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SPORE Released 5 Days Early In Australia
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Sep 02, 2008 08:17 AM
from the time-to-propagate dept.
from the time-to-propagate dept.
knypha writes "Several sites are reporting that the much anticipated SPORE has been released 5 days ahead of the scheduled release date in Australia. I can confirm that SPORE is sitting on shelves in retailers and for the tidy sum of A$95.95 it can be yours. Why the early release exactly seems to be a matter of contention. No news if the game can actually be played yet or if the lucky early punters will still have to wait till the official release when EA allows for any validation process to occur. I guess EA could possibly be using the relatively small population to test the servers...or someone somewhere stuffed up!"
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Good luck to australian gamers (Score:2, Funny)
Paying A$95.95 for the privilege of hosing your system down with SecuROM. I can't say I envy you.
Re:Good luck to australian gamers (Score:5, Insightful)
If it uses SecuROM I'm just going to torrent it.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Just because no one likes SecuROM doesn't mean one is entitled to download the game for free.
Re:Good luck to australian gamers (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
He should buy it if he wants to play it
Unfortunately, he has to pirate it to ensure he can play it.
I just hope Fallout 3 won't follow this sad trend. If all games start going the "online activation, max 3 installs" route, I might have to find a new hobby. I sure as hell won't buy games in this state.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
By buying it, you are endorsing the protection.
I'm so much against the notion that I should need to break a protection scheme on something I bought (it's legal where I live), that I refuse to buy it to begin with. They know what they need to do to get my money. Their move.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Then run it with wine in a chroot environment if you're worried about the control of your machine.
Spore will work in wine if you look on wine-patches mailing list for the setScissorRect patch and getStencilDepth. It hasn't been included in the main git tree yet because the code doesn't mimic windows behaviour exactly, but it'll make Spore work.
There, now you can play Spore without any worry of the DRM effecting your machine. You can also now play Steam games too so go knock yourself out and have some safe f
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Just because someone mentions SecuROM doesn't mean he's going to pirate it.
I, for one, won't be buying it because of SecuROM and because EA are using Cider instead of making a real Mac port.
Re:Good luck to australian gamers (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you *don't* want them making it on the Mac at all - or if it just plain doesn't work well under Cider - than don't let the fact it's not native stop you from getting it. While making games for the Mac is still so uncommon this kind of thing should be encouraged, not discouraged. Later when it's considered SOP to make games of the Mac you can go ahead and complain about such things.
Parent
Amen to that (Score:3, Interesting)
Amazing how folks on Slashdot think that the industry is totally deaf.
"I'm too much of a Mac snob to buy games that would even function on another system."
"I pay $15 a month for WoW because I have to but torrent everything else I can get my hands on, because I hate DRM."
Its almost like that sort of attitude among customers might, hmm, drive business decisions or something.
Re:Amen to that (Score:5, Interesting)
Child does good you praise it, child does bad you put it in time out. Dog does good you give it a treat, dog does bad you stuff it's face in the mess it made and yell "bad dog." EA does over-all net good you buy their game, EA does bad you boycott it and maybe yell on their forums. Don't try to say "Making for mac is good but [details]." Details are confusing while they're still struggling with the whole Mac-good or Mac-bad thing. Again, like children or dogs it may take a good number of reward-punishment cycles before these ideas start sinking in and you can try to teach it something else. Don't be discouraged when yet another game is released with DRM or Cider.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Cider _is_ native code. All the way down. The only real difference (user interface issues aside, and most games don't use the native UI in any event) is that each DirectX call obviously goes through one more stack frame before it hits the hardware (game->cider directX->OpenGL->driver rather than game->directX->driver).
It's been my experience that the speed difference in Cedega (or lack thereof) from a 'native' DirectX implementation is marginal. With Cider, one would assume any differences
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Too bad it works on 99% of home users without causing problems.
From what I've seen it does not work for 99% of home users without causing problems. It's just they don't realize it's causing problems or don't care when they can just phone up the techy kid across the street or when Geek Squad tells them they just need more RAM. Don't confuse a lack of understanding or care with a lack of problems.
SecuROM is just how you're justifying to yourself receiving the software they paid money to produce, without paying for it.
Perhaps that would be true if people who were boycotting this because of the DRM pirated DRM-free games like (non-GOTY edition) Oblivion, which was a highly successful game.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
No issues yet, but now my PC feels tainted...
Oh... (Score:4, Funny)
Oh the PURE and UNADULTERATED HORROR of it all!
It's clear why they are doing it (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's clear why they are doing it (Score:5, Funny)
Nah, Bill Wright visits slashdot from time to time and he read many Australians whining about their lousy Internet conditions... so he thought he'd give them a 5-day head start.
It also gives us the rest of the world a chance to whine about our lousing gaming conditions.
Parent
makes sense (Score:4, Funny)
Too expensive. (Score:5, Interesting)
Like for most games, our stores once again double the price for no reason other than that they can. If I buy this at all it'll be an import from somewhere like play-asia.
It's Simple (Score:5, Funny)
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And they would happily swap cane toads with penis creatures.
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Who wouldn't?!
Re:It's Simple (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Yes, it is confirmed that you can play early (Score:4, Interesting)
I do not have a slashdot account, so I doubt that I will be seen.
But the whole reason this story broke is do to this person here.
http://forums.facepunchstudios.com/showthread.php?t=603042
The bastard is gloating in his 15 mins of Internet fame. :p
yay australia (Score:2)
Didn't we stuff this up once before? With the release of halo 3 or something similarly boring?
In Soviet Australia... oh. nevermind.
/Mike
Ambivalent (Score:3, Funny)
I'm not sure if Aussies should be boosting that they get first crack at this game or shamed at revealing how much computer games cost down there...
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I'm not sure if Aussies should be boosting that they get first crack at this game or shamed at revealing how much computer games cost down there...
haha... "first crack"... Is that a challenge? lol
Seriously though, I'm getting angrier and angrier at how much games cost here. I almost never buy retail anymore, and no doubt the games companies will blame it on piracy.
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let us rejoice, for we are young and poor... (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, you know it's great and all that we Aussies are getting it early. Too bad we have to take out a mortgage just to pay for the bloody thing.
The gouging the video game industry does against Australians is absolutely deplorable. The local EB games is still trying to flog off the Warcraft 3 Battlechest - part of which is almost 8 years old - for $110!! At current exchange rates that's about $95 US.
I order my games from the UK and even with shipping it's practically half price. The best part is you get around the stupid censorship imposed by Senator Atkinson.
With all of the BS we're forced to tolerate, plus the whole descendants from convicts thing, it shouldn't be too surprising that many Australians turn to "alternate channels" of distribution for their video gaming needs.
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If it uses ShittyRom, im going to buy it, crack it (Score:2)
5 Days Early? (Score:4, Funny)
Duh, it's because of time zones. When it's Thursday here in the states, it's like February in Australia.
Re:What's so great about this game? (Score:4, Funny)
I anticipate that Spore is going to get pretty boring pretty quickly. It doesn't look like it'll have much replay value.
Parent
Re:What's so great about this game? (Score:4, Insightful)
I imagine someone saying something very similar right before the release of SimCity and TheSims. "It's just creating a city, how many times through do you really need to play it?"
Parent
Re:What's so great about this game? (Score:4, Funny)
I guess I should have elaborated, because I wasn't making a joke. Spore just looks like it will quickly become very repetitive and dull.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Spore might not be a good game, but being repetitive should never be seen as a negative. Games are repetitive, and repetitive != dull.
Re:What's so great about this game? (Score:4, Funny)
I guess I should have elaborated, because I wasn't making a joke. Spore just looks like it will quickly become very repetitive and dull.
It's supposed to be a sandbox. Did you have a sandbox as a kid? I did. It was only as boring as the limits of your imagination.
Of course, if Spore turns out to be a crappy sandbox, then you can't really blame it for being boring. But Maxis has had a history of creating good sandboxes so I don't think I'll have to eat my words.
I just want Stephen Colbert to cover the game so we can see him do a Spore Report.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Okay, so it's got elements of SimLife (which took a great amount of Skill) and it's got elements of SimCity (which took a deft amount of SittingAroundWaiting) and it's got elements of The Sims (which took, ok - you're right, no Skill at all, rather maybe Charisma) and then it's got elements of SimCity (not really).
But c'mon, it's made by the same guy who made those other titles (or at least signed off on them) Will Wright. Generally every game he says is good for RTM is a platinum deal. If he doesn't sign
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It also seems to have elements from a game I once played on Amiga. You started out as a bug and evolved to a human. Graphics were amazing wire vectors and all.
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i miss that game - but i am still not intrestedin spore
Re:Importing (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Importing (Score:5, Informative)
Direct download from EA is £39.95, or £42.94 if you want to be able to redownload for 2 years instead of 6 months. 95.95 AUD is £45, so not that much of a markup.
Of course, if I buy a physical copy, I can get it for £28, or £30 if I want it (almost) guaranteed on release day, so you do have to wonder what EA are thinking with that download price..
Parent
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Alternately, you could pirate it for free!
Oops, did I say that out loud?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That's easy: "Let's make an extra profit from the people who can't wait an extra day, and make sure we don't piss off retailers by setting a price that could actually be seen as competition."
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"Huge markup for apparently no reason" = ask gov't (Score:2)
I often wonder at how people in countries with a VAT (and, relatedly, Americans living in localities with high sales taxes) are shocked, shocked that when they compare notes with friends abroad prices are lower.
Australia has a Goods & Services tax. 10% on the top. Considering I paid US$60 for my copy with no sales taxes, I'm guessing about a third of your "no reasons" are in Melbourne by now.
(You know you guys used to have a 35% duty on packaged software? Fun times. Thankfully that got removed in '8
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