Spore Almost Ready for Production, Complete With "Sporn"

It seems that there has been some backlash over questionable creature creation with the Spore creation tool. Some of this content has been cleverly and obviously nicknamed 'Sporn'. For better or worse, Spore's Producer Thomas Vu is saying the long-awaited game should be ready for production in about a week, keeping it on track for the announced September 7th release.

Comments

DRM?

[Kamots]

And... has there been any announcement in changes to DRM?

I'll gladly give them my $50 if I get a game that'll stay a game.

But when the single player aspects of a game will only work as long as the DRM servers are kept up... well... $50 for something that turns into a plastic coaster whenever EA wants seems just a tad excessive.

Re:DRM?

[Opportunist]

And that changes what? That it will be working as long as there is Steam? Where's the difference, if I may ask?

Even Steam being around forever doesn't mean the game will work forever. Let's assume for a moment that the whole parents' outcry crap hits the fans and Jack Thompson or some other loonie hypes it so far out of proportion that a court declares that hey, EA can turn the game off any time they want, so they have to.

And snap.

And then? Oh sure, if you can still find that receipt, you may even be allowed to get some other EA game as compensation. Now, I buy my games online, I don't even have a "real", physical receipt. And I buy EA games at a rate of about 1 every 10 years or so. Then again, I buy games at a rate of about one or two a year...

Whatever you do, it all comes down to one single flaw: You buy a game, but EA retains the ability to disable your copy or all copies essentially at will whenever they either want to or are forced to for some reason. They could decide that you should have bought the game elsewhere, so your copy is invalid (see orange box for reference). They could decide that you created such a porn animal and thus for some reason your license is invalid (yeah, you can try to fight that out. Good luck). They could essentially pull whatever reason out of their ass and just disable your copy.

Why, again, should I spend money to hang at EA's leading-string?

Re:DRM?

[nEoN nOoDlE]

$50 for something that turns into a plastic coaster whenever EA wants seems just a tad excessive.

Then you must hate going to the movies and paying $12 bucks for not even a coaster. I don't know about you but I judge the cost of entertainment based on, well, the entertainment aspect of it. For $50, you're not getting a cd, you're getting a certain amount of entertainment. I'm probably gonna be modded down as a DRM apologist, but Spore is probably the most anticipated game of this year and it's been in production for around 6 or 7 years. As such, it will also be the most pirated. The DRM will of course be cracked eventually, and probably pretty quickly, but I don't see anything wrong with trying to delay the piraters so they might actually go out and purchase the game.

To some (like you), having the DRM on their disk will be inconvenient enough that they will wait for the crack. To others, not having a crack for the game immediately will be inconvenient enough for them to purchase it. Since regular people still don't even know what DRM is, I'm betting that the latter outnumbers the former, and that Microsoft made the most logical move.

Wait for the screaming to start....

[sshuber]

You know that after this launches and little Johnny visits his friends planet with giant penii walking around and his Mom and Dad see it there is going to be a meltdown in the parent sector. I think if GTA San Andreas proves anything, it's fine for our children to shoot cops all day long and beat up hookers, but as soon as they get a glimpse of something sexual the parents' heads start spinning a la the Exorcist.

What the British head censor said...

[OmniGeek]

Screwed up? Yep, we've got lotsa that, all right.

I recall reading, several years ago, an interview that the head of Britain's film censorship board gave on the occasion of his retirement (i.e, now that he was able to speak his mind freely without contradicting policies he was required to uphold). Basically, he said that he thought that, as regards media depictions, that sex was a fine and healthy thing for society, while violence wasn't. He thought that Britain (and societies in general) would do well to be less concerned with censoring sexual content, and more concerned with violent content.

Now, while I thoroughly enjoy playing CS with a group of fellow forty-somethings who understand that IT'S JUST A GAME, I must say that I agree with that fellow's opinion. (I don't really know how to reconcile the inherent conflict here, BTW. )