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Piecemeal Game Sales
April 28th 2008, 21:19 CEST by Fugazi(werking) So EA is releasing a creature editor for Spore well before the release of the game itself and this editor will have 25% of the functionality of the full game. Or you can pay $10 and get all of the creature tools early. So what do we think-great revenue model or just evil EA gouging customers? Full press release from EA is included below. Redwood City, CA - April 25, 2008 – Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) and Maxis today announced that a free downloadable demo, and complete retail version of the Spore™ Creature Creator will be available starting June 17, 2008. The Spore Creature Creator gives Spore fans, and those who are creatively curious, the first hands-on opportunity to design their own species and share it with their friends. All creatures designed with the Spore Creature Creator can be imported into the full retail version of Spore for PC and Mac when it launches on September 5, 2008 in Europe and September 7, 2008 in North America. “We are thrilled to finally be putting the creative tools of Spore into the hands of players around the world,” said Will Wright, chief designer, Maxis. “The amazing creations players design this summer will help populate the game universe we all enter when Spore ships this September, so in a sense, the Spore Creature Creator is the birth of Spore.” The free demo version of the Spore Creature Creator will be available worldwide via download from www.spore.com. The demo lets players shape, paint and play with an unlimited number of creatures, using 25 percent of the creature-making parts from Spore. Gamers can then share these creations with their friends, including seamless uploads to YouTube. The demo will also be included in the The SimCity™ Box, which ships on June 23. A complete retail version of the Spore Creature Creator will also be available in North America for $9.99 and most European territories for €9.99, which gives players access to all the creature-making parts in the game. Spore, the highly anticipated game from the creators of The Sims™, gives players their own personal universe in a box. Create and evolve life, establish tribes, build civilizations, sculpt entire worlds and explore a universe created by other gamers. Spore gives players a wealth of creative tools to customize nearly every aspect of their universe: creatures, vehicles, buildings, and even UFOs. Players can then seamlessly share their creations with the world or explore infinite new galaxies created by other gamers. Consumers can visit www.spore.com to sign up for the Spore newsletter or check out all-new screenshots and video of the game. Members of the media can visit EA’s press site at www.info.ea.com for information about all of EA’s games. Spore Creature Creator retail version is not available in all territories. My first topic submission bitches! I am no longer part of the problem! |
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Danger! High Voltage! is better. "Gaggle doesn't believe anyone should bother gaining skill in anything because anyone could gain skill in anything if they just put the time to it." - BjB
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gaggle (#28): Danger! High Voltage! is better. In the same way that being kicked in the ass is better than being kicked in the nuts. I hope Spore doesn't turn out like Civilisation. Plaved CivI to death Back In The Day, bought CivIV and got bored of it within a month. There's an optimum set of actions for building your first few cities, and I found if you don't follow them you tend to get steamrollered by the AI unless you're playing super-easy mode. |
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Did the gameplay change all that much? I figured my disinterest (I played a shitton of CivII) was due to me having changed in the intervening years. "Gaggle doesn't believe anyone should bother gaining skill in anything because anyone could gain skill in anything if they just put the time to it." - BjB
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It got more micromanagey. At least, if you wanted to win it did. Apart from that it was pretty much the same game. It blows my mind that there are people in the Civ community who play game after game after game and still love it to death. |
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Wasn't it Civ IV that had fully automated workers? I vaguely remember building a shitton of them and not having to ever tell them to do much of anything. Some were building roads, others irrigating, etc. etc. That doesn't sound more micromanagey. "Gaggle doesn't believe anyone should bother gaining skill in anything because anyone could gain skill in anything if they just put the time to it." - BjB
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Settlers were at least partially automated in Civ II, but I didn't trust them. They just went around irrigating everything whether I wanted them to or not. They were like a reverse Mongolian horde. |
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Yeah but they took it to a new level in IV I think. Ah whatever, it's just Civ, I've played it enough. "Gaggle doesn't believe anyone should bother gaining skill in anything because anyone could gain skill in anything if they just put the time to it." - BjB
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gaggle (#34): Ah whatever, it's just Civ, I've played it enough. Exactly what I thought after a few games. Spore needs to make with the procedurally-generated surprises. |
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But not procedurally generated walkcycles >_< "Gaggle doesn't believe anyone should bother gaining skill in anything because anyone could gain skill in anything if they just put the time to it." - BjB
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Speaking as a non-game-developing human, how else can they do the walking when each creature can have any number of legs? |
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contact points plus skeleton and structureto work off of. Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
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Well actually you're right, I was being factitious. They do need some way to automate the walking, all I meant was that what I've seen so far looked bloody fugly. The whole land-based graphics thing wasn't all that hot actually. Procedural content does allow them to constantly improve on their algorithms though, making things better and better. Walkcycles weren't pretty a year ago but they could be now, or might be in the future. So there's hope still. "Gaggle doesn't believe anyone should bother gaining skill in anything because anyone could gain skill in anything if they just put the time to it." - BjB
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#29 by TreeFrog gaggle (#28): Danger! High Voltage! is better. In the same way that being kicked in the ass is better than being kicked in the nuts. Infected Girls and Jimmy Carter are better than either of those. #10 - Why not both come out of a window?
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Topic: I'm not paying for the creature creator unless its full price is refunded upon purchase of Spore from a retailer of my choice. This isn't even like the DLC discussion, i.e. shouldn't this stuff have shipped in the box. This is actually selling the same thing to people TWICE. EA, your bag of dicks is in the post. |
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TreeFrog (#29): I hope Spore doesn't turn out like Civilisation. Plaved CivI to death Back In The Day, bought CivIV and got bored of it within a month. There's an optimum set of actions for building your first few cities, and I found if you don't follow them you tend to get steamrollered by the AI unless you're playing super-easy mode. Ur doin it rong. TreeFrog (#31): It got more micromanagey. At least, if you wanted to win it did. Apart from that it was pretty much the same game. It blows my mind that there are people in the Civ community who play game after game after game and still love it to death. *raises hand* |
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It figures there would be one. I just didn't know who. Backing away, fingering Beretta... |
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So that's what you call your... nah, too easy. |
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Doesn't usually stop folk round here. |
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I haven't interacted with you enough to know how you react to friendly fun-poking. |
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m0nty, when have you started smoking? <Hugin_len> Basically, cheesy doesn't have awful taste in music, he's simply very white.
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Doesn't usually... nah, too easy. In all seriousness, so long as you're not cracking wise about my dubious parentage from the outset, we cool. |
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my dubious parentage Go on… "Gaggle doesn't believe anyone should bother gaining skill in anything because anyone could gain skill in anything if they just put the time to it." - BjB
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gaggle (#49): Go on… I was joking. Or, providing an illustration of hypothetical grounds for conflict, if you prefer. |
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Now there's too much hype. I'll have to pass! |
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CheesyPoof (#47): m0nty, when have you started smoking? Um, I changed the avatar as part of a joke in one of these threads about a week ago. I'll change back when I can be bothered. |
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Oh sure, it's all fair game except your whore of a mother! "I don't like story in games." - Soren Johnson
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#52 by m0nty CheesyPoof (#47): m0nty, when have you started smoking? Um, I changed the avatar as part of a joke in one of these threads about a week ago. I'll change back when I can be bothered. Heh. I already forgot about that! |
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Weird, the reason I didn't like Civ IV was that it was too different from Civ II and AC. The focus on having just a few cities annoyed me, because anytime you go on a big war you pretty much end up having to either raze them to the ground or else you have a long assimilation process ahead of you. Witnesses in the house heard Jones say "why did you pee on me Pooh Bear?" A few moments later, the witness heard the son say "Mama you done stabbed me."
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Shadarr (#55): Weird, the reason I didn't like Civ IV was that it was too different from Civ II and AC. The focus on having just a few cities annoyed me, because anytime you go on a big war you pretty much end up having to either raze them to the ground or else you have a long assimilation process ahead of you. Realism motherfucker! |
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The 7 commandments of videogame design. |
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I was going to make fun of that list initially, but I agree with it. |
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I agree with the anti-jetski portion of that tirade. |
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But you post your comment in a tabular format. Very confusing sir. Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
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Not at all! |
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That's a very good list. #1 and #2 being at the top because they obviously the most important. For me though, I'd put #7 a bit higher. And do less whining about open game worlds. "the concept that a happy worker is a productive worker is hardly an entry from Matt's Big Book Of Things The Fairies Said." - Dum
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#7 - Thou shalt let us play your game with real-life friends. It's nice for games that have it, but requiring it for all games? That'd just be stupid and would cripple games that wanted to focus on strong single-player experiences. #6 - Thou shalt not pad the length of your games. Good rule, although I don't agree with all their examples - not all travel is padding. There's also a certain irony in this rule on a feature that's split into 7 separate pages to increase advert impressions. #5 - Thou shalt not force repetition on the player. Agreed. This could arguably be merged into the no-padding rule though. #4 - Thou shalt make killing fun. Well yeah, everything in a game should be fun. But given that many games make killing their core mechanic, it's more important that that is fun than other aspects. #3 - Thou shalt admit when enough is enough. Broadly agreed, I could quibble over jumping puzzles not being fun and using Gears of War as an example of too many space marines, but that'd be nitpicky. #2 - Thou shalt make sure your game actually works. Agreed. #1 - Better graphics do not equal innovation and/or creativity. That's not really a rule, and they also spelled "Thou shalt include save-anywhere" wrong. MP3 Of The Week: Faithless - Reverence.mp3
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It's nice for games that have it, but requiring it for all games? That'd just be stupid and would cripple games that wanted to focus on strong single-player experiences. Fuck racing games that don't have local multiplayer. I bought Burnout Paradise for a friend for his birthday, thinking we could play some two-player at his house. Turns out it's online-only multiplayer. What a crock of shit. Lady, people aren't chocolates. But you know what they are, mostly? Bastards. Bastard-coated bastards with bastard filling.
Blog. 194 lbs. 14 to go. |
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Do you mean two systems linked up, or split screen? #10 - Why not both come out of a window?
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More games should support co-op in the story campaign. Multiplayer doesn't all have to be CTF and deathmatch. And yes, splitscreen needs to be an option. Co-op Crackdown was fun, but if it supported splitscreen I'm sure I would've played through the whole thing co-op with either my brother or gf. It just wasn't good enough to justify buying a second copy. Witnesses in the house heard Jones say "why did you pee on me Pooh Bear?" A few moments later, the witness heard the son say "Mama you done stabbed me."
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The last time I ever played co-op was Quake 1 or Duke3D, can't remember. "Action stars of two decades ago shot .44 bullets out of their cocks. Honestly, if me and Charles Bronson were in the same room I'd kill myself just to make sure he didn't hurt me."
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We raced NFS2 split screen for a while, then tried to do so a couple of years later with Colin 2 but frame rate issues and crappy input handling ruined it fast. We did have some good Doom co-op though at LAN parties. #10 - Why not both come out of a window?
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#7 - Thou shalt let us play your game with real-life friends. It's nice for games that have it, but requiring it for all games? That'd just be stupid and would cripple games that wanted to focus on strong single-player experiences. My girl, who has no interest in games, really wanted to play GTA IV with me, and could not believe she wasn't able to. "That's stupid." Game Developers: Don't forget the zombie monkeys.
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What I always hated about my split-screen says was the fact that, back then, you were lucky if you had a 15" monitor, 14" visible. Losing half of that to someone else made it very hard to see anything, and the other half distracted me in some games. It was, however, a cheap way of playing with a friend. "Action stars of two decades ago shot .44 bullets out of their cocks. Honestly, if me and Charles Bronson were in the same room I'd kill myself just to make sure he didn't hurt me."
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Do you mean two systems linked up, or split screen? I mean split. Fucking. Screen. It may suck for the 14" TV crowd, but grown-ups have big TVs and can stand to split it out. In-the-same-room multiplayer has been relegated to Wii party games, LAN parties, and indie titles, and it sucks. Lady, people aren't chocolates. But you know what they are, mostly? Bastards. Bastard-coated bastards with bastard filling.
Blog. 194 lbs. 14 to go. |
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my split-screen says Don't ask. "Action stars of two decades ago shot .44 bullets out of their cocks. Honestly, if me and Charles Bronson were in the same room I'd kill myself just to make sure he didn't hurt me."
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Split-screen, or whatever you call the Lego Star Wars things where both of you are on the screen at the same time and can fuck each other up by not going the same way (Gauntlet-screen?), is a totally different thing that online multiplayer, even with friends. If you're both sitting on the same couch together, you're hanging out. If you're playing online, you're not hanging out. Voice chat helps (when it's not too laggy or garbled) but it's not the same. Playing together in the same room is more social. Witnesses in the house heard Jones say "why did you pee on me Pooh Bear?" A few moments later, the witness heard the son say "Mama you done stabbed me."
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And when someone starts spamming the cheap moves, you can gut punch them. Online lacks that ability so far. "I don't like story in games." - Soren Johnson
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#71 by Jibble I mean split. Fucking. Screen. I see. Actually, that has always been my problem with split-screen: I see what the other player's doing. It's completely involuntarily because it disorientates me more than sneaking a peek could help, but I'm just so used to scanning the whole screen that I can't help it. #10 - Why not both come out of a window?
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Isn't complaining that a game like GTA4 (or Crackdown or Burnout Paradise) doesn't have a split-screen option a little naive? Those games have maps that cover vast areas and I'm guessing that that means a substantial amount of memory and GPU/CPU is required to render just one view, let alone two. I suppose they could work around it by forcing the players to remain within the same general area and by reducing the fidelity of textures etc. but that kinda defeats the purpose of such free-roaming games. |
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#76 by deadlock Isn't complaining that a game like GTA4 (or Crackdown or Burnout Paradise) doesn't have a split-screen option a little naive? You point out a technical limitation, and while it may be an entirely valid point I still think there's value in the "naive" requests. If a majority feels it (GTA, Burnout, whatever) should have splitscreen then maybe developers ought to listen and make that possible, however many sacrifices it takes. Within reason. And we never get the full stories of how the game came about, maybe splitscreen was tried and tested and ultimately failed because it just wasn't fun losing all that screen estate. We can want things we don't really want, so it's a balance. But not doing it because it's not a straight-forward task to engineer is the least optimal reason. "Gaggle doesn't believe anyone should bother gaining skill in anything because anyone could gain skill in anything if they just put the time to it." - BjB
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