5 ms·

"It's the same with magazines, review sites and events for gaming." If a game isn't fun, people won't play it for long. Spore is an example. Googling for 'spo

by palish 18y ago

"It's the same with magazines, review sites and events for gaming." If a game isn't fun, people won't play it for long. Spore is an example. Googling for 'spore fun' reveals quotes from people along these lines: Yeah, its a pointless game, but still fun at the same time. Sure, you have goals, but they’re just there to get your creations moving. And really, they’re boring as hell and wouldn’t last if it weren’t for the creation aspect. The only redeeming gameplay modes are the cell stage and the space stage. The other ones are short, easy, and a chore. And another: I played the game for maybe 10 hours. For the first 30min its pretty cool.. i mean being a cell is kinda fun... simple eating and running away. When you get to different stages like creture, tribal, civ, and space.. first few minutes is not too bad when you get to try the new stuff.. but soon after you know how the stage works, its gets repetitive and boring. The concept is pretty sweet that you get to evolve and design your own creature and buildings and vehicles.. but the game gets repetitive and boring. It gonna take a lot of time and trust me youll just get bored of it. Spore had an insane amount of hype and PR surrounding its launch. They even had a public demo of Robin Williams creating a character before much was known about the character creator. And yet, Spore appears to have fizzled out, and rightly so. Consumers might put up with DRM if the gameplay is good, but DRM + boring gameplay = 1 1/2 stars on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Spore-Pc/dp/B000FKBCX4/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1238853922&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Spore-Pc/dp/B000FKBCX4/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1... So the PC/Console gaming scene isn't very similar to the music scene, mostly because games have to keep people's attention for more than 4 minutes (or ~1 hour for an album). However, casual gaming is an entirely different beast, and does share a lot of similarities with the music industry. But all I'm saying is, if a game is bad, people are going to find out.

DannoHung 18y ago
That 1 1/2 star rating on Amazon is pretty meaningless because most of the 1 star reviews were from people JUST railing about the DRM regardless of whether they'd played the game or not. I'm no friend of DRM, but if I were Amazon, I'd have deleted those reviews because of their specious nature. I didn't like Spore all that much myself, however there's another Will Wright game that I didn't like all that much: The Sims. I thought that was boring as hell, but a lot of people seemed to like it, so you might understand why EA thought it would be wise to advertise the game heavily.
- unalone 18y ago
  The difference was expectations. The Sims billed itself as a life simulation game, and as such it was a very fun one. Spore claimed to be a revolutionary worldchanging game. People called it the Citizen Kane of games. It was the end-all be-all to the history of gaming, the game that did it all. Turns out it was just a lifesim game, and a lot of people who thought they were playing the best game ever stopped playing within a day. I know I did, and I'm still a bit mad at Will Wright for that.

by palish 18y ago

DannoHung 18y ago

That 1 1/2 star rating on Amazon is pretty meaningless because most of the 1 star reviews were from people JUST railing about the DRM regardless of whether they'd played the game or not. I'm no friend of DRM, but if I were Amazon, I'd have deleted those reviews because of their specious nature. I didn't like Spore all that much myself, however there's another Will Wright game that I didn't like all that much: The Sims. I thought that was boring as hell, but a lot of people seemed to like it, so you might understand why EA thought it would be wise to advertise the game heavily.

unalone 18y ago
The difference was expectations. The Sims billed itself as a life simulation game, and as such it was a very fun one. Spore claimed to be a revolutionary worldchanging game. People called it the Citizen Kane of games. It was the end-all be-all to the history of gaming, the game that did it all. Turns out it was just a lifesim game, and a lot of people who thought they were playing the best game ever stopped playing within a day. I know I did, and I'm still a bit mad at Will Wright for that.