SPORE Released 5 Days Early In Australia

knypha writes "Several sites are reporting that the much anticipated SPORE has been released 5 days ahead of the scheduled release date in Australia. I can confirm that SPORE is sitting on shelves in retailers and for the tidy sum of A$95.95 it can be yours. Why the early release exactly seems to be a matter of contention. No news if the game can actually be played yet or if the lucky early punters will still have to wait till the official release when EA allows for any validation process to occur. I guess EA could possibly be using the relatively small population to test the servers...or someone somewhere stuffed up!"

Comments

It's clear why they are doing it

[Henry V .009]

They are trying to get a good Zero Punctuation review from Yahtzee.

Re:It's clear why they are doing it

[ccguy]

They are trying to get a good Zero Punctuation review from Yahtzee.

Nah, Bill Wright visits slashdot from time to time and he read many Australians whining about their lousy Internet conditions... so he thought he'd give them a 5-day head start.

It also gives us the rest of the world a chance to whine about our lousing gaming conditions.

makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the seas around Australia have perfect conditions for the formation of early life...

Too expensive.

[Mystery00]

Like for most games, our stores once again double the price for no reason other than that they can. If I buy this at all it'll be an import from somewhere like play-asia.

It's Simple

[Bieeanda]

Australia has more horrifying, poisonous creatures per square meter, than any other place on Earth. If anyone is going to understand Spore, it's them.

Re:It's Simple

[ZeroFactorial]

Ah yes, the dreaded Australopeniscus.

Yes, it is confirmed that you can play early

[Anonymous Coward]

I do not have a slashdot account, so I doubt that I will be seen.

But the whole reason this story broke is do to this person here.

http://forums.facepunchstudios.com/showthread.php?t=603042

The bastard is gloating in his 15 mins of Internet fame. :p

Re:Good luck to australian gamers

[Das Modell]

If it uses SecuROM I'm just going to torrent it.

Re:What's so great about this game?

[Das Modell]

I anticipate that Spore is going to get pretty boring pretty quickly. It doesn't look like it'll have much replay value.

let us rejoice, for we are young and poor...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you know it's great and all that we Aussies are getting it early. Too bad we have to take out a mortgage just to pay for the bloody thing.

The gouging the video game industry does against Australians is absolutely deplorable. The local EB games is still trying to flog off the Warcraft 3 Battlechest - part of which is almost 8 years old - for $110!! At current exchange rates that's about $95 US.

I order my games from the UK and even with shipping it's practically half price. The best part is you get around the stupid censorship imposed by Senator Atkinson.

With all of the BS we're forced to tolerate, plus the whole descendants from convicts thing, it shouldn't be too surprising that many Australians turn to "alternate channels" of distribution for their video gaming needs.

Re:Importing

[Fweeky]

Direct download from EA is £39.95, or £42.94 if you want to be able to redownload for 2 years instead of 6 months. 95.95 AUD is £45, so not that much of a markup.

Of course, if I buy a physical copy, I can get it for £28, or £30 if I want it (almost) guaranteed on release day, so you do have to wonder what EA are thinking with that download price..

Re:Good luck to australian gamers

[Paradigm_Complex]

Not buying it because of SecuROM is certainly justified, but not buying it because EA is using Cider rather than making a real Mac port is just silly. The only thing EA is going to actually understand from this is that they're not getting Mac sales and they wasted time and money getting this thing cross-platform on PC's.

Unless you *don't* want them making it on the Mac at all - or if it just plain doesn't work well under Cider - than don't let the fact it's not native stop you from getting it. While making games for the Mac is still so uncommon this kind of thing should be encouraged, not discouraged. Later when it's considered SOP to make games of the Mac you can go ahead and complain about such things.

Re:Amen to that

[Paradigm_Complex]

I just view companies like EA as I do children, or maybe dogs. These ideas, justified or not, are too complicated for them.

Child does good you praise it, child does bad you put it in time out. Dog does good you give it a treat, dog does bad you stuff it's face in the mess it made and yell "bad dog." EA does over-all net good you buy their game, EA does bad you boycott it and maybe yell on their forums. Don't try to say "Making for mac is good but [details]." Details are confusing while they're still struggling with the whole Mac-good or Mac-bad thing. Again, like children or dogs it may take a good number of reward-punishment cycles before these ideas start sinking in and you can try to teach it something else. Don't be discouraged when yet another game is released with DRM or Cider.

5 Days Early?

[Anonymous Coward]

Duh, it's because of time zones. When it's Thursday here in the states, it's like February in Australia.