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Gaikai’s Cloud Gaming Arrives With 4 EA Games Demos

Matthew Sims — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 18:35:24 +0000

Gaikai has announced that it’s cloud based streaming game service is now available as a public beta. The beta includes 4 EA demo available for players to play directly in their browser.

If you have the latest versions of flash and java and a broadband internet connection, you too can play these demos in your browser. The demos are no slouch either including some of EA’s biggest titles such as Dead Space 2, Mass Effect 2, Spore, and The Sims 3.

Gaikai’s service works a little bit like Netflix or Youtube, meaning that the content is stored remotely on a server many miles away and sent to your computer. This streaming component takes all of the stress off of your home PC allowing almost any computer to handle the task of playing high end games. The company has said that so far it has managed to get 30 to 40 different titles to transfer over to the service in the test phase.

Gaikai also claims that the service is live in 12 countries and has 24 data centers, not too shabby for a beta. The firm is also set to prove these claims at GDC showing “high-end, high-performance games running at 60hz with no work needing to be done by the publishers / developers” and Mass Effect 2 running inside Facebook.

I have to confess that I haven’t tried the service, but I’m going to head to the site to check it out. Stayed tuned to Ripten for my impressions and feel free to check out the website and register for the beta.

Steam Winter Sale Day 3: Aliens Vs Predator, Just Cause 2 – 75% Off

Aaron Alexander — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 19:53:26 +0000

The infamous Steam winter sale has rolled over into it’s 3rd day, presenting another set of fantastic titles which are heavily discounted, including 75% off Just Cause 2 and Aliens vs Predator.

Today’s Tasty Treats:

Aliens Vs Predator – $5.00 (75% off)
Bully – $3.75 (75% off)
Day of Defeat: Source – $2.50 (75% off)
Just Cause 2 – $7.50 (75% off)
Assassins Creed 2 – $14.99 (50% off)
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - $14.99 (50% off)
Tales of Monkey Island Complete Pack (Includes all episodes of Tales of Monkey Island) – $17.49 (50% off)
Railworks 2 – $6.00 (85% off)
Spore – $7.50 (75% off)
Trials 2: Second Edition – $2.50 (75% off)
Zuma’s Revenge! – $8.00 (60% off)
Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale -$6.80 (66% off)

Depending on who you ask, Aliens Vs Predator is a fine game that’s worth snapping up for a measly $5.00, but absolutely everyone should take advantage of the Just Cause 2 sale. The game not only looks fantastic on PC, but it’s fucking crazy in a way that I can get behind.

Comic-Con 2010: EA Maxis to Reveal Spore-Related “Action-RPG”

Rangebar Merani — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 21:06:50 +0000

EA Maxis is set to reveal a new action-RPG game related to their famous Spore franchise later this month in San Diego at Comic-Con 2010.

The official Comic-Con website (via 1UP) shows a planned reveal from EA Maxis and gives a brief description on the title, calling the new game “a brand new, Sci-Fi Action-RPG based on the DNA of Spore.” No other details are given, so there’s no way of knowing exactly how this game is related to Spore, nor how it will play.

There’s a possibility that this new Spore-related action-RPG could be “Darkspore,” a title EA trademarked back in May. I suppose we’ll just have to wait for EA Maxis to take stage at Comic-Con which takes place on July 24 in San Diego.

Will Wright has left EA

Sam Naylor — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:46:48 +0000

MTV Multiplayer reports that Will Wright, possibly the most famous game developer of all time, has left EA as of today. Wright, creator of Sim City, The Sims, and more recently Spore, will be focusing instead on his project the ‘Stupid Fun Club’, a company that is owned by himself, EA, and another mystery shareholder. “Stupid Fun Club will explore new possibilities”, Wright said, adding that the company will “create new forms of entertainment on a variety of platforms.” Despite leaving the company, EA gets first dibs on Wright’s new gaming projects.

No, you’re not dreaming: EA pulls Sims 3 DRM

Sam Naylor — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:35:23 +0000

EDGE reports the impossible today: EA taking DRM out of a game. The Sims 3 will reportedly ship with just a serial code and no online activation needed, and no restrictive and unnecessary DRM. The head of the Sims 3 studio, Rod Humble, described DRM as “overly invasive”, and added that serial-based verification is “a good, time-proven solution” to basic piracy.

Obviously, the Sims 3 will be pirated, there’s no doubt about that- but in light of the Spore controversy, people are less likely to be downloading it simply to say “fuck you” to EA this time. In a way, I’m glad that Spore was pirated so much; it seems to have shown EA that DRM just makes things worse for everyone.

Meet the Most Pirated Game of 2008

Keane Ng — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 02:45:24 +0000

It’s Spore. Were you surprised, really? All that DRM nonsense, all those lackluster reviews, all those pirates urging folks to fight the power by pirating this game. Rounding out the list of the year’s most stolen are Assassin’s Creed, The Sims 2, Crysis (still? come on guys), and more. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas at number seven? That seems random.

When it comes down to it, though, it’s a damn shame that what a lot of us will remember Spore for is for being downloaded hella much. Then again, there are people who will say that EA deserved every dollar they didn’t get for this game. What’s your guys’ take? Does Spore deserve the decidedly undesirable title of “most pirated game of the year”?

Source: Torrent Freak

EA Rep Says Forum Ban Won’t “Automatically” Get You Banned from their Games

Chad Lakkis — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 01:44:31 +0000

Well well well, what we have here is a failure to communicate — or so it seems. You decide. We reported late last night that an EA community staff member on the Command and Conquer forum advised posters of a policy change that would allow them to ban individuals banned from forum access from their line of games as well.

The comment has apparently been contradicted by an unnamed EA rep. I say “apparently” because the word “automatically” is used in the statement given, and in my opinion, it does not completely deny what the community staff member warned gamers.

Here is the statement:

“Players who have been banned from EA Forums are not automatically banned from online access to their other EA games … “

The EA rep then added:

“Players can be banned if they breach the Terms of Service or Code of Conduct in a forum, game or service. Each forum, game and service is managed independently by customer support representatives responsible for that specific forum, game or service.”

So is this simply a case of corporate double talk? Is the EA rep uninformed or was the community staff member talking out of his/her ass? Saying that it won’t be “automatic” doesn’t mean that EA isn’t giving community staff members the power to ban your game access if they so choose — at least not in my eyes.

My gut tells me that the EA community staff member spoke the truth not knowing how far his words would spread, and that this is nothing more than an effort to clean up the mess.

I’m curious to hear what you think. Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Source: Gamecyte

UPDATE: C&C Community Manager has issued an apology for his previous statement, stating that it was all just a misunderstanding. Read more…

EA Forcing Good Behavior: Get Banned on their Forum and You’re Banned from their Games

Chad Lakkis — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 06:32:42 +0000

A recent post by an EA Community Staff member on the company’s Command and Conquer message board outlines changes to their policy, stating their intent to link a gamer’s forum account to their EA gaming account. Why does this matter? Because EA is planning on banning those who get banned on their forum from their games as well.

The post by the EA Community Staff member can be seen below:

Your forum account will be directly tied to your Master EA Account, so if we ban you on the forums, you would be banned from the game as well since the login process is the same. And you’d actually be banned from your other EA games as well since its all tied to your account. So if you have SPORE and Red Alert 3 and you get yourself banned on our forums or in-game, well, your SPORE account would be banned to. It’s all one in the same, so I strongly [recommend] people play nice and act mature.

All in all, we expect people to come on here and abide by our ToS. We hate banning people, it makes our lives a lot tougher, but its what we have to do.

Those banned will stay banned, but like most other internet services, its not that hard to create a new fake e-mail account. However, its a lot harder to get a new serial key =)

While I am not a fan of fanboy or over the top argumentative banter, this still seems like it is a bit much. Is it just me, or is there a hint of corporate greed in this disciplinary action? Maybe it’s the smiley face after the “harder to get a new serial key” comment that is getting under my skin, but I am not agreeing with this move.

They are essentially saying that if you have the financial means to be an asshole (i.e. you’re rich bitch), you can be as nasty as you want as long as you keep feeding their corporate machine. I have a bad feeling about this.

Aterthought: What do you think of EA’s policy change? Are you happy to see them lay the smack down, or do you think they are going about this all wrong?

Source: forums.ea.com

UPDATE: The community staff member comment has apparently been contradicted by an anonymous EA rep. I’m not sure if I buy it though. Read More…

UPDATE 2: C&C Community Manager has issued an apology for his previous statement, stating that it was all just a misunderstanding. Read more…

Will Wright on Spore DRM controversy. “Something I Should Have Tuned into More.”

Justin Arnold — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 18:52:59 +0000

Game auteur Will Wright attended the Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Awards ceremony in New York, and Jim Reilly of Kotaku was there to ask him what he thought about the controversy surrounding his game.

“It was something I probably should have tuned into more. It was a corporate decision to go with DRM on Spore. They had a plan and the parameters, but now we’re allowing more authentications and working with players to de-authenticate which makes it more in line like an iTunes.

I think one of the most valid concerns about it was you could only install it so many times. For most players it’s not an issue, it’s a pretty small percentage, but some people do like wiping their hard disk and installing it 20 times or they want to play it 10 years later.”

Spore and distributor Electronic Arts came under fire for the perceived draconian tactics employed by the software’s DRM. SecuROM software essentially limiting Spore to one install.

Incensed gamers rallied around Spore, citing SecuROM as little better than malware which led to a grassroots boycott of the game.

Source: kotaku.com

Spore-Created Starcraft Replicas Amaze

Keane Ng — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 03:35:53 +0000

They say that if you give a man fish they’ll eat for a day, but if you teach a man to fish they’ll eat for a lifetime. Well, give a Korean a game other than Starcraft and they’ll play it for a day, but if you give them Spore they’ll turn it into Starcraft. That’s what happened here. Some intrepid fellow was so frustrated by Spore’s shallow as heck RTS gameplay that he had to make it look as much like Starcraft as possible to even keep playing it. And he succeeded – look at those Siege Tanks!

Source: Game|Life

Spore Sells 1 Million, Uploads Reach 25 Million

Chad Lakkis — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:04:54 +0000

A press release received today from EA announces that Spore has sold 1 million copies and the amount of creatures uploaded has hit 25 million. Those are pretty impressive numbers considering the game shipped just three weeks ago on September 7th.

I have yet to play the game and would be interested in hearing the thoughts of our readers. If you have played the full version of the game, please let me know what you think of it in the comment section below.

Full press release available after the jump.

SPORE BEGINS WITH A BIG BANG!

ONE MILLION GAMES SOLD AND 25 MILLION CREATIONS UPLOADED

Emeryville, CA – September 24, 2008 – Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) today announced that Spore™ has sold through more than one million copies at retail worldwide on the PC, Mac® and Nintendo DS™, since shipping worldwide on September 7th. Spore, developed by EA’s Maxis™ Studio, is also available on mobile phones including the iPhone™. To date, gamers have used the creativity tools in Spore to populate the universe with more than 25 million creatures, vehicles and buildings available to view in the Sporepedia™ at www.spore.com/sporepedia.

Spore has been well received by game critics – with a Metacritic index of: 85.

“Spore is a hit,” said Frank Gibeau, president of the EA Games Label. “Will Wright’s latest delivers an incredibly diverse game that appeals to casual gamers and the core alike. We’re off to a great start moving into the holiday season and believe Spore will deliver a platform of creativity for gamers of all stripes for years to come.”

“We’re humbled by how quickly the community has taken to the creativity tools in Spore,” said Lucy Bradshaw, vice president of Maxis and Spore’s executive producer. “It’s amazing to see the sheer imagination represented in the hundreds of thousands of creatures, vehicles and buildings that have been uploaded around the clock since launch.”

Spore – rated E10+ — gives players their own personal universe in a box. Create and evolve life, establish tribes, build civilizations, sculpt entire worlds and explore a universe filled with creations made by other gamers. Spore gives players a wealth of creative tools to customize nearly every aspect of their universe: creatures, vehicles, buildings, and even spaceships.

To download a free trial of the Spore™ Creature Creator, please visit www.spore.com. For screen shots or more information about Spore, please visit our press web site at http://info.ea.com

ECA Prez: Spore DRM a “Giant Leap Backwards”

Keane Ng — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 01:25:12 +0000

Hal Halpin, the president of the Entertainment Consumers Association, a non-profit consumer advocacy organization for gamers, has spoken out against EA’s DRM policies for Spore, calling the game’s restrictive DRM a breeding ground for future generations of pirates and a “giant leap backwards” for anti-piracy initiatives.In a guest column at GameDaily, Halpin wrote:

This DRM did nothing to combat the cracking of the game. In fact, it essentially helped in training legions of customers how to become pirates and legitimized their rationalization in the process. With each additional negative story – which seem to be released hourly – you can almost hear the collective cringing of anti-piracy executives who know that they have all been forced to take a giant leap backwards due to this fiasco.

Whether you agree or not with Halpin, I think we can all agree that it’s a damn shame that such an interesting and important game has been overshadowed by all this.

EA: Only One Spore Account Per Copy

Keane Ng — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 02:41:29 +0000

Just when you thought all this Spore stuff couldn’t get any worse, it does. Even though the Spore manual says otherwise, you cannot have more than one EA Spore account (for uploading your creations to Sporepedia and the like) for each copy of Spore. Explains an EA rep on the official Spore Forums:

That section in the manual was a misprint and will be corrected in future printings of the manual. There is one Spore registration/account per game/serial code so you are correct in that you cannot make multiple accounts at this time.

Pretty big slip-up there, if it actually was one. This is a really big deal, obviously, because Spore’s community features are one of its biggest pluses, and one of the main reasons why some people, despite thinking the gameplay mediocre, might want to keep playing. Plus, if you’ve got a significant other or kids, then you’ll naturally want to have multiple accounts for each person. EA’s community rep, thankfully, did mention that she understood that kind of need, and was forwarding the message to the team.

PC Review: Spore

John Landis — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 04:19:44 +0000

Editors Note: In the process of reevaluating our review standards, the Ripten editorial team has agreed upon a no syndication policy for any review (past, present, or future) indexed in the Ripten catalog. In light of this, we have replaced the previous syndicated review with the exclusive Ripten review below. Thank you.

From the mind of Will Wright comes the hype juggernaut Spore. We’ve been watching and waiting for this game for long enough to watch actual evolution take place, but was it worth the wait?

First off, I’m not taking any of the crazy DRM issues into account here, as this is a game review and not a review on EA’s licensing practices, so be sure to read the many other articles on the issue on this site here, here, here, and here. I’m going to focus on the game itself. With that little disclaimer aside, let’s discuss the game itself.

Spore tasks players with evolving a single-celled organism of pure cuteness on up through several stages until they become a galactic superpower of cuteness. From the mind of Will Wright, you can see the cartooniness that made him ass-tons of money from Sims expansion packs — it’s prevalent in this game while the seriousness of the game that made him famous (SimCity) has gone the way of the dodo.

There are five stages of the game, each a separate evolutionary stage that plays slightly different than the last. The cell stage is by far the shortest and plays quite similar to a little game called flOw. It could very easily be a flash game for free on some website somewhere. The main goal here is to eat and survive.

It’s here that what you eat for the rest of the game is determined, and it’s the only time in the game where you’ll be able to change from a herbivore mouth to a carnivore mouth, thus changing what you can eat. You can even put both on your cell and eat EVERYTHING. What you eat is tracked on a history graph, and at the end of the cell stage, wherever you are on the graph determines what your creature will eat for the rest of the game. Once you’ve eaten all you can, it’s time to grow some legs and crawl up to dry land.

Once on land, the game transforms into a watered-down third-person adventure game where you can either attack other creatures or make friends with them. Your main task is to get DNA and parts to evolve into a more efficient killing or dancing machine. You’ll also now have to contend with hunger, and your diet choices from the cell stage come into play here, determining what you’ll be able to eat.

Herbivores will eat fruit from trees while carnivores will be forced to either scavenge for dead bodies or make some creatures dead to eat some meat. Omnivores, of course, can eat whatever they want. The nice part is that this has no bearing on your attitude towards other creatures at all. You want to be a meat eater and still make friends? No problem there. I mean, you’ll obviously not be able to make friends with everyone, as you’ll starve to death, but there is nothing stopping you from being a very social meat eater.

It all comes down to the parts that you put on your creature. Certain parts give certain stats that directly determine what your creature will be good at. There are trade-offs, of course, so you can’t be great at everything, but mix and match enough, and you can probably tackle whatever comes your way.

One evolutionary step after another and you’ll gain the ability to bring along friends in your flock. This is a great way for socially focused creatures to survive — make friends with brutal slayers of animal kind to protect your goofy dancing ass and you’re set.

Once you’ve accumulated enough DNA, you’ll evolve to the tribal stage. The sad part of this is that it’s the end of customizing your creature. The most you can do in the tribal stage is play a little dress-up. It’s neat and all, but depending on what your creature looks like at this point, the dressing up may be a pain. It’s sort of hard to put a head on something that is covered with horns and eyeballs.

The game itself transforms into a very generic real-time strategy game, where food becomes the most important thing in the world to your race. Other tribes will pop up and you’ll have the choice to either make war with them or play sweet music for them till they fall in love with you and start sending you food. Once you either befriend or destroy the other tribes, it’s time to form a civilization.

Now that you’re civilized, you once again can custom build some stuff, namely your planes, tanks, and boats. The creation tools are again the highlight of the stage, though economic and religious vehicles tend to be a little too… goofy for my tastes. It’s hard to take a tank seriously when the weapon of choice is a giant pipe organ and some horns.

The actual gameplay here isn’t that different than the tribal stage — instead of ordering your creatures around, you’ll be building vehicles and sending the vehicles around… though you’ll still be doing basically the same as before. You won’t be able to win by allying with the other cities, though. You pretty much have to take them over, but how you go about it can be a little different.

You’ll start off either religious, economic, or militaristic. Again, this is determined by your actions in the previous stage. You can’t actually change your style, but if you take over a city with another focus, you can choose to keep the focus of that city. This can be a bit of a burden if you’re looking to change your overall focus from what you started with to something else.

Religious and military takeovers are basically the same, though religious takeovers don’t seem to actually cause a war. Either way, you still drive up to a city and try to take it over. Economic takeovers, however, require you to be friends with the other city, and then set up a trade route. Trade routes make you extra money, and once they get to a certain point, you can buy out the other nation’s city.

Once you get all the other cities flying the flag of your nation, your race builds a spaceship and you can take to the stars.

The space stage is sort of a strategy game, though it’s a pain in the ass to manage your empire as you are just a ship flying around doing stuff (more on that in a bit). The goal of the space stage is to expand your empire, with a little caveat that you should focus on getting to the center of the galaxy. This is the one overarching mission, and it can be completely ignored if you so choose. The space stage is really where the “simy” sandbox style play that made Will Wright famous finally comes through.

The problem with the space stage is that you go from a relatively simple game with a moderately… moderate difficulty to a freakish beast of complexity. Not that it’s overly complicated really, but for only having one ship to control, it’s insanely complex. Imagine trying to control a game of Civilization, only instead of the omniscient control, it’s feels like a third person shooter.

To tell your city to build a wall, you’ll have to run Link or Marcus or Snake or WHOMEVER over to the city and then say, “Hey, build a wall.” Meanwhile, some town four hundred miles away calls and says, “Yo! We’re being attacked over here!” Being that you are the sole military unit in this freaky game of civilization, you have to run the whole way back to that city to protect it. It has potential, but the size of the galaxy in Spore works against it here.

That’s not to say it’s all bad. You do get tools eventually that allow you to place better turrets and such things to reduce your need to go to these planets for every emergency, but you’ll still end up going there, as the only way to make money in the space game is to sell spice. The only way to get spice is to fly to one of your planets that is gathering the spice and pick it up, and then fly around finding people willing to pay top dollar to buy it. There is no automated way to just bring in money in the game.

It wouldn’t be too bad, I suppose, but the buyers of the spice have random prices for the stuff, so it’s not like you can just, say, pick up all your pink spice and take it to planet X to make a shit-ton of money. Just because planet X paid a hundred-thousand space bucks ten minutes ago doesn’t mean anything now.

It makes the whole thing a giant time sink that just feels like busy work. People who’ve played any number of MMO’s will feel at home with the system, as it feels like they’re just trying to keep you busy doing mundane work so you’ll keep giving them your money.

It’s sad that the space game has the most problems and it seems to be where the focus of the game is. You could very easily start up a cell and run to the space stage in less than an hour if you really wanted to, while the space stage potentially has no end. With a purported half a million stars and who knows how many planets, taking over the entire galaxy would be quite time consuming to say the least.

Overall, the game is fun, if a little bit of a pain. Each stage is basically a very generic version of other genres of games and this keeps things pretty fresh, but they are VERY generic. If you’re a hardcore gamer then it might be kind of a let down, but for the casual crowd it’ll probably be a learning experience.

My wife is a causal gamer, and it was amazing seeing her struggle with some of the stuff in the game. Like a lot of The Sims players, she’s never had even a slight interest in RTS games, so things that came second nature to me, or seemed overly simplified, were confusing and difficult for her.

The thing that both my wife and I gathered from the whole experience, though, was that the game is incredibly fun, even though most of the fun simply derives from the fact that you made these things. There is something that is just awesome about flying to some other planet and seeing something new or something that you’ve made yourself in another game.

The pollination system, or whatever they call it, keeps the game fresh and interesting no matter what, and I have yet to see any giant penises… though I did find an entire planet of walking Sylvester Stallone heads. There is also something frightening about the idea that someone right now could be playing the game and coming across some of my crappy creations.

All in all, I’d say it’s a pretty good game. Making creatures and vehicles is by far the most fun, but the fun carries over to the rest of the game simply when you use those creatures you’ve created to do other things. The learning curve is a little steep at times, and that’s further complicated by the fact that each stage plays like a completely different game than the last, making it more of a learning wave. The space stage is definitely flawed, but is still a lot of fun.

I’d say the biggest problem with the game is that it falls in some kind of neutral zone of gaming. Fans of The Sims (who this games seems to be marketed for) will find it a bit difficult, and the AI can be absolutely brutal at times, whereas fans of SimCity will find the game simply too simple. The potential is there, but it falls a bit short. Even so, the entire idea of the sharing of creatures, buildings, and vehicles keeps the space game fresh and new for a lot longer than you would think.

Spore is “Biggest Attack on Christian Values to Date”

Kev Lochun — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:30:10 +0000

It’s nothing to do with penis monsters. No, today’s scapegoat is evolution. One militant creationist – who describes herself only as a “good Christian woman” – has set up a blog to campaign against Spore. Did we also mention that Will Wright is evil and that she’s killing EA on the stock market? I’m not joking.

The site, Anti Spore, only appeared in the world on 8 September, after its creator’s son asked for a copy of the game. She regales:

It looked innocent enough at first and has “E for Everyone” ESRB rating. But don’t be mislead, apparently ‘everyone’ means everyone they want to teach evolution to.

This entire game is propaganda aimed directly at our children to teach them evolution instead of creationism.

I created this blog to find support for and follow my progress in letting Electronic Arts know that their biggest attack on Christian values to date will not be tolerated.

We can not allow the gaming industry to invade our homes and poison the minds of our children.

After all, their billions in revenue and all the advertising in the world are no match for the power of God.

Ironically, Anti Spore is very much moving into realms of propaganda itself. Remember that Will Wright chap? GCW does. She used to like him. Now he’s evil.

He created Sim City, a fantastic game that celebrated the earth that God created for us and allowed you to use all your God given abilities to make an ideal society. But if you ever felt like you had too much power, God would come in with a tornado or an earthquake and put you back in place.

You would think that as a member of the Episcopal Church, a smart man like Will Wright would not be capable of creating Spore. However, we must be reminded that the Episcopal Church is the only church in America that ordains homosexuals on a regular basis.

It goes on. GCW feels sick that none of the 8,500 EA employees had “enough Jesus” to make a stand against Spore, despite the rather obvious fact that most of them will have had nothing to do with it. But perhaps the biggest point of misguidedness came in a post on 9 September, when she noted that EA’s stock dropped.

“Today EA’s stock is down almost a dollar. I hope that the information about Spore I am making available helped in some small way.”

Pity she hasn’t been looking beyond her remit to notice that the knock-on from EA’s SecuROM DRM in Spore and Red Alert 3.

EA’s Overly Restrictive DRM Causes Mini Riots in Sporetopia

John Kershaw — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:32:11 +0000

Despite being one of the most anticipated games of this year, some people are not overly happy with the overbearing and unnecessary DRM EA have placed on the game.

To “protect” the game, EA have kindly added SecuROM DRM (Digital Rights Management) to all copies. This limits the number of installs you can make (in Spore’s case, 3) and requires you to activate the install over the net. But it gets worse. Over the past few years accusations have been made of the software and the stupidly high level of access it has on your PC.

For some reason, SecuROM requires the highest level of access to your data possible, higher than the average user gets. It can then watch and tinker with whatever it wants, and send that information to whatever server it deems fit. When BioShock came out, there were accusations (since semi-cleared) of SecuROM acting suspiciously like a root kit because of this.

It seems many Amazon buyers are none too happy with the discovery of SecuROM on their legally bought copies of Spore and have had a mini-riot in the reviews section. There are currently more than 200 single-star reviews, giving the game an average score of 1.5 stars (out of 5).

The most popular review, written by Erich Maria Remarque, points a very damning finger at the DRM:

First of all, the game incorporates a draconian DRM system that requires you to activate over the internet, and limits you to a grand total of 3 activations. If you reach that limit, then you’ll have to call EA in order to add one extra activation. That’s not as simple as it sounds, since when you reach that point EA will assume that you, the paying customer, are a filthy pirating thief. You will need to provide proof of purchase, reasons why the limit was reached, etc, etc (it has all happened before with another recent EA product, Mass Effect).

EA, of course, is not obligated to grant you that extra activation or even provide that service. In a couple of years they might very well even shut down the general activation servers, because “it’s not financially feasible” to keep them running. What you will be left with is a nice, colorful $50 coaster. And you will be required to pay for another copy/license if you want to continue playing.

When will these companies learn that treating people as guilty before proven innocent will only ever do harm? The irony to all this is that it’s possible to get a copy of Spore without the DRM, but you’ll have to go through the illegal, piracy channels to get it. Yaaar.

Via: Fred Beneson’s Blog, Team Teabag

Drake’s Function: ET Expert Praises Spore

Andrew Podolsky — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 18:03:27 +0000

We may have no idea what real aliens might look like, but some of us have a better idea than others. In a planetarium presentation that touched on Yoda, Alf, E.T. and xenomorphs, Spore creator Will Wright and extraterrestrial expert Frank Drake discussed their backgrounds, both personal and professional, and why Spore is the game that will inspire a generation of space cadets.

At the soon-to-be-opened California Academy of Sciences, set in the center of Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, EA held a black tie and feathers/spikes/wings soiree to celebrate the launch of Spore.

Will Wright’s speech, for the most part, focused on his own background and inspiration for making Spore, which is a story we’ve heard a bit about already (see David Jaffe’s recent video blog about how good intentions don’t guarantee a good game). Frank Drake’s talk was more impressive, if only because he doesn’t seem to care much about videogames, but was somehow convinced to whip up his own creature in Spore.

Drake’s creation, based on what he considers to be the most successful aspects of homo sapien combined with a few of his own ideas, is a tall, green, two mouthed, three eyed, four armed monster called “super sapien”. Like us, it can stand on two feet, keeping its head up high and away from danger. Unlike us, it has chlorophyll in its skin, a third eye in the back of its head, some extra limbs (for bringing in the groceries), and a second mouth directly over the stomach to avoid death by choking.

Drake’s a brilliant astronomer and theoretician who came up with the famous Drake Equation, and watching him play with Spore’s creature creator was amusing. He seemed genuinely convinced that Spore will influence a generation of kids to the wonders of science, but part of his argument was that modern science fiction doesn’t inspire kids, and that videogames that are not scientifically-based are not helping kids to become more creative.

While games like Spore, The Sims, and Sim City should be lauded for touching on aspects of science, sociology, and urban planning, other games offer academic value as well. I’ve learned a lot about tactics from playing Starcraft, history from Civilization, and the importance of the second amendment from Resident Evil 4. A lot of games have some scientific or historical basis, and even those that don’t (the dumb, fun, summer blockbusters of games) at least encourage creativity in the forms of art design, writing, and direction.

After the talk, we had a preview of the Academy’s stunning planetarium, which was hypnotic. Our “tour” of the universe included the solar system, Milky Way galaxy, and our nearby cluster of galaxies, all the way out to the Cosmic Background Radiation, or as it’s known in the scientific community, “God’s stinky fart”.

Spore, the next step in mankind’s quest for knowledge, comes out on Sunday.

Miscellaneous observations:

Private aside to the person with the digital camera and bright red flashbulb: When we’re all trying to enjoy the planetarium, STOP TAKING FLASH PHOTOGRAPHS EVERY TEN SECONDS, you inconsiderate asshat.

Also, some attendees were fascinated by the food, which is actually the exact wrong thing to focus on when you’re supposed to be evaluating videogames.

But hey, look, miniburgers! That was a cow once, right? Cows are animals, we eat them, it’s part of the great circle of life. It all ties together. Delicious food. Buy Spore.

Will Wright Loves Phallic Spore Creatures

Kev Lochun — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:44:38 +0000

You didn’t think I was actually going to show a penis creature?

You might have thought Will Wright might have pulled a facepalm when people started creating genitalia based creatures. Not so – he thinks they’re ace.

“When you give players creative control, you have to expect they’re going to do the unexpected,”

says Wright, though I would argue that creating a walking phallus is far from surprising.

“It’s amazingly explicit, especially when those creations are animated. We just have to make sure those people aren’t messing up the experience for others.”

Wright also revealed that possible console versions wouldn’t be direct ports, but would be tied to each platform’s strengths – arguing that the difference between a keyboard, controller, and Wii remote was case enough. He also mused on the possibility of a sequel, even though the full game hasn’t been released yet.

“I don’t think we could design a sequel to Spore until the fans showed us what they like,” he says. “I think there’s going to be a fair amount of learning over the next few months. What’s important for me is what sort of stories the players are using the game to tell. Games that have the longest legs are the ones with the most narrative density.”

Best hope the players can get past this particular brand of storytelling.

EA: Will Wright’s Spore Goes Gold

Chad Lakkis — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 01:56:16 +0000

We all know the story of how many days it took God to make this and that, but what we don’t know is how long EA kept Big G at bay before the process actually started. Well, the delays attached to Spore are officially a thing of the past, and the product, which at one point seemed destined to be called “Big Willy’s Penis Planet”, has finally gone gold.

Will Wright’s Spore will hit next month on multiple platforms and devices. The Apple iPhone application blazes the way on September 4th, while the Nintendo DS, PC, and Mac versions of the game will split cells on US store shelves a few days later on the 7th.

Full press release available after the jump.

EA AND MAXIS ANNOUNCE THAT SPORE HAS GONE GOLD

Long-Anticipated Game from Gaming Luminary, Will Wright, is Complete and in Production;

Hits Store Shelves September 7

Redwood City, CA – August 14, 2008 –The wait is almost over! Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) and Maxis today announced that Spore™ the most anticipated video game of the year from the creator of The Sims(TM), has gone gold and will be available for the Mac and PC at retailers September 5 in Europe and September 7 in North America and Asia Pacific. Spore™ Creatures for Nintendo DS™ and Spore™ Origins for mobile phones will also be available globally September 7.

Players who preorder Spore or Spore Galactic Edition from participating retailers will receive a coupon good for $10 off their next purchase of custom merchandise at www.zazzle.com/sporestore. For the ultimate Spore fan, the limited Galactic Edition will contain the ‘Making of Spore’ DVD, ‘How to Build a Better Being’ DVD (a 50 minute National Geographic Channel documentary DVD hosted by Spore mastermind, Will Wright), ‘The Art of Spore’ hardback book, an exclusive Spore poster, and a premium 100-page Galactic Handbook.

“We are so excited to finally get Spore into the hands of fans and players,” said Lucy Bradshaw, executive producer of Spore at Maxis. “The Maxis studio has had an absolute blast creating Spore, but the fun is just beginning. The most engaging stories are truly the ones people create themselves, and we can’t wait to see how players not only craft and explore the Spore universe, but hear what stories they have to tell as a result.”

Spore gives players their own personal universe in a box, allowing fans to create and evolve life, establish tribes, build civilizations, sculpt entire worlds and explore a universe created by other gamers. Spore gives players a wealth of creative tools to customize nearly every aspect of their universe: creatures, vehicles, buildings, and even spaceships. Players can then seamlessly share their creations with the world via the Sporepedia™ and explore infinite new galaxies created by other gamers*.

Spore E-Card Creator Announced: Share Your Spore Universe With Friends

Chad Lakkis — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:17:52 +0000

EA has announced a partnership with Planetwide Media, allowing Spore content creators to share their creations with friends through the use of Spore E-Cards.

The service will be free, however it will require you to register. Once registered, players will be able to log in at MashON.com/SPORE, and bring their “Spore creatures to life”. Card options consist of various backgrounds, clip art, and word bubbles. When your design is complete, you can then email it to friends or share it via one of many social network options.