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Spore About Six Months Away

Posted by Zonk on Wed Oct 24, 2007 11:30 AM
from the believe-it-when-i-see-it dept.
Entertainment Games
SimCity creator and all-around genius Will Wright recently publicly stated that Spore is about six months away. Whether that's six months from completion or release isn't said. CVG has his comments from a recent interview with Radio 5 Live: "Spore's an ambitious game - which he admits - that's essentially a life sim. Players start off as a single-cell organism and then create their species at every stage of its evolution - from its first steps on land through to tribes then a culture and then finally it's off to explore the galaxy. 'We've had to do a lot of testing to make sure that the game is accessible by a wide group of people', Wright went on to explain. 'I want the people who have played The Sims to be able to play Spore - I don't want it to be some thing just hardcore gamers play.'"
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[+] Will Wright's Next Game: Spore 41 comments
1up.com has a look at Will Wright's newest game, revealed today at the Game Developer's conference. Entitled Spore, the game promises to be (in a word) unique. From the article: "Wright's latest creation spans the rise of a space-faring civilization from its humble beginnings in the primordial soup. 'It's actually a lot like WarioWare...It features a wide variety of game types as a sort of homage to my favorite games.'" PC Magazine has details as well, as does Gamasutra.
[+] Spore Delayed Until Q2 2008 107 comments
georgewilliamherbert writes "CNet has the news that EA is reporting a slight loss for the quarter. It expects profits for the year to fall short about ten cents, hitting a high of $1.20 as opposed to the expected $1.31. The company's share price was down 3% in extended trading yesterday. The reason for these adjustments? EA reluctantly announced that Spore has been delayed until Q2 2008. ' Redwood City, Calif.-based Electronic Arts said it taken out Spore, a game where players build organisms from scratch, from its financial projections for the fiscal year ending in March 2008, adding that the game could be delayed until fiscal 2009. In the fourth quarter ended March 31, the company said its net loss widened to $25 million, or 8 cents per share, from $16 million, or 5 cents, in the year-earlier period. Excluding items, the company earned 6 cents per share versus 14 cents in the year-earlier period.'" From a technology perspective, this thing seems at least as complicated as some Massive games; makes perfect sense it would take about as long to build this title as a game in that genre.
[+] Apple: Spore, Call of Duty 4 Confirmed for OSX 125 comments
1up is reporting that, along with the big announcements from yesterday's MacWorld event, the welcome news trickles down that OSX will be getting some more games. The much-delayed Spore has been confirmed for the platform, as has the hit FPS title Call of Duty 4. "In Spore's case, the magic of cross-platform portability is achieved through the use of a special software layer supplied by Toronto-based TransGaming Technologies. This software is capable of interpreting hardware calls to Windows DirectX into Mac-capable instructions. Through use of this technology, Electronic Arts (and others) seem hopeful about bringing even more games to mac in the coming months."
[+] Will Wright's Spore To Release Sept. 7th 186 comments
After several delays and much anticipation, Spore looks like it will finally be coming out this year. EA has announced a September 7th release date for the game. The only confirmed platforms so far are Windows PCs, Macintoshes, the Nintendo DS and various mobile phones. Wright wants the Wii, 360, and PS3 to have the game, but they're not firm 'yes'es yet. Newsweek's LevelUp blog is celebrating the announcement with a series of interviews. N'Gai Croal spoke to Will Wright, and the man himself tries to convince us why it's been worth the wait, and (oh yeah) why it has taken so long. Croal also sat down with the game's Executive Producer, Lucy Bradshaw, who explains how the game has settled onto other platforms like the DS and mobile phones.
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Spore About Six Months Away 50 Comments More /

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  • Summary = Article (Score:4, Funny)

    by TheThiefMaster (992038) on Wednesday October 24 2007, @11:37AM (#21101429)
    Just like there isn't anything more in this post than in the subject :)
    • That's because it's not really news. Nothing has changed. In fact, the only 'news' in the article is the official announcement that it's in final testing. 6 months of final testing is a -lot-, though, so I'm not sure I believe that... Unless they expect to have to make major changes.

      I actually think it's a lot more likely that the PC version is done and 1 or more of the consolse they plan to support at the initial release is lagging behind. They are probably feverishly working on it and hoping to be do

  • 6 Months (Score:5, Funny)

    by Taimat (944976) on Wednesday October 24 2007, @11:38AM (#21101437)
    Right After Duke Nukem Forever - which will be released in 5 Months....

    • Re:6 Months (Score:4, Funny)

      by Jarjarthejedi (996957) <<bookreader13> <at> <cox.net>> on Wednesday October 24 2007, @11:53AM (#21101659) Journal
      And just before Nuclear Fusion, approximately 7 month away. Don't forget the flying cars coming in 8 months.

      I hereby predict and welcome our '6 Month's later' Overlords will arrive in approximately 1 years time, if we're lucky, in Soviet Russia.

    • Re:6 Months (Score:5, Funny)

      by IthnkImParanoid (410494) on Wednesday October 24 2007, @11:56AM (#21101699)
      I look forward to playing Spore on my fusion-powered computer (running a secure Windows OS) in the passenger seat of my robot controlled fuel cell powered flying car while listening to the inaugural address of president Kucinich.

      Everyone knows DNF will be exclusively released for the Phantom.
      • Don't be ridiculous. Kucinich will never win...

      • I look forward to playing Spore on my fusion-powered computer (running a secure Windows OS) in the passenger seat of my robot controlled fuel cell powered flying car while listening to the inaugural address of president Kucinich.

        And by "robot controlled" you of course mean your android girlfriend made of shapechanging liquid metal.

        But why is the car powered by a fuel cell if you have fusion power ?

        • Re:6 Months (Score:4, Funny)

          by IthnkImParanoid (410494) on Wednesday October 24 2007, @04:37PM (#21105605)
          You can't just carry around a fusion reactor in your pocket, silly...at least not for the next few years. The fuel cell is for portable energy storage, not energy generation.

          As far as the android girlfriend goes, I think I'll wait until the shapechanging gel models come out. One little software glitch and you're making out with the business end of an industrial can opener.

          • You can't just carry around a fusion reactor in your pocket, silly...at least not for the next few years. The fuel cell is for portable energy storage, not energy generation.

            Must be a big computer, then, if the fusion plant which doesn't fit into a car fits into it. Or am I missing the joke ?

            As far as the android girlfriend goes, I think I'll wait until the shapechanging gel models come out. One little software glitch and you're making out with the business end of an industrial can opener.

            Ouch. Goo

      • Who would listen to Kucinich when you had the tribal beats of your own race of cycloptic camoflauging tentacle monsters as an alternative.

    • Sounds like EA, Will Wright (Score:4, Funny)

      by fistfullast33l (819270) on Wednesday October 24 2007, @11:56AM (#21101713) Homepage Journal
      and the Iraq War proponents have both started converting time to Friedman Units [wikipedia.org].
      • This comment has as much to do with this article as the parent. Lets take every chance we have to start a pointless political flamewar between the child killers and the wussies. I of course don't care to take a side in the issue because I'm to busy looking at pr0n. Due to my sticky hands, my ballot will probably have hanging chads too. It's all a conspiracy man!
    • And right when the Iraq War is scheduled to end as well. Maybe they're just waiting for the troops to get home so they don't feel left out.

  • Call Me Cynical (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Squiffy (242681) on Wednesday October 24 2007, @12:11PM (#21101921) Homepage
    Call me cynical, but the wider the audience is, the dumber the game will be.

  • Delays are not always bad. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Devir (671031) on Wednesday October 24 2007, @12:12PM (#21101925) Homepage
    Now the time has come with Spore delays that people equate it to Duke Nukem Forever. For one, Will Wright is a perfectionist. He wont let trash get released. he wants the game acessible to more than the hardcore. The money spent developing would justify the need for a wider audience.

    People dont make games simply because they want to, they need to take a serious financial look at cost versus estimated market. You cannot simply jump in, spend $20,000,000 dollars in development and expent the game to be a 5 million copy seller.

    Remember Sims 1? That was a huge risk for EA to take. A risk that paid off beyond what anyone imagined. They game was simple, barren of serious content and low graphics. It was all done in a way that if the game didnt sell well, at least they didnt invest excessive cash into the game. By making it expandable, they had planned for it's potential success. Years later Sims is going strong.

    Spore is in a similar category. It could flop, it could be the boulder that crushes the sims dominance. But if they release a game, that is buggy, and crash prone, that they plan to patch repeatedly for another year, the game will be quickly dropped and fail miserably. So in taking this risk, they must be 100% certain that Spore is complete, 99.9% bug free and acessable to a large ammount of people, both hardcore and non gamer alike. It's not easy to do this. It takes time, planning, implementation, testing and more planning and revision. Give it time, it will be worth the wait.

    Now, Duke Forever. It's an FPS, no where near as complex as Spore. It should have been out after 2 years development. It was basically an empty promise that kept the company alive. Duke = Vapor, Spore = Real.
    • Having waited for a game that was almost as delayed as DNF, and loving what finally came out, I'm more than willing to let someone like Will take his time and get Spore right, six months is a blink of the eye.
        • If you examine the developer's commentary in the game, yes they had to scrap and redo major portions of the game a number of times before they found what they liked. Noteably, one of the first versions had a "Commander" ala Natural Selection that they really wanted to keep but couldn't ever get to 'groove' right.

          What they delivered was an excedingly well polished execution of a classic. I don't begrudge them the time it took to come up with this, any more than I'll begrudge Will taking the time to get Spore
    • "Duke = Vapor, Spore = Real."

      On Slashdot, it's vaporeware unless it is on store shelves or it's Apple.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Goldsmith (561202)
      I don't know, this all seems very Peter Molyneux-ish to me.

      A developer is making an extremely complex game (like Black and White) after making a very sucessful simple game (like Populous). The complex game takes forever to finish, features are in limbo, there are lots of cool videos, but... is the game any fun?

  • Urination (Not OT) (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anti_Climax (447121) on Wednesday October 24 2007, @12:26PM (#21102121)
    Am I the only one that can't hear about spore without thinking of this Penny-Arcade comic? [penny-arcade.com]

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by garyok (218493)
      Hmm, while water sports with Will Wright have a certain allure, I always think of this gem [vgcats.com]. And the Maxis guys liked is enough to do their own version [vgcats.com] of it with the Spore graphics.
      • I thought of that one as well, but it was definitely after the words "Pee on is Will Wright" rang through my head.
  • Pre-order now at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FKBCX4/ [amazon.com].
  • I don't know about anyone else, but I like the graphics better back when he first demoed it at the 2005 gdc. The game art just looks too cartoony now.

    Hell yeah, I'm still gonna buy it.

  • Talk about not knowing your market (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SmallFurryCreature (593017) on Thursday October 25 2007, @06:35AM (#21111387) Journal

    The Sims IS hardcore. So harcore that people buy expansions after expansion while it is THEM that create the real content, pay for sites hosting user made content and spend ages working around all the shortcomings of the original product.

    First update for most people? To get rid of the cartoony look of the characters and get some realistic faces in there.

    The Sims community is as hardcore as the flightsim crowd. This is NOT a casual game. Casual gaming is web-based. Games you can pick up and play AND finish in a few minutes. The Sims AIN'T.

    In fact the only difference between The Sims, flightsims, trains sims and the "traditional" hardcore crowd of FPS lovers, is that the first group can speak proper english and has touched a member of the sex they find attractive.

    But in time and money spend on the game, in many ways the former group is even more hardcore.

    So what does he want Spore to be? A tetris type game OR a The Sims?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Underwhelmed Indeed. I was totally stoked about playing Spore when I first saw it... Now there are so many other cool games that ACTUALLY came out like Portal that make me not care as much about Spore.

      • Re:Underwhelmed! (Score:4, Interesting)

        by nschubach (922175) on Wednesday October 24 2007, @12:26PM (#21102127) Journal
        You make an interesting point. Would we be better off not knowing about stuff (building up hype) until it's ready? Is this why open source isn't gaining more steam? People expect the instant gratification? Your more likely to pick something up if it comes out "production stable" within a specific period of time? So let's say there's an ambitious project to create a game with ___ feature, but this is going to take years of development and bug testing. Would you like to know it's on the horizon or about 1 month before it's released?
          • I'm not going to disagree with you that episodic content may start making inroads. I think viable integrated distribution/payment methods such as Steam, Xbox Live, and whatever-the-PS3-service-is-called will certainly help push this along.

            But regarding your reasoning... it's not quite that simple. Nowadays, no game developer "starts from scratch again" every 12/18 months. Every game development company I've worked for had a core engine which was relatively stable. Even porting the engine to other platfo
    • I have to agree. After all the hype, when they finally demoed the product, I felt.. MEH. I think the procedural animation was really cool, but when I looked at what they had, I felt like there wasn't enough interesting gameplay, and more like a cool concept that is fun to watch. I'd almost rather watch it on autopilot then run around.

      I also wonder how different each world will be, especially if certain leg/arm/body combinations are going to end up killing off your species if they don't work well together, t
      • Like the Sims? Yeah, that sure didn't go anywhere...

        BTW, I'm not sure where you've read claims that "it is completely open and free to do whatever you want and design absolutely anything you want". If someone did indeed say that, you have a right to be skeptical. But I don't recall those claims being made about Spore. To be honest, I attribute that sort of over-promising and under-delivering to Peter Molineaux. Not maliciously, mind you, but I think he tends to dream bigger than his programmers can rea

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by montyzooooma (853414)
        No.... it's not an RPG. It's an alien doll house by the guy who popularised Sim Dollshouse. The fun in Spore comes from sticking arms and eyeballs on your virtual pet. The games are simplified fare which will be torn apart by those mythical hardcore gamers. I think some people have been reading too much into the videos, which are usually 50% focused on the design screen and 50% showing the actual game, except the design screen IS the game. Just you wait, the Spore backlash will make Black And White look lik

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