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Spore (2008 video game)

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Spore
Spore box art
Developer(s)Maxis
Publisher(s)Electronic Arts
Designer(s)Will Wright
Composer(s)Brian Eno
EngineModified EAGL Engine
Platform(s)Microsoft Windows,[3] Mac OS X[3] (with Cider emulation, not Mac native),[4]
Genre(s)God game, Life simulation,
Real-time strategy
Mode(s)Single-player

Spore is a multi-genre massive single-player online metaverse video game developed by Maxis and designed by Will Wright. It allows a player to control the development of a species from its beginnings as a unicellular organism, through development as an intelligent and social creature, to interstellar exploration as a spacefaring culture. It has drawn wide attention for its massive scope, and its use of open-ended gameplay and procedural generation.

The game was released for PC and Macintosh (using emulation) computers in September 2008. A game called Spore Hero for the Wii is part of the 2009 lineup, among with other titles for DS and PC [7]. Spore is also available for direct download from Electronic Arts.[8] A special edition of the game, Spore: Galactic Edition, additionally includes a Making of Spore DVD video, How to Build a Better Being DVD video by National Geographic Channel, The Art of Spore hardback mini-book, a fold-out Spore poster and a 100-page Galactic Handbook published by Prima Games.[9]

Gameplay

Coined Creatiolutionism,[10] the game allows the player to develop a species from a microscopic organism to its evolution into a complex animal, its emergence as a social, intelligent being, to its mastery of the planet and then finally to its ascension into space, where it interacts with alien species across the galaxy, and even galaxiums (networks of interconnected galaxy surfaces) beyond. Throughout the game, the player's perspective and species change dramatically.

The game is broken up into distinct yet consistent, dependent "phases". The outcome of one phase affects the initial conditions and leveling facing the player in the next. Each phase exhibits its own style of play, and has been described by the developers as ten times more complicated than its preceding phase. While players are able to spend as much time as they would want in each, it is possible to accelerate or skip phases altogether.[11][12] Some phases feature optional missions; when the player completes a mission, they are granted a bonus, such as a new ability or money.

If all of a player's creations are completely destroyed at some point, the player's species will be respawned at its nearest colony or at the beginning of the phase.

Unlike many other Maxis games,[13] Spore has a primary win condition which is obtained by reaching a supermassive black hole placed at the center of the galaxy and receiving a "Staff of Life". Another major achievement involves defeating or befriending the Grox, a cyborg species with a large empire guarding the core. However, the player may continue to play after any goal has been achieved.[14]

Community

Spore's user community functionality includes a feature that is part of an agreement with YouTube granting players the ability to upload directly from within the game a YouTube video of their creatures' activity, and EA's creation of "The Spore YouTube Channel", which will showcase the most popular videos created this way.[15] In addition, some user-created content will be highlighted by Maxis at the official Spore site, and earn badges of recognition.[16] One of Spore's most social features is the Sporecast, an RSS feed that players can use to subscribe to the creations of any specific Spore player, allowing them to track their creations.[17]

There is a toggle which allows the player to restrict what downloadable content will be allowed; choices include: "no user generated content", "official Maxis-approved content", "downloadable friend content", and "all user-created content".[16] Players can also ban any content in-game, at any time, and Maxis monitors content with notable numbers of player bans.

Maxis also created a Developers forum for people wishing to use all the creations people have made to create applications.[18] In early February 2009 a spore forum user created a program to "battle" your creatures against each other to get the best creations. This game is still in alpha but once it is finished it will feature scoreboards for the best creatures that everyone has voted for.[19]

Interplay

The game is referred to as a "massively single-player online game" and "asynchronous sharing."[20][21] Simultaneous multiplayer gaming is not a feature of Spore. The content that the player can create is uploaded automatically to a central database, cataloged and rated for quality (based on how many users have downloaded the object or creature in question), and then re-distributed to populate other players' games.[22] The data transmitted is very small — only a couple of kilobytes per item transmitted - due to procedural generation of material.

Via the in-game "MySpore Page", players receive statistics of how their creatures are faring in other players' games, which has been referred to as the "alternate realities of the Spore metaverse." The game reports to the player on how other players have interacted with him or her. For example, the game reports how many times other players have allied with the player's species. The personalities of user-created species are dependent on how the user played them.[23]

A very popular part of Spore is the Sporum [citation needed]. There, players can share creations, chat, and roleplay. They can also ask questions of developers, and participate on Maxis sponsored challenges. There are multiple sections of the Sporum, such as Creature Corner and Community Showcase. Players can begin threads, and people post on them. The Sporum ranks people by post count.

Sporepedia

Sporepedia in-game

The Sporepedia keeps track of nearly every gameplay experience, including the evolution of a creature by graphically displaying a timeline which shows how the creature incrementally changed over the eons; it also keeps track of the creature's achievements, both noteworthy and dubious, as a species.[24] The Sporepedia also keeps track of all the creatures, planets, vehicles and other content the player encounters over the course of a game. Players can upload their creations to Spore.com to be viewed by the public at the Sporepedia website. The ever-growing list of creations made by players is past the 97 million mark so far.

Phases

There is a difficulty selector to each stage, allowing players to choose the difficulty for each part of the game.[12] Spore defaults to the easiest level.[25] The first four phases of the game, if the player minimally uses the editors, will take 6–15 hours to complete.[16] Note that there is no time limit for any stage: the player may stay in a single stage as long as they wish, and progress to the next stage when ready.

At the end of each phase, the player's actions cause his or her creature to be assigned a characteristic. Each phase typically has three characteristics, usually based on how aggressively or peacefully the phase was played. Characteristics determine how the creature will start and what abilities it will have during the next stage.

Cell

A screenshot of a near-final prototype Cell phase. The monstrously large creatures in the background will come to the foreground as the player's organism slowly grows and evolves.

The cell phase (sometimes referred to as the tide pool, cellular, or microbial phase) is the first phase in the game, and begins with a cinematic demonstrating the scientific concept of panspermia, with a meteor crashing into the ocean of a planet and breaking apart, revealing a single-celled organism. The player guides this simple microbe around in a 3D environment on a single 2D plane, reminiscent of flOw, where it must deal with fluid dynamics and predators, while eating weaker microbes or plants. The player may choose whether the creature is a herbivore or a carnivore prior to starting the phase. As you progress you may choose to make your creature an omnivore, a creature that eats both plant and meat. Omnivore creatures can either have an omnivore mouth or a combination of herbivore and carnivore mouths.[24] Once the microbe has eaten several pieces of food, the player can enter an editor in which he or she can modify the appearance, shape, and abilities of the microbe by spending "DNA points". A player may choose to remove a part, which will refund the full price. Parts are acquired by seeking out special "golden shields" from meteor fragments and other organisms, which provide new parts to use in the editor, such as spikes, mouths or propulsion mechanisms.[24][26] If the creature dies, the player restarts from wherever the creature last spawned.

The phase consists of five stages, further dichotomised; every half-stage, the creature grows larger. As the microbe grows, objects that are in the background move to the foreground, making microbes that previously lay harmless in the background a possible threat.

The cell's eating habits in the Cell Stage directly influence its diet in the Creature stage, and only mouths appropriate to the diet established in the Cell stage will become available in the Creature stage (However, diet restrictions can be overcome by changing the cell's mouthpiece before entering the Creature phase, regardless of what diet is assigned to the creature).[24] The ocean floor becomes more prominent as the player progresses, and once the player decides to progress to the next stage, the creature editor appears, prompting the user to add legs before the shift to land.

Creature

Once the player's creature has been granted the option to evolve legs, it arrives on a large landmass at a 'home' nest, guarded by other members of its species. The player's creature will be able to heal itself at this nest after being wounded in combat, or mate with another member of its species, allowing the progeny to be modified via the Creature Editor.

The biosphere contains a variety of animal species, which carnivorous and omnivorous player creatures can hunt for food, and a range of plants, some of which bear fruit that herbivores and omnivores can eat. Environmental phenomena, as well as the creature's vital health and hunger meters, are always a concern and sometimes a challenge. Sea monsters prevent all but the briefest forays to the ocean.

As the player's creature explores the landscape it will encounter other animal species, which may be neutral or aggressive, and their nests. The player can then decide whether to use social skills to befriend, or combat skills to hunt, these other species; these decisions will affect the abilities of the player's species in the subsequent phases of the game. Successful socialization and hunting attempts will gain varying amounts of DNA Points, the 'currency' of this phase, and may also yield new body parts which can be added, at the cost of DNA Points, with the Creature Editor during mating. New body parts may also be obtained by examining bone piles or fragmentary skeletons that occur here and there in the landscape.

Socializing with other species also gives the player's creature the ability to form a pack, eventually containing up to three creatures. Any befriended creature may be added to an empty pack slot by making a second successful socialization attempt. Pack members will travel, socialize and fight alongside the player's creature, increasing the odds of befriending other creatures and of surviving combat. Pack members may heal at the home nest or at the nests of allied species.

Rogue creatures are solitary members of other species, often hostile, and generally have significantly higher health than usual. They can be befriended, however, and make valuable members of a pack because of their excellent statistics.

Epic creatures are enormous creatures which randomly appear throughout the phase. They are always hostile, and cannot be befriended.[citation needed] They have a huge amount of health and can usually kill any other creature with a single strike. As a result, Epic creatures are difficult to kill during this phase and are often best avoided; during later phases of the game they are much more easily dealt with.

As the player's creature befriends or hunts more of the other creatures, its intelligence increases. Eventually it will be ready for the subsequent Tribal, Civilization and Space phases; in these, only cultural evolution is possible and the Creature Editor is no longer available.

Tribal

After the brain of the player's species evolves sufficiently, the species may enter the tribal phase. Physical development ceases, as does the player's exclusive control over an individual creature, as the game focuses on the birth of division of labor for the species.[27] The player is given a hut, a group of fully evolved creatures,[28] as well as two of six possible "super powers", unlocked depending on the species' behavior in the previous phases.[29]

This stage begins with a cutscene featuring music from 2001: A Space Odyssey, depicting the creature mastering fire. The game during this phase is similar to an RTS. The player may give the tribe tools such as weapons, musical instruments, and healing or fishing implements. Food now replaces "DNA points" as the player's currency, which the player can spend on structures and additional tribe members, or use to appease other tribes. Creatures also gain the option to wear clothes, the editing of which replaces the Creature Editor in the 'Tribal Editor'.[28] If creatures of a different species were added to the player's pack in the Creature phase, they are now used as pets. Additional creatures may be domesticated in the Tribal phase, which provide eggs for food.[30] Contact with other tribes of the same species, or even different species, can take place in this phase, and creatures also learn to speak. Creatures, as with The Sims, also "speak", most noticeably in a cutscene where the player advances to the civilization stage, with icons embedded in word balloons.[31]

Tribe members are assigned roles such as fishing, gathering, or hunting. The creatures' behaviors are affected by the way the player utilizes them. If a player uses them aggressively, their autonomic behavior will reflect that; conversely, if the player uses them peacefully, allying other tribes, their behavior will be more kind. Even their idle behavior will reflect this; warlike tribal members will practice combat while docile members will practice instruments and throw parties.[31]

There are five other tribes that appear along with the player's tribe, which can either be destroyed or befriended. For every tribe befriended or destroyed, a piece of a totem pole is built, which may increase the population limit of the player's tribe or grant access to new tools. Depending on the means the tribe used to overtake the neighboring tribe--by forming an alliance or annihilating the tribe--the totem piece will either be a music-playing or war-like figure. When the totem pole has five pieces, the player may move forward to the Civilization phase.[16][27]

Civilization

The Civilization phase focuses on the player developing many cities and colonies.

The events of Tribal Stage have left the player's tribe the dominant species of the planet, but the species itself has since fragmented into several nations, similar to the way humanity now lives. The player retains control of a single nation with one city. The goal in the civilization phase is to gain control of the entire planet, and it is left to the player to decide whether to conquer it militarily, economically, or religiously. When entering the phase, the tribal camp is now a city. Two new editors (the building and vehicle editors) are used to create city buildings and vehicles. The player can place three types of buildings (House, Factory, and Entertainment) around the default City Hall building (which acts as a house) and up to 9 types of vehicles (religious, economic, and military in sea, land and air). To earn income, players can capture spice geysers, conduct trade, or build factories (see below).

In constructing vehicles and buildings, as with most real-time strategy games, there is a capacity limit; building houses will increase the cap, and constructing various buildings adjacent to one another will provide a productivity bonus or deficit: for example, building an entertainment centre next to a house will provide happiness, but a factory will decrease happiness and increase production. Like Civilization III and IV, the player's territory is marked with a colored border that increases as the player gains more power through militarism or influence.[32] The main unit of currency is "Sporebucks".

Players can choose to gain global domination depending on the types of cities they own. Military states grow solely by attacking other cities. Instead of military conquest, players with a Religious trait construct special missionary units that convert other cities via propaganda.[33] Likewise, Economic players communicate solely by trade and have no weapons. Players also have access to superweapons, each of which have devastating effects on other rival civilizations.[34] Players can also form alliances with a rival civilization, and when the entire world has been conquered by both factions, the rival faction will join the player's.[34]

Epic creatures are also seen in the phase. They are greatly increased in size (Much taller than the tallest building in a city) and will attack the city (a reference to Godzilla and other giant monster films) with Claw swipes and other attacks from the creature phase. Another difference between epics in the creature and Civilisation stages is that Epics can now breath Fire. They can be charmed using religious vehicles; which causes the Epic to walk away and possibly attack an enemy city instead.

When the player has conquered or allied with all the civilizations on the planet and decides to move on to the Space Phase, the UFO editor appears. At this point players are allowed to view the planet from space.

Space

In the Space phase, the player has access to a galactic map for interstellar travel.

The space phase provides new goals and paths to follow as the player begins to spread through the galaxy.

The player may now terraform and colonize neighboring uninhabited planets with special tools (comet tool, volcano tool, etc). Although these tools start off as limited and very expensive one-use items, the player can obtain limitless energy-based versions. Terraforming tools include a heat ray which can create more favorable conditions on, for example, an ice planet. If left unchecked, this can cause oceans to rise, then eventually to evaporate and transform the world into a desert planet, followed by a molten rock in space (though since Heat Ray is a manual tool, this will only happen if the tool is left on).[35] These tools may also be used as weapons, sucking out the atmosphere or altering the temperature of a planet in order to kill the inhabitants without a pitched battle. The ultimate terraforming tool is a technology called the Staff of Life, dubbed the 'Genesis device' prior to the game's release, which instantly can transform any planet into an ideal (T3) planet, complete with stable temperature and fully-filled ecosystems, although it is limited to 42 uses.[22]

The player may cause ice comets to crash into a planet to lower temperatures, or force volcanoes to erupt to increase atmosphere.[35] Players may build colonies on the surface of an inhospitable planet to create bubbled cities, similar in function to self-sustaining arcologies. When establishing colonies on alien worlds, players have to take care of them as they would of any other city and keep morale up.

The player may also abduct creatures and transport them to other planets to test a planet's habitability and to create ecosystems to stabilize a planet's atmosphere. The player may utilize various tools such as fireworks to interact with primitive life-forms, or place a monolith (in the style of 2001: A Space Odyssey) on a planet, triggering evolution of intelligence. On some worlds, the player may also find strange "artifacts" with functions varying from terraform coloring tools to treasures which can be sold for a relatively large price. Artifacts can be present on lifeless worlds and inhabited worlds, although taking them from planets occupied by sentient beings will anger them.

There are more than 500,000 planets in the game's galaxy (including Earth[36]).

Players can make contact with other spacefaring civilizations, called "empires", most of which contain species created by other players. When the player's UFO visits a world owned by sentient creatures, he or she may impress the beings with fireworks or a 'happy ray', attack them with weapons, or cast crop circles. The player may beam down a holographic image of his/her creature to interact more directly with an alien species.[16] A user-created civilization's AI reacts depending on its behavior and personality, both of which are based on the play-style of its user. The player can unite or conquer the galaxy by creating a federation or sparking an interstellar war. As a show of great force, the player may even completely destroy a planet (using a bomb known as the "planet buster" which has similar capabilities to those of the Death Star from Star Wars), which may bring retribution from that species and its allies. The player is sometimes called upon to deal with problems on their home planet, colony, or an ally's planet, caused by space pirates (called "raiders"), environmental collapse, or attack from enemies.[37]

One of the main goals in the Space Stage is for the player to push his/her way toward a supermassive black hole at the galaxy's center. Completing this mission rewards the player with the previously mentioned Staff of Life while introducing the game's final antagonists, the Grox, a unique species of cybernetic aliens with a powerful empire surrounding the core.[38]

Editors

See also: Spore Creature Creator
Tribal phase clothing editor.

User-generated content is a major feature of Spore; there are eighteen different types of editors (some unique to a phase), including a music editor which allows players to create and share songs to be used as a national anthem in the Civilization stages and above.[24] Will Wright has stated that in addition to being simple, all the editors will be as similar as possible so that skills learned are easily transferable from one editor to the next.

The editors start simply in the cellular phase and move to higher levels of complexity, acting as tutorials for progressive levels of gameplay. For example, the cell editor demonstrated so far has nine choices and a two-dimensional environment while the creature editor has dozens of options and a 3D environment. The structure ranges from a spine and body model in the creature editor to more free-form editors for the buildings.

For example, the creature editor allows the player to take what looks like a lump of clay with a spine and mold it into a creature. Once one has molded the torso, the player can add parts such as legs, arms, feet, hands, noses, eyes, mouths, decorative elements, and a wide array of sensory organs. Many of these parts affect the creature's abilities (speed, strength, diet, etc.), while some parts are purely decorative. Once the creature is formed, they can paint it using a large number of textures, overlays, colors, and patterns, which are procedurally applied depending on the topology of the creature. The only "required" feature is the mouth (otherwise, the creature will die from starvation). All other parts are optional; for example, creatures without legs will slither on the ground like a slug.

Other editors are used for buildings and for vehicles. Eventually, players can even edit entire planets, using various in-game processes. Electronic Arts has promised new editors to be released after the game's release, such as a flora editor.[39] However, a beta flora editor and expanded cell editor are available in the game code and can be accessed by changing the target parameters for the shortcut executable. It is worth noting that the beta flora editor does not affect gameplay, as no creation can be used or uploaded.

There are also simple means of creating visual media, such as a screenshot facility that captures the screen without the surrounding user-interface; and a 640x480 video creator with a built-in YouTube upload service. Maxis has also partnered with a third-party to provide a Spore-branded Comic Book Creator service, which was live at launch.

All Creations are placed inside the "Sporepedia". These Creations can be viewed and downloaded by other players and vice versa.

There are 3 new editors coming in the new expansion Galactic Adventures, these include the adventure editor, the hero editor (also called the Equipment editor) and the planet editor. [40]

Procedural generation

Main article: Development of Spore (procedural generation)

Spore uses procedural generation extensively in relation to content pre-made by the developers. Wright mentioned in an interview given at E3 2006 that the information necessary to generate an entire creature would be only a couple of kilobytes, and went on to give the following analogy: "think of it as sharing the DNA template of a creature while the game, like a womb, builds the 'phenotypes' of the animal, which represent a few megabytes of texturing, animation, etc." These small data packs for specific creatures are intended to be uploaded and downloaded freely and quickly from the Sporepedia online server. This allows users to asynchronously upload their creations and download other players' content, which enriches the experience of the game as more of its players progress in the game.

SecuROM controversy

Further information: SecuROM

Spore uses a modified version of the controversial digital rights management (DRM) software SecuROM as copy protection,[41][42][43][44] which requires authentication upon installation and when online access is used.[45] This system was announced after the originally planned system met opposition from the public, as it would have required authentication every ten days.[46] Additionally, EA released the game under a policy by which the product key of an individual copy of the game would only be authenticated on up to three computers.[47] In response to customer complaints, this limit was raised to five computers.[48] After the activation limit has been depleted, EA Customer Service will consider further activations on a case-by-case basis.[49]

As a result of the protection scheme[citation needed], out of over 3200 of the reviews on Amazon.com, over 2600 individual reviews have given Spore a one star, the lowest rating. Electronic Arts cited SecuROM as a "standard for the industry", and Apple's iPod song DRM policy as justification for the control method.[50] Former Maxis developer Chris Harris labeled the DRM a "screw up" and a "totally avoidable disaster".[51]

The SecuROM software was not mentioned on the box, in the manual, or in the Software license agreement. An EA spokesperson stated that "we don't disclose specifically which copy protection or digital rights management system we use [...] because EA typically uses one license agreement for all of its downloadable games, and different EA downloadable games may use different copy protection and digital rights management.”[52]

Despite the use of DRM, Spore has been cracked, bypassing the copy protection mechanism. The game was distributed over BitTorrent file sharing protocol and was ranked the most pirated game of 2008, having been downloaded over 1,700,000 times.[53][54]

On September 22, 2008, a global class action law suit was filed against EA, regarding the DRM in Spore, complaining about EA not disclosing the existence of SecuROM, and addressing how SecuROM runs with the nature of a rootkit, including how it remains on the hard drive even after Spore is uninstalled.[55][56][57] On October 14, 2008, a similar class action lawsuit was filed against EA for the inclusion of DRM software in the free demo version of the Creature Creator.[58]

EA began selling Spore without SecuROM on December 22, 2008 through Valve's Steam distribution platform.[59] (While the Steam distribution platform imposes its own DRM scheme on all distributions, Steam's DRM is nowhere near as intrusive as SecuROM.) Furthermore, EA Games president Frank Gibeau announced that maximum install limit would be increased from 3 to 5 and that it would be possible to de-authorize and move installations to new machines, citing the need to adapt their policy to accommodate their legitimate customers.[60][61] EA has stated, "By running the de-authorization tool, a machine "slot" will be freed up on the online Product Authorization server and can then be re-used by another machine. You can de-authorize at any time, even without uninstalling Spore, and free up that machine authorization. If you re-launch Spore on the same machine, the game will attempt to re-authorize. If you have not reached the machine limitation, the game will authorize and the machine will be re-authorized using up one of the five available machines."[62]

Reception

IGN Australia awarded Spore a 9.2 out of 10 score, saying,

"It [Spore] will make you acknowledge just how far we’ve come, and just how far we have to go, and Spore will change the way you think about the universe we live in."[75]

PC Gamer UK awarded the game a 91%, saying,

"Spore's triumph is painfully ironic. By setting out to instill a sense of wonderment at creation and the majesty of the universe, it's shown us that it's actually a lot more interesting to sit here at our computers and explore the contents of each other's brains."[66]

GameSpy wrote,

"Spore is a technological triumph that introduces a whole new way of tapping into a bottomless well of content" in its 4.5 of 5 stars review.[70]

Most of the criticism of Spore came from the lack of depth in the first four phases, summarized by Eurogamer's 9 of 10 review, which stated, "for all their mighty purpose, the first four phases of the game don't always play brilliantly, and they're too fleeting."[68]

1UP.com reasoned in its B+ graded review, "It's not a perfect game, but it's definitely one that any serious gamer should try."[63] GameSpot in its 8.0 of 10 review called Spore "a legitimately great game that will deliver hours of quality entertainment", but criticized the "individual gameplay elements [that] are extremely simple."[71]

Jason Ocampo's IGN 8.8 of 10 review stated, "Maxis has made an impressive product that does so many incredible things" but added, "while Spore is an amazing product, it's just not quite an amazing game."[65]

The New York Times review to Spore mostly centered on lack of depth and quality of gameplay in the later phases of the game, stating that "most of the basic core play dynamics in Spore are unfortunately rather thin."[76]

While a review in PC Gamer US stated that "it just isn't right to judge Spore in the context of so many of the other games we judge",[67] it was named "the most disappointing game of 2008" by Chris Kohler of Wired.[77]

Criticism has also emerged surrounding the stability of the game, with the Telegraph stating

"The launch of Spore, the keenly anticipated computer game from the creators of The Sims, has been blighted by technical problems."[78]

By September 24, 2008, the Windows, Mac and DS versions of the game sold a combined one million copies worldwide, according to Electronic Arts.[79] In its first three weeks on sale, the game sold 2 million copies, according to Electronic Arts.[80]

Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, reviewer from The Escapist compared the game with what was expected from The Sims successor, saying "So can his [Will Wright] new game, Spore, possibly live up to that legacy? In short, no. In long, nooooooooooo..." [sic] He went on to compare Spore with a botched mix of 5 different games, with the smooth transition of an explosion. [81] His overall review could be perceived as negative, mainly because it fails to live up to The Sims.

Will Wright reaction

In an interview published by MTV, Spore designer Will Wright responded to early lukewarm reviews and criticism that the phases of the game had been dumbed-down and so were too simple by explaining:[82]

We were very focused, if anything, on making a game for more casual players. Spore has more depth than, let’s say, The Sims did. But we looked at the Metacritic scores for Sims 2, which was around ninety, and something like Half-Life, which was ninety-seven, and we decided — quite a while back — that we would rather have the Metacritic and sales of Sims 2 than the Metacritic and sales of Half-Life.

— Will Wright

Scientific accuracy

The educational community has shown some interest in using Spore to teach students about evolution and biology.[83] However, the game's player-driven evolution mechanism differs from real life evolution in some key ways:

  • The different species that appear in Spore each have different ancestors, not shared ones.
  • In Spore, evolution is teleological. The player's creature must evolve into an intelligent being. In real evolution, there are many possible evolutionary pathways and there is no endpoint except extinction.
  • In the real world, an organism's environment shapes its evolution by allowing some individuals to reproduce more and causing other individuals to die. In Spore, the only things shaping the way the creatures change over time are game statistics and "whatever the player thinks looks cool."[84]
  • In Spore, creatures have to collect new parts from other creatures or from skeletal remains in order to evolve those parts themselves. In real life, some organisms can appropriate the genes of other species. Bacteria and virii can transfer genes from one species of macroscopic organism to another. However, this transfer is limited to single or occasionally multiple alleles; it never involves complex organs like mouths or limbs, as in Spore.

In October 2008, John Bohannon of Science magazine assembled a team to review the game's portrayal of evolution and other scientific concepts. Evolutionary biologists T. Ryan Gregory of the University of Guelph and Niles Elredge of the American Museum of Natural History reviewed the Cell and Creature stages. William Sims Bainbridge, a sociologist from the U.S. National Science Foundation, reviewed the Tribe and Civilization stages. NASA's Miles Smith reviewed the Space stage.[84] The Science team evaluated Spore on twenty-two subjects. The game's grades ranged from a single A in galactic structure and a B+ in sociology to Fs in mutation, sexual selection, natural selection, genetics, and genetic drift.[85] In addition, Yale evolutionary biologist Thomas Near found Spore fun to play and admires its ability to get people to think about evolutionary questions, but considers the game's evolutionary mechanism to be "seriously messed up."[86]

According to Seed magazine, the original concept for Spore was more scientifically accurate than the version that was eventually released. It included more realistic artwork for the single-celled organisms and a rejection of faster-than-light travel as impossible. However, these were removed to make the game more friendly to casual users.[87] While Seed does not entirely reject Spore as a teaching tool, admiring its ability to show the user experimentation, observation and scale, biological concepts did not fare so well:

The snag is that Spore didn't just jettison half its science — it replaced it with systems and ideas that run the risk of being actively misleading. Scientists brought in to evaluate the game for potential education projects recoiled as it became increasingly evident that the game broke many more scientific laws than it obeyed. Those unwilling to comment publicly speak privately of grave concerns about a game which seems to further the idea of intelligent design under the badge of science, and they bristle at its willingness to use words like "evolution" and "mutation" in entirely misleading ways.[87]

Evolution vs. intelligent design in Spore

Despite Will Wright's words that they "put the player in the role of an intelligent designer,"[88] intelligent design advocate Michael Behe of Lehigh University reviewed the game and said that Spore "has nothing to do with real science or real evolution--neither Darwinian nor intelligent design."[84]

Licensing

Electronic Arts is using the Spore license to develop many related products, including console games and merchandising. Such licensing includes:

Software

Electronic Arts confirmed that Spore will be receiving post-release expansion packs.[89]

The Nintendo DS spinoff is titled Spore Creatures, focusing on the Creature phase. The game is a 2D/3D story-based roleplaying game as the gamer plays a creature kidnapped by a UFO and forced to survive in a strange world, with elements of Nintendogs.[90] Another Spore title for the DS called 'Spore Hero Arena' has been confirmed. Spore Origins is the mobile phone/iPhone[91]/iPod[92] spinoff of Spore, and as with the Nintendo DS version, focuses on a single phase of gameplay; in this case, the cell phase. The simplified game allows players to try to survive as a multicellular organism in a tide pool, similar to flOw.[93] The iPhone version takes advantage of the device's touch capabilities and 3-axis accelerometer.[94]

A Wii spinoff of the game now known as Spore Hero has been mentioned by Will Wright several times, such as in his October 26, 2007 interview with The Guardian.[95] Buechner confirmed it, revealing that plans for a Wii version were underway, and that the game would be built from the ground up and would take advantage of the Wii Remote, stating, "We're not porting it over. You know, we're still so early in design and prototyping that I don't know where we're going to end up, so I don't want to lead you down one path. But suffice to say that it's being developed with the Wii controls and technology in mind."[89] Eventually, a spin-off under the title "Spore Hero" was announced, an adventure game built ground up for the Wii with a heavier focus on evolution, was announced."[96] The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Spore are still under consideration.[16][97] Frank Gibeau, president of Electronic Arts' Games Label announced that the publisher might use the underlying technology of Spore to develop electric software titles, such as action, real-time strategy and roleplaying games for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii.[98]

An expansion called the Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack was released on November 18, 2008. While not a full expansion pack that would add gameplay, it is an item pack containing about 60 new body parts, similar to The Sims 2 Stuff packs.[99]

An expansion pack named Spore Galactic Adventures, has also been confirmed for release in June 2009. It will allow the player's creature to beam onto planets, rather than using a hologram. It will also add an "Adventure Creator" which allows for the creation of missions and goals to share with the Spore community. A recent teaser has revealed that creatures can add new abilities, including weaponry, tanks, and crew members, as well as a section of the adventure creator that involves editing a planet and using 60 new flora parts.

Merchandising

There is an iTunes-style "Spore Store" built into the game, allowing players to purchase external Spore licensed merchandise, such as t-shirts, posters, and future Spore expansion packs.[89] There are also plans for the creation of a type of Spore collectible card game based on the Sporepedia cards of the creatures, buildings, vehicles, and planets that have been created by the players.[22] There are also indications of plans for the creation of customized creature figurines; some of those who designed their own creatures at E3 2006 later received 3D printed models of the creatures they created.[100] On December 18, 2008, it was announced that players could now turn their creations into 3D sculptures using Z Corporations 3D printing technology.[101]

The Spore Store also allows people to put their creatures on such items as T-shirts, mugs and stickers.[102]

The Spore team is working on a partnership with a comic creation software company to offer comic book versions of players' "Spore stories". Comic books with stylized pictures of various creatures, some whose creation has been shown in various presentations, can be seen on the walls of the Spore team's office.[103] The utility was revealed at the Comic-Con International: San Diego on July 24, 2008 as the Spore Comic Creator, which would utilize MashOn.com and its e-card software.[104]

See also

References

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External links

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