EA's (Limited) Creature Creator For Spore Released

JimboFBX writes "The Spore creature creator has been released. It's a limited demo, but it lets you make a full creature and test drive it a little. It gives some insight on what you'll be able to do with your creatures. Personally, the novelty already wore off within 10 minutes. From what I can tell, the full creature creator is a separate purchase from the actual game. Gotta love EA." An anonymous reader points to a thread at More Awesome Than You alleging that this creature creator also contains some phone-home features which might be cause for concern.

About the payware version

[Mascot (120795)]

Has anybody seen any logical explanation for charging for the full version? The entire idea of releasing the creature creator is to have a population of creatures ready for when the game is released, as far as I've gathered. If so it makes no sense to limit it.

Is it as simple as "we think we can get a few bucks off of this so let's charge for it", or is there some other reason?

Re:About the payware version

[Daimanta (1140543)]

You've answered your own question. People are willing to pay for both the creature editor and the game. So EA lets them and rakes in the cash.

Re:

[SQLGuru (980662)]

Or at least gives them some info about you so that they can ban you and all future attempts to buy your way back in.

Layne

Re:About the payware version

[k_187 (61692)]

I would also imagine that charging $10 for it allows them to easily weed out all the people making penis head creatures and uploading them.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, not true. There are already a pile of penis creatures out there including a goatse one. There's some youtube links to a lot of them on a Bluenews thread I was reading yesterday (sadly BN is blocked here at work so I can't reference any of them at the moment).

Re:About the payware version

[mobby_6kl (668092)]

That [google.com] doesn't [youtube.com] seem [youtube.com] to be [youtube.com] working [youtube.com] that [youtube.com] well. [youtube.com]

Anyway, it's not surprising that it "phones home", considering that it's supposed to be online/sharing oriented, and needs to contect the servers. As far as SecuROM, the version I got from TPB works fine, although that doesn't mean SecuROM didn't install silently.

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[Splab (574204)]

Crikey thats some twisted stuff. But what else could one expect from something like this :-)

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[Marc Desrochers (606563)]

oops, I meant to post this one. [youtube.com]

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[ericvids (227598)]

The not-so-evil answer is that if you release all of the creature features right now for free, upon release of the game there wouldn't be surprises left in terms of these features -- you would have seen 'em all.

I'm assuming of course that the paid creature editor isn't released yet (or isn't gonna be released anytime soon, at least significantly before the game's release).

On the other hand, if it HAS been released, then the reason's exactly as you said.

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[Chyeld (713439)]

You did notice the letters "EA" in the summary, correct? Have you seen the number of expansion packs, deluxe packs, and megauber packs they release? Especially ones like the Sims?

While Spore might be Sid's attempt to get around this (it's hard to sell an expansion pack when all the content is user/procedurally generated), that just means they are going to do their best to squeeze out every last cent they can out of the game.

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[Broken scope (973885)]

Which Sid do you happen to be talking about?

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[Chyeld (713439)]

The one that spells it Will. Completely understandable you didn't recognize that one.

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[elrous0 (869638)]

they know that plenty of hackers are willing to shell out a piddly $10 to be the first to produce an early crack for the creature editor.

There, fixed that for you.

Typical...

[Stormwatch (703920)]

Legit version has malware-ish features. Warezed version will certainly be clean. Do they WANT people to pirate or what?!

Re:

[ludomancer (921940)]

I was looking for info on this. I blocked its net access with my firewall because I felt the game would probably try to connect to their servers (something acceptable considering the games psuedo-online design), but I didn't know if I was going to buy into the full version (of Spore, not creature creator) until I found out exactly what EA was pulling across my network.

So what exactly does this thing do in terms of information sharing? (or stealing)

Re:Typical...

[cephah (1244770)]

I have never experienced any negative consequences of using warezed versions of ga--
Dear cephah,
Your pants' key from her bedroom!
JUST FOLLOW THIS WAY>>
Sincerely, egor chao-li.
--games, so I can't really relate.

Quite entertaining

[Hektor_Troy (262592)]

It's quite entertaining (Goatse-monster aside) to toy with this program.

Some of the limits in the creator are a bit silly (like only having carnivore mouth options and not including herbi- and omnivore), but it's still fun, and very easy to learn to use.

I can't wait to get my hands on the full game - but I really hope I get to set the language myself and not be limited to whatever the installer has detected on my system.

SecuROM

[FnordX (115944)]

The "free" demo does also come bundled with SecuROM, so, downloader beware.

Also, it includes about 8 items out of each of the menus. If you're wanting to, you can pay the full price for the demo and get everything, and then proceed to upload your content to help out the developers by allowing them to have content ready when the game launches.

So, basically, you're paying EA to make their game world better, and they don't even trust you enough to give you access to the limited edition of the demo without some pretty intrusive spyware. And EA wonders why they get such a bad rep?

Re:

[Opportunist (166417)]

I'm pretty sure they don't wonder. But as long as there's no impact in sales, they also don't care.

WHEN PENIS MONSTERS ATTACK

[the brown guy (1235418)]

Gotta love the penis monsters....nothing beats getting your entire civilization wiped out by being that rock with their cocks out....

<a href="http://kotaku.com/5017350/when-spore-penis-monsters-attack">When spore penis monsters attack</a>, you can't beat the title.

Re:WHEN PENIS MONSTERS ATTACK

[Radish03 (248960)]

This news story was in the Sci/Tech section of Google News this morning for me. Definitely did a triple take upon seeing the words "Penis Monster" in the headline.

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[Cathoderoytube (1088737)]

'That's not a penis! My species reproduces asexually! It's merely a defense mechanism that spurts a viscous liquid when we're threatened!'

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[g0bshiTe (596213)]

Certainly sounds like a penis.

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[BlueHands (142945)]

I would like to some of the goatse versions, but no one would click on them.....

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[Kimos (859729)]

There are now over 300 spore penis monsters on YouTube. Really...

Bask in the phallic glory of five years of development. [youtube.com]

Definitely

[Pojut (1027544)]

I've been looking forward to the creature creator for some time. Ever since I was a kid, I have had a really overactive imagination...something like this is exactly what I have been looking for!

Given the horrible fact that the retail game will have SecuRom, I will likely just buy a copy in the store, then download and play a cracked copy.

I've heard rumours that the creature editor contains SecuRom as well, but that doesn't bother me TOO much at this point...likely gonna be formatting my computer soon anywa

Re:

[MindStalker (22827)]

If you play the cracked version you can almost guarantee you won't be able to participate in the automatic content sharing, so you'd be playing an offline version only while the full game is multi-single-user

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[Pojut (1027544)]

That all depends on what they use to validate individual users. If it just goes by CD key, then it won't matter because I will have a retail copy:-)

Here's hoping, anyway...

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[MindStalker (22827)]

I know the pirated pre-release of the creature editor was banned from content sharing and it doesn't have any key :)

Bow to the dildosaurus!

[inotocracy (762166)]

Now all we need is the vaginasaurus to go with it.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-cjbTXOeMM [youtube.com]

The goatse creature

[Jugalator (259273)]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbvbyzvXOOc [youtube.com]

That one had me laugh out loud at work today. ;)

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[MobileTatsu-NJG (946591)]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbvbyzvXOOc

That one had me laugh out loud at work today. ;)

Mod parent up. On-topic usage of Goatse is almost an art-form.

Re:

[Opportunist (166417)]

Oh c'mon, it ain't so hard. Every time the ??AAs are mentioned, you can easily be dead on topic with the most infamous goatse pic when describing their lawyers and managers.

Laggy

[Knara (9377)]

Turns out the leaked version of this has been around for at least a week. Various xChan boards have been doing threads featuring a variety of memes that were created using it.

Not terribly surprised that the "demo" is crippled. It's EA after all. Too bad about the SecureROM nonsense, though.

Re:

[k_187 (61692)]

Not terribly surprised that the "demo" is crippled.

Isn't that kind of the definition of a demo?

Hats of to razor1911 and other groups

[unity100 (970058)]

for it seems we will need their 'fixes' to be able to play our LEGITIMATELY purchased version of this game.

on a sidenote, i have to ask - has it become a tradition to hire iditos for top level management positions in gaming firms ?

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[malkavian (9512)]

Nah, it's tradition to hire people with the business and finance degrees.. You know, the ones that ran Enron, the property markets and so on..

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[ludomancer (921940)]

on a sidenote, i have to ask - has it become a tradition to hire iditos for top level management positions in gaming firms ?

You say that as a joke, but it's not. You have no idea...

Alleged phone-home features?

[Bieeanda (961632)]

There's one post in that thread that says something very vague about an encrypted communication, and the rest advocates disconnecting your Internet connection. That's not news, it's hearsay.

Now, SecuROM in the installer-- that is worthy of note.

On "Phoning home"

[Suddenly_Dead (656421)]

The game does utilize an internet connection for legitimate purposes. The banner at the start seems to be loaded off the internet (advertising the full game). There's a section in the "Sporepedia" that has links to purchase the game, advertisements for Spore merchandise and other things which I would think are loaded dynamically off the net. And the game of course lets you create and upload creations.

More, you know, evidence of malicious intent would be nice before people start running around like the sky is falling.

Re:

[Tarindel (107177)]

Also, when the banners at the start are displaying, the game connects to the patch servers to see if any patches are available. There just aren't any yet.

Hardly malicious, nor even particularly unexpected.

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[hopelessdeskmonkey (1310079)]

Yeah, you're right, just because someone has their hand in your pocket doesn't mean that they're going to take anything out. Oh wait, I don't like having someone put their hand in my pocket. To be honest the phone home feature isn't as onerous as the 3 validation limit. If you change video cards, hard drives, OS, or make a variety of undisclosed changes to your system they break your game. Why bother paying for that? I change components frequently, and would have to pay for this games 3 times a year, n

Great Old Ones

[cptnapalm (120276)]

I might be interested in this game if I can make Cthulhu & the Gang. Otherwise, meh.

Why buy?

[zuggy40 (951875)]

This is a perfect example of what I like to call "BioShock Conundrum" (since that was my first experience). Why buy when pirating is a more enjoyable and pleasant experience?

sporn

[Dillenger69 (84599)]

We're being inundated with penis monsters.

It's a new category: sporn

yay for innovation.

IT COUNTS AS A PREORDER

[azuredrake (1069906)]

Hey guys,

I just wanted to point out what nobody has said (for North America, anyway) yet: If you buy the Creature Stand Alone, it counts as a preorder for Spore, in that if you buy spore at the EA online download thingy you get the CSA's price back off your purchase.

Now I'm not naive enough to think that that's going to stop most readers here from just warezing it anyway, but breaking the law is breaking the law; so for those of you who want to do it legit, this will save you money.

Re:

[azuredrake (1069906)]

Some people opt on principle not to break laws. The above information would be useful for them to know, if they value both lawfulness and pragmatism and are trying to make a decision.

I also work in the game industry, so people talking about pirating games does tend to piss me off. If you don't like the product, simply don't buy it - that is your message. Pretending your piracy is noble because you "stick it to the man" is a convenient invention to assuage the periodic pangs of morality which sometimes o

Clarification

[Jane Q. Public (1010737)]

I am not trying to state that unlawful copying is a good thing in the vast majority of cases. But, on the other hand, NOBODY has a right to install software (rootkits, malware, services) on my computer without my PRIOR CONSENT.

NOBODY!!!

The latter offense is vastly greater than the former. One might deprive a business of a bit of profit (at least theoretically, but in practice it is far less than claimed). The other is an unforgivable intrusion into someone's personal world and personal information.

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[Colonel Korn (1258968)]

While my Mac mini is more than powerful enough on the hardware end, now I have to shell out $139 to buy a new version of OS X ... just to run this thing.

Sigh.

Can't you bootcamp to Windows?

Re:

[Pluvius (734915)]

You mean... people buy Windows?

Rob