Spore Creature Creator tempest in a teapot

warreni

Join Date 12/2005

+86

Spore Creature Creator tempest in a teapot

Is this really all about people hating EA?

Go to any major gaming site (ign.com, gamespy.com, gamespot.com, to name a few) or the official Spore website and look at the forums discussing the Creature Creator, a limited version of which became available for download yesterday and the full version of which will be available for retail purchase tomorrow. You will invariably find many comments that say "I can't believe EA/Maxis/Will Wright/Will Wright's evil clone is actually charging $10 for this software; what a rip-off!" I'm having a really hard time understanding this mindset. I've seen some people claiming it stems from a distrust of distributor EA, with whom they've had some bad dealings in the past. Other people, I guess, are just cheap. Let me try to dissect this weird controversy.

Here are some basic facts: 1) EA/Maxis released a demo version of the Creature Creator, a component of the Spore game slated for release in September on June 17; 2) this demo version is limited to approximately one-quarter of the usable parts available in the "full" version, to be released in retail outlets and for download June 19; 3) the demo version is FREE to download, excepting internet-service charges; and 4) the full Creature Creator, as mentioned earlier, will be a part of the release version of Spore.

So given the above facts, where is the controversy? It seems to come down to two items: 1) that EA/Maxis had the audacity to charge money for what is seen as an advertisement for the full game; and 2) that EA is synonymous with EvilCo Ltd. I guess I have a lot of responses to those who adhere to the first argument. I would start by pointing out that the Creature Creator cannot logically be compared to a "game demo," which is a version of a full game intended to show off many of its core features. The Creature Creator is what it says it is; Spore, if one believes the hype, is considerably more. The full game allows the user to take creatures that have been built with the Creator module and guide them along an evolutionary path up from the "cell" stage to a stage where the creatures have societies capable of launching interplanetary spacecraft and colonizing other worlds. It's sort of a compressed (and paradoxically, at the same time, expanded) version of one of Wright's much earlier creations, SimLife. EA/Maxis may eventually release a true demo of Spore but this clearly is not it.

My second response would be to ask whether the complainant has ever purchased a "pre-release" version of anything? If so, (s)he should probably just go home and quit looking for things to grouse about. Why does anyone buy a pre-release whatever? Because you're expecting it to be almost like playing a full game? Because the developer will come to your house and upgrade your computer? I mean, really, what are people expecting? I have a pre-release from the old Bioware game Lionheart. It had a CD-ROM with some music files and wallpapers and a pack of trading cards. I have a pre-release for Guild Wars: Nightfall; it has a few in-game goodies and some music and some videos. I also have a pre-release for Icewind Dale II; if I recall correctly, it came with a mousepad and some music tracks and artwork. I think the real reason people spend money on pre-release items for games is that they're fanboys of that company/game franchise. Most of these "pre-releases" are hardly worth $2-3, let alone the average $10 they cost; however, if you're one of those people who likes to pimp out his/her computer with game-themed items (guilty) or you're just really into certain games for a while (also guilty), they're worth it to you.

So what does the Creature Creator let you do? Basically, it gives you the same tools that you will eventually have in the full release and lets you start making creatures now, three months before the release date of the game, that you can later import and start playing with in the full game. In practical terms, it gives you a head start on players who just buy the full game in September without having purchased the CC. People will be interested in this for different reasons. As anyone who's ever played a game with a multiplayer component can attest to, some people are really competitive and like to see their names on top of leaderboards for whatever the game du jour is at that moment. Some people just like to make creatures and movies and post them to Youtube to see what the reactions will be.

I tinkered with the demo version a little yesterday. It's pretty fun to toy with, but with only a fairly limited number of components, it feels like I'm missing out on being able to create more off-the-wall critters. However, it is perfectly adequate as a way of demonstrating how this module of the full game will work, and it's pretty clever, frankly.

So that leaves the EA-haters, I suppose. I don't know what to say about these folks really. EA is a huge company that distributes a large chunk of the games put out on the market today, including a fair number of console titles. Because it's so huge, it's hardly surprising that people have had bad experiences over the years with customer service or tech support. But does this really mean that it's necessary to "dis" a game whose only input from EA has been that it acts as distributor? Is it not sufficient to let a game stand or fall on its own merits anymore? If Spore turns out to be a complete crapfest, are these people still going to blame EA? Doesn't that seem a bit absurd on its face?

spore maxis

Locked Post

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post

Successfully updated karma reason!

Again, the privacy issue is not the main problem to me, just a part of the bigger picture. You seem to be dwelling on that. I, like you, want more information on it (but, sadly, EA is not very forthcoming when it comes to answering questions about it).

And yes, if Stardock decided to put this type of DRM on their games, I'd stop buying them. Would I stop playing Sins? No, because it doesn't have this DRM. If it were somehow to be patched into Sins, I'd certainly stop patching.

It's also about the product for me. I'm surprised you don't see that. But this DRM is part of the product. As such, it means the product is not something I want.

On a side note: 2K games has just announced they've dropped the activation limits on BioShock. So, it seems that bitching and whining may actually have an effect after all, no?

Successfully updated karma reason!

stpdi: It was meant to clearly illustrate that someone doing something very bad can not be forgiven just because they change their ways (to gain from it) and do something good later on. Like Metallica or the recording industry. As in: Their motive is not to be better, but to give the impression of it, to gain from it.

Successfully updated karma reason!

EA drops support for many games all of the time. Even if I only use 1 of my activations, if they kill the servers I can't play Mass Effect anymore. Period. Why would I waste my money on a game I'm not guaranteed to play when I want to play it?

I'm not going to go buy another license just because I used up my activations on my PC, my Laptop, and then my PC again after I upgrade too much. I don't understand the need to have to call and ask permission to play the game I bought. You won't convince me of the need for that either.

If SinsII or GalCivIII features similar invasive, user-hostile DRM or similar, I will drop them like yesterday's trash. I love both of those games (the current versions), but I will not support this type of DRM. I might be 1 out of 5, or 10, or more, but at least they're not getting my money. There are plenty of ways for me to entertain myself without it. Somewhere on this website, and others (a good while ago) said that ~30% of customers shy away from this type of DRM. I'd hope everyone here is intelligent enough to know that increasing your sales by half that number, especially when we're talking about the volume that popular games can sell at, is outrageous.

That's not counting the revenue saved from not investing is securom or similar malware programs that stay installed on your PC, still transferring information, still using system resources, and are usually a pain in the ass to manually delete, long after you've deleted the game from your HDD and stop caring that your activations ran out.

The pirates are playing a superior product. Let's forget about the wrong/right of it all for just a small second. That argument is an even deader horse than this one is. This is worth saying again though, The pirates are playing a superior product that does not have any limitations on play. The paying customer paid for an inferior product.

I'm waiting for the day for the games to cost $xx.xx, then x months after release, you can pay an additional $xx.xx to have the DRM canceled. Sadly I'm cynical enough about corporate greed for that not to be a joke. $1.99 for horse armor guys!!!!

I am all for protecting your products. This doesn't work. None of it does, actually, but at least other versions of copy protection don't punish the customer, imo. If I break my disc, and I have to buy it again, it's my fault. If my hard drive crashes and I want to reinstall, but can't because of DRM... I think my point is illustrated enough.

Alright, maybe one more.

Protect your products, accept it's uselessness, adapt. Stardock requires registration to update their games, not to play them. If Stardock went out of business without posting the patches online to be mirrored, and no one could update their games any more, they could still, at the very least, play the game. And it'd be no different than playing a very old game anyway where the mirrors have all dried up. Good luck doing that with any securom products. When they go out of business they might self destruct all your computers anyway. They'll have enough information and access to bypass your virus protection. That last part was sarcasm, even I'm not that cynical.

Successfully updated karma reason!