Spore: A Lesson in Piracy
A recent note from a friend informed me of some problems with a new game called Spore (you have probably heard of it…). The problem mentioned is that you cannot create multiple accounts when you purchase Spore. This was a feature enabled in the Creature Creator, and is mentioned in the game manual (now claimed to be a misprint).
Here is a thread on the forums about the problem.
So, why is this a lesson in piracy?
Because this is only one of many problems.
Game developers crossed the line of consumer trust a long time ago. In fact, they have been busy plundering our homes and raping our women for quite some time, but we knew their were some shining knights out there somewhere to be trusted. One of these trusted companies was Maxis, the maker of Spore.
Most people are currently blaming EA, the parent company, for this fiasco. I don’t, I blame Maxis and EA and every other developer who has taken the same road. they had an all-star developer cast and were allowed 12 years to develop the game. If you have forgotten, Maxis is also SimCity, The Sims, and many other IPs. They are no small fish. However, we (I included) generally think of them as a small fish that was eaten by big bad EA. So I bought the game (pre-ordered is a better word) and shelled out my dollars to support Maxis.
I played through all the stages of Spore in one day. It was cool, it may even be worth the price tag. However, this is not a game that feels anywhere close to a decade of development. What it feels like is a collection of cool editors for creatures and building and a sandbox environment to play with those toys.
The game starts out feeling like it builds in complexity, and you want to invest your feelings in the growth of your creation. But quickly it becomes a fairly disconnected sequence of mini-games that bring the instruction “wash, rinse, repeat,” to mind. Then jumping to space brings to bear a very complex world that you don’t care at all about, and which mostly pulls you out of any immersive activities you want to attempt in it. So what I am left with are some cool building block sets, and a great deal of gameplay I could pass on. This problem is what I feel really teaches us a lesson.
Currently the only way to properly demo a game is to pirate a copy of it. This is how deeply our trust has been broken. We are also tired of insane DRM and authentication procedures to play a game we legally own. What makes us much more angry is that the pirated copy works better, runs faster, and often crashes less often than the commercial release. We are restricted from sharing a game with our own family in a meaningful way.
This is a reversal of how things should be (and in most ways used to be). If you pirated a game in the past you worried about it working and no support if it broke. Registering your game was easy, or not even required for legal purchases. A game demo took you through the first few levels of the real game, not an engineered playroom that shows off all the best features but never comes close to reality in the actual game. Developers would also sometimes throw out a number of small additions or freebies over time to those who did register to make you feel all warm and fuzzy.
I have frequently - and will now always - pirated a game just to see if it is playable. To check that the fun factor actually resembles what the developers have touted. If it passes these tests, I do, in fact, buy the game. I have played through the entire story of a game I have pirated only to go back and buy the game. I have become a consumer you have to “win” dollars from. And Spore makes that breaking point clear.
Many of us followed the game for years. We were told how awesome every part was. How it would engage us on many levels. That the systems for going from cell to space were richly developed. And what I have found is that while the game is fun for a couple of days, the hype was not backed up by any substance.
Speak with your dollar! Pirate, pirate, pirate! And only pay a developer once their content has proved to be passable. Force developers to earn our trust again.
[...] start with Spore. I obviously just wrote a fairly harsh bit on the subject of this game. Well after a little bit of very angry customer feedback – 40 [...]