EA's (Limited) Creature Creator For Spore Released

JimboFBX writes "The Spore creature creator has been released. It's a limited demo, but it lets you make a full creature and test drive it a little. It gives some insight on what you'll be able to do with your creatures. Personally, the novelty already wore off within 10 minutes. From what I can tell, the full creature creator is a separate purchase from the actual game. Gotta love EA." An anonymous reader points to a thread at More Awesome Than You alleging that this creature creator also contains some phone-home features which might be cause for concern.

Comments

About the payware version

[Mascot]

Has anybody seen any logical explanation for charging for the full version? The entire idea of releasing the creature creator is to have a population of creatures ready for when the game is released, as far as I've gathered. If so it makes no sense to limit it.

Is it as simple as "we think we can get a few bucks off of this so let's charge for it", or is there some other reason?

Re:About the payware version

[Daimanta]

You've answered your own question. People are willing to pay for both the creature editor and the game. So EA lets them and rakes in the cash.

Re:About the payware version

[k_187]

I would also imagine that charging $10 for it allows them to easily weed out all the people making penis head creatures and uploading them.

Re:About the payware version

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, not true. There are already a pile of penis creatures out there including a goatse one. There's some youtube links to a lot of them on a Bluenews thread I was reading yesterday (sadly BN is blocked here at work so I can't reference any of them at the moment).

Re:About the payware version

[mobby_6kl]

That doesn't seem to be working that well.

Anyway, it's not surprising that it "phones home", considering that it's supposed to be online/sharing oriented, and needs to contect the servers. As far as SecuROM, the version I got from TPB works fine, although that doesn't mean SecuROM didn't install silently.

Typical...

[Stormwatch]

Legit version has malware-ish features. Warezed version will certainly be clean. Do they WANT people to pirate or what?!

Re:Typical...

[cephah]

I have never experienced any negative consequences of using warezed versions of ga--
Dear cephah,
Your pants' key from her bedroom!
JUST FOLLOW THIS WAY>>
Sincerely, egor chao-li.
--games, so I can't really relate.

SecuROM

[FnordX]

The "free" demo does also come bundled with SecuROM, so, downloader beware.

Also, it includes about 8 items out of each of the menus. If you're wanting to, you can pay the full price for the demo and get everything, and then proceed to upload your content to help out the developers by allowing them to have content ready when the game launches.

So, basically, you're paying EA to make their game world better, and they don't even trust you enough to give you access to the limited edition of the demo without some pretty intrusive spyware. And EA wonders why they get such a bad rep?

WHEN PENIS MONSTERS ATTACK

[the brown guy]

Gotta love the penis monsters....nothing beats getting your entire civilization wiped out by being that rock with their cocks out....

<a href="http://kotaku.com/5017350/when-spore-penis-monsters-attack">When spore penis monsters attack</a>, you can't beat the title.

Re:WHEN PENIS MONSTERS ATTACK

[Radish03]

This news story was in the Sci/Tech section of Google News this morning for me. Definitely did a triple take upon seeing the words "Penis Monster" in the headline.

Re:WHEN PENIS MONSTERS ATTACK

[Kimos]

There are now over 300 spore penis monsters on YouTube. Really...

Bask in the phallic glory of five years of development.

Re:WHEN PENIS MONSTERS ATTACK

[the brown guy]

Be very careful when searching for "penis spore" on youtube.....should you accidentally type sore as spore your in for a nasty treat.

Bow to the dildosaurus!

[inotocracy]

Now all we need is the vaginasaurus to go with it.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-cjbTXOeMM

The goatse creature

[Jugalator]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbvbyzvXOOc

That one had me laugh out loud at work today. ;)

Alleged phone-home features?

[Bieeanda]

There's one post in that thread that says something very vague about an encrypted communication, and the rest advocates disconnecting your Internet connection. That's not news, it's hearsay.

Now, SecuROM in the installer-- that is worthy of note.

On "Phoning home"

[Suddenly_Dead]

The game does utilize an internet connection for legitimate purposes. The banner at the start seems to be loaded off the internet (advertising the full game). There's a section in the "Sporepedia" that has links to purchase the game, advertisements for Spore merchandise and other things which I would think are loaded dynamically off the net. And the game of course lets you create and upload creations.

More, you know, evidence of malicious intent would be nice before people start running around like the sky is falling.

Re:On "Phoning home"

[hopelessdeskmonkey]

Yeah, you're right, just because someone has their hand in your pocket doesn't mean that they're going to take anything out. Oh wait, I don't like having someone put their hand in my pocket. To be honest the phone home feature isn't as onerous as the 3 validation limit. If you change video cards, hard drives, OS, or make a variety of undisclosed changes to your system they break your game. Why bother paying for that? I change components frequently, and would have to pay for this games 3 times a year, no thanks.

Great Old Ones

[cptnapalm]

I might be interested in this game if I can make Cthulhu & the Gang. Otherwise, meh.

Why buy?

[zuggy40]

This is a perfect example of what I like to call "BioShock Conundrum" (since that was my first experience). Why buy when pirating is a more enjoyable and pleasant experience?

sporn

[Dillenger69]

We're being inundated with penis monsters.

It's a new category: sporn

yay for innovation.

IT COUNTS AS A PREORDER

[azuredrake]

Hey guys,

I just wanted to point out what nobody has said (for North America, anyway) yet: If you buy the Creature Stand Alone, it counts as a preorder for Spore, in that if you buy spore at the EA online download thingy you get the CSA's price back off your purchase.

Now I'm not naive enough to think that that's going to stop most readers here from just warezing it anyway, but breaking the law is breaking the law; so for those of you who want to do it legit, this will save you money.

Re:Huh?

[azuredrake]

Some people opt on principle not to break laws. The above information would be useful for them to know, if they value both lawfulness and pragmatism and are trying to make a decision.

I also work in the game industry, so people talking about pirating games does tend to piss me off. If you don't like the product, simply don't buy it - that is your message. Pretending your piracy is noble because you "stick it to the man" is a convenient invention to assuage the periodic pangs of morality which sometimes occur in the human animal.

Clarification

[Jane Q. Public]

I am not trying to state that unlawful copying is a good thing in the vast majority of cases. But, on the other hand, NOBODY has a right to install software (rootkits, malware, services) on my computer without my PRIOR CONSENT.

NOBODY!!!

The latter offense is vastly greater than the former. One might deprive a business of a bit of profit (at least theoretically, but in practice it is far less than claimed). The other is an unforgivable intrusion into someone's personal world and personal information.

I am a professional in the software industry also. But I look to larger issues than someone "pirating" "MY game". Social justice must be addressed as well. And spyware isn't it.