Spore – What went wrong with the Spore Video Game

Spore was heralded to be the next coming of the Sims, the greatest fantasy sandbox game to be set in space since video games were created.  If this is true, why are so many people angry and disappointed?  Let's take a journey to understand more about what happened to the Spore video game.

The theory behind Spore's success was supposed to be a combination of many different types of video game into one meta-game that would be popular to casual gamers and sim lovers everywhere.  The problem starts with the incredible amounts of effort that was put into hyping this video game.  EA spent a lot of money and getting the word out about this game.

Overhyping any media release, from a movie to a video game, sets the bar so high that it is almost impossible to live up to the hype.  The reason for an intense marketing campaign for any video game is that for some videogame titles, release week often rakes in the largest pile of the cash that video game will net.  For example, Fable 2 grossed over one million sales in it's first week but didn't reach two million until week 8.

Spore was being watched by millions of fans, some of which even gave it five stars before the game was even released on Amazon.com.  Yet today, over 2600 people have given spore a rating of one star.

Erich Maria Remarque from Magnolia, Arkansas says Spore offers a "dumbed down" experience.  "See those older 5-star reviews from 2006 (two years before the game was released)? Well, they had a reason to be excited. Spore was supposed to be a revolutionary experience, combining multiple genres while concentrating on evolution and genetics.

Fast forward two years and here we have the finished product, ready to be installed on our hard drives.  The game incorporates a draconian DRM system... was dumbed down to oblivion... For example, you can add as many legs to a creature as you want, but the multi-legged creature won't be any faster than a single-legged one with higher leg stats. This gameplay element makes "creating" your creatures entirely pointless (cosmetic only, because everything is based on stats), and brings you about the same amount of excitement as dressing up a plastic doll," she added.

"I Really, Really Want to Love This Game" says Erik G. Nyquist.  He's right we all had high hopes for this game.  Here are some of the better explanations for why this product did not deliver as much as it could have.

"Only 1 login per purchase. No hope for families," exclaims a blogger named Kelli.  He goes on to explain, "My wife and I bought 2 copies of Spore for our computers. We have 2 kids and planned on letting one play on her computer with her copy and the other playing on my computer with my copy. However the game only allows for 1 login per install. So if I let one of my kids play on my copy they use the same universe and can basically destroy anything I've setup. There appears to be no way to allow a second login to work (which is contrary to other EA games like Sims 2)...I could care less about DRM and understand the need for it. But at least allow multiple users to play with different logins on the same machine without risking other player's content. That type of feature has been around for nearly a decade now.  A single user won't feel this pain but any family/couple is going to find that this sucks. I now have to be home here to login with my EA account so my kid can play instead of just providing him with his own account."

Jakub Reczek says "I don't understand magazine reviews giving this game high marks." However, not every magazine did review Spore with a high rating.  Metacritic, a popular gaming review site, has many different magazines that did not rate the game favorably.

DarkZero rated Spore 60 out of 100 with this review.  Ultimately, as interesting as Spore's concept is, the actual gameplay works against its offer to let you be creative, and the gameplay isn't really worth the sacrifice of the creativity - especially when the standalone creature creator was released ages ago.

"In attempting to Sim everything, Spore tries to be all things to all people -- a strategy that never quite works out the way it's supposed to" is how the online magazine Wired describes Spore.

Of course, not all the press is negative.  Several individuals rated Spore with five stars and several video game magazines rated the game 100 out of 100.

"Amazing despite DRM scandal," says Rekz kaRZ from San Francisco, CA.  "I admit it, I downloaded Spore. I had read all the freaking out about DRM, and I wanted to join the downloading orgy.  I played it for 3 days... and it was so good I bought it."

Mino Guy describes the game as "Awesome accomplishment, lots of fun, not as good of a game!  It's very strange: here the game gets 1 and a half stars, and on all other game reviews websites it gets 80-95%. As IGN reviews said in short, "Definitely an amazing accomplishment, not quite an amazing game." This means that it is definitely very fun if you don't try to just complete the game, but it doesn't go that much in depth, which many veteran gamers will not like, and the fact that it isn't that much of a challenge until the space stage if you play in medium or hard mode. That is not for me, even though I am a veteran gamer, because I play games for the fun, not to beat them"

Most videogame magazines did rate the game above 90%.  PTGamer, G4, PC Zone, Gamer 2.0, IGN, and others loved the game.

No conversation about Spore is complete without mentioning DRM.  EA reportedly spent an obscene amount of money in order to create a protection, which was cracked on day one.  In fact, Torrentfreak declared Spore as the number one most pirated game of 2008.

If you cut through all the mumbo-jumbo about how evil DRM is, there are some substantial facts about buying the game that seemed completely unfair to those who acquire the game by other means.  Originally, if you purchased the game you were allowed three installations with the option to purchase more installations from EA customer support.  Therefore, the fourth time you had to install a new operating system was the time you would have to buy a new copy of Spore.

You would also need to leave the disc in your drive in order to reauthorize your authentication every time you play Spore.  This led to an outcry that without an Internet connection the game would become less valuable.

Additionally, you cannot resell spore because your email is linked to the registration key.  In order to sell the game with its online features, you will need to "sell your account."  MMO players will be accustomed to this business model but casual gamers might not be.  After quite a bit of opposition to their DRM, EA changed a few of their policies to loosen restrictions on the game.

First, the installation limit was raised from three to five.  Meaning you can have five installations of the game per copy at any one time.  EA also released a De-Authorization tool, which will remove the authorization to play the game on the computer without uninstalling the game.  However, using the tool does not remove the Secure ROM DRM protection placed on your PC by installing the game.

The new authentication process being used by EA will verify your copy of the game on the first installation, removing the need to leave the disc in the drive.  You will still need an Internet connection to participate in some of the "cooler features" of the game, such as sharing creationist with other Spore players.  EA has set up a FAQ to clear up some of the misinformation about the DRM currently on the game.

Anyway you look at the situation; those who actually supported the company on day one and purchased a legal copy were more inconvenienced than those that did not obtain their copy through retail.

Another example of corporate greed is the style in which the expansion packs are being released.  Instead of adding free content like most video games that require an online connection, Spore has opted to require users to purchase expansion packs in the same way the Sims does.  The difference is Creepy Cute Parts Pack provides no functionality.  All of the parts are purely cosmetic.

On the horizon is Spore Galactic Adventures, which finally offers some functioning gameplay changes.  Players will be able to create their own missions as well as solving a new EA driven mission.  Chances are the new weaponry will be the same as the old except in different graphical shell.

Only time will tell how much video game value EA will give you for your money.

UPDATE: Our thanks to AbleGamers members for pointing out a few updates