PC and Mac, but you can pre-order other versions as well. Thanks for the tip, Dylan! → Read More
EA would love to be able to sell you Spore parts in the future. Heads, arms, planets, etc. This isn’t surprising given EA’s history, but it’s fodder enough for anti-EA zealots to freak out, to be sure. That’s provided the game sells well enough for EA to even have the opportunity to nickel and dime us later on. How is it, then, that Valve can keep releasing content for… → Read More
http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=35821 Do you want to see a video of Will Wright explaining Spore for the 80 billionth time? Yes you do. While I’m not about to ask Wright to pee on me, it’s hard not to look forward to the game’s release, especially when I’ve never played any of his games before. via Rock, Paper, Shotgun (my new favorite game site, btw) → Read More
Click To Play Has everyone tried the Spore Creature Creator yet? EA released it to the general public yesterday—apparently I had a preview password to play with it a little early—and I’ve already had a blast re-creating our very own editor John Biggs. I modeled him after this infamous photo. There’s a trial version, which I used, which gives you access to about 25 percent… → Read More
We’re waiting on more info, but here’s what we have so far: The Spore shown at the SDK event was the result of two weeks of work by the EA team. EA is the first 3rd party game developer to use the SDK, so they’re in unknown territory. The development was done in-house at EA. Spore for the iPhone will be released at the same time as Spore for everything else (September-ish) It… → Read More
[photopress:sporecult.jpg,full,center] All the positive press that Spore is getting hasn’t phased the gentlemen over at Penny-Arcade, who are skeptical of the game’s quality. It “preview[s] well,” they argue. Apparently, the sum total of media coverage of the game is much too much, so, essentially, wake them when the game comes out. Fair enough. The Spore Cult… → Read More
[photopress:spore.jpg,full,center]When it was first announced like 100 Internet years ago, Spore sounded exciting. A game with a revolutionary new form of AI that evolves as you play it looked to good to be true. And since it hasn’t ever made it to the buying public, many people have mentally relegated it to the vaporware bin. But now we have a launch date of September 7 to look forward to… → Read More
It was all just a big misunderstanding, that’s all. Yesterday’s news suggesting that Will Wright’s Spore had been axed was the product of “misinformation.” An EA rep phoned Next Gen to dash the rumor, saying that the game is still currently scheduled to come out during the early part of the 2009 fiscal year, which starts in April 2008. So, Spring ’08 then. Why… → Read More
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