4 ms·

> Spore was a disappointment Spore was a textbook example of bad management. They spent 80% of time, money and effort on creature designer - a feature that did

> Spore was a disappointment Spore was a textbook example of bad management. They spent 80% of time, money and effort on creature designer - a feature that did not make up even 20% of game, closer to 5%. Game had complex and massive functionality for libraries, various downloadable creatures, even tunes for cities, outfits for citizens - all things that were not just unnecessary, but one might say even made game less attractive (because usually you end up not being such great designer and all cities look equally generically bad). Essential features, such as autosave, were lacking. It is hard to fathom how detached from reality the managers were.

mseebach 12y ago
I don't know anything about the game or how it failed, but what you describe reads like a classic caricature of an engineer's wet dream: lots of fancy tech that's fun to build but not very useful to the end user, while comparatively boring but useful features (autosave) gets passed over. Sure, management also failed (any failure is by definition a failure of management since they're supposed to be responsible for the project) - but textbook? You hardly made the case for that.
- pavel_lishin 12y ago
  Management letting engineers build whatever cool toys they want instead of features customers want and need sounds like it ought to be a textbook example of what not to do. Maybe you can't herd cats, but you can at least train them to use the litter box and not scratch your television.
  - stickfigure 12y ago
    Maxis (and EA in general) doesn't really work like that. The producers and game designers are in charge; engineers may have some input but there are professionals running the show. And those professionals screw up a lot. It's a hard business. Maxis in particular suffered from the problem of having a bright, famous designer who produced two major hits. This gave him license to make dozens of failures. Unfortunately, Maxis started "betting the farm" on his last couple creations, with budgets into the high tens of millions. You don't get to roll the dice many times at that price.
- Shivetya 12y ago
  pretty much explains Master of Orion III. to expand on that, likely the person in charge of a feature which consumed so much resources was untouchable. Considered too good to fail or have, gasp, a bad idea
- joeld42 12y ago
  There's some really cool prototypes from the making of of spore that got put online. It's fascinating stuff: http://www.spore.com/comm/prototypes http://www.spore.com/comm/prototypes I would say that every part of Spore was fun, or at least could be, but they never were able to get them to mesh together in a cohesive whole.
Vaskivo 12y ago
Spore was a disappointment by design. Will Wright prefered "The Sim's sales than Half Life's scores"[1]. They catered to the Sim's public. That's why you have a "design everything" feature. And mechanics so simple. I remember sprinting through the game, realizing the phases had really simple and boring mechanics, and designing all stuff in less than a minute. When I finally reached the space phase it got a little meatier, but no enough to cater my interest for long. And It had severe interaction problems (I have an interstellar empire, but I have to navigate to each planet to collect its manufactured resources? Come on!) It was a game with a premise for the hardcore strategy/sim fans that was made to be like the Sims. Biggest disapointment in gaming ever! [1] http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2008/09/08/wil-wright-prefers-high-sales-to-high-scores/1 http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2008/09/08/wil-wright-pr...
- mordocai 12y ago
  I bought the collector's edition. I think I probably spent less than 10 hours on the game. It might be my worst disappointment in gaming. While not just because of this issue, I now usually wait for games to be out for a couple months before I buy. That way I can see what the 'regular people' think about the game. That being said, I was young and it is very possible that the pre-release reviews were bad and I just didn't notice.
  - wavefunction 12y ago
    Well, I wasn't exactly young at the time and I had the exact same experience as you did. A real disappointment after building up my expectations pretty high, but an opportunity to realize what's really important in life when moving through it.
strictnein 12y ago
Best part of Spore is the cellular life stage. The farther along you get in the game the less enjoyable it gets.
danudey 12y ago
My biggest complaint about Spore was that it was four or five different games, and just when you started getting the hang of one the game said "Evolution time!" and jerked you into the next one. By the time I was enjoying anything about the game, it took it away and gave me something else new to learn. By the time I got to the phase of the game I was going to spend more time on (cities and civilizations) I just didn't care anymore. Like Doom 3, Spore was a game killed by pre-release piracy for the sole reason that people had fair warning about how terrible of a game it was.

mseebach 12y ago

I don't know anything about the game or how it failed, but what you describe reads like a classic caricature of an engineer's wet dream: lots of fancy tech that's fun to build but not very useful to the end user, while comparatively boring but useful features (autosave) gets passed over. Sure, management also failed (any failure is by definition a failure of management since they're supposed to be responsible for the project) - but textbook? You hardly made the case for that.

pavel_lishin 12y ago
Management letting engineers build whatever cool toys they want instead of features customers want and need sounds like it ought to be a textbook example of what not to do. Maybe you can't herd cats, but you can at least train them to use the litter box and not scratch your television.
- stickfigure 12y ago
  Maxis (and EA in general) doesn't really work like that. The producers and game designers are in charge; engineers may have some input but there are professionals running the show. And those professionals screw up a lot. It's a hard business. Maxis in particular suffered from the problem of having a bright, famous designer who produced two major hits. This gave him license to make dozens of failures. Unfortunately, Maxis started "betting the farm" on his last couple creations, with budgets into the high tens of millions. You don't get to roll the dice many times at that price.
Shivetya 12y ago
pretty much explains Master of Orion III. to expand on that, likely the person in charge of a feature which consumed so much resources was untouchable. Considered too good to fail or have, gasp, a bad idea
joeld42 12y ago
There's some really cool prototypes from the making of of spore that got put online. It's fascinating stuff: http://www.spore.com/comm/prototypes http://www.spore.com/comm/prototypes I would say that every part of Spore was fun, or at least could be, but they never were able to get them to mesh together in a cohesive whole.

Vaskivo 12y ago

Spore was a disappointment by design. Will Wright prefered "The Sim's sales than Half Life's scores"[1]. They catered to the Sim's public. That's why you have a "design everything" feature. And mechanics so simple. I remember sprinting through the game, realizing the phases had really simple and boring mechanics, and designing all stuff in less than a minute. When I finally reached the space phase it got a little meatier, but no enough to cater my interest for long. And It had severe interaction problems (I have an interstellar empire, but I have to navigate to each planet to collect its manufactured resources? Come on!) It was a game with a premise for the hardcore strategy/sim fans that was made to be like the Sims. Biggest disapointment in gaming ever! [1] http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2008/09/08/wil-wright-prefers-high-sales-to-high-scores/1 http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2008/09/08/wil-wright-pr...

mordocai 12y ago
I bought the collector's edition. I think I probably spent less than 10 hours on the game. It might be my worst disappointment in gaming. While not just because of this issue, I now usually wait for games to be out for a couple months before I buy. That way I can see what the 'regular people' think about the game. That being said, I was young and it is very possible that the pre-release reviews were bad and I just didn't notice.
- wavefunction 12y ago
  Well, I wasn't exactly young at the time and I had the exact same experience as you did. A real disappointment after building up my expectations pretty high, but an opportunity to realize what's really important in life when moving through it.

strictnein 12y ago

Best part of Spore is the cellular life stage. The farther along you get in the game the less enjoyable it gets.

danudey 12y ago

My biggest complaint about Spore was that it was four or five different games, and just when you started getting the hang of one the game said "Evolution time!" and jerked you into the next one. By the time I was enjoying anything about the game, it took it away and gave me something else new to learn. By the time I got to the phase of the game I was going to spend more time on (cities and civilizations) I just didn't care anymore. Like Doom 3, Spore was a game killed by pre-release piracy for the sole reason that people had fair warning about how terrible of a game it was.