Spore's real costs, implications therof. A rant.

[Muzic]

So its wrong to develop a game for that much ammount of money...?

[Dragon45]

Remember those mods you made? Those were pretty horrible.

i apologize for steven, steven is wrong when he says that

they were actually really fucking terrible, big difference there steven. lets watch our tongues next time shall we


i sometimes wonder how often argh cries himself to sleep at night

[CarRepairer]

Wow, i actually agree with Otherside (This doesnt happen often!).

Titanic cost $200 million dollars. Its gross revenue was $1.8 BILLION. With a B.

The LOTR trilogy cost $280 million. Its gross revenue was $2.91 billion.

Meet the Spartans cost $30 million dollars. Its gross revenue was $84 million dollars.

I think spore is worth more than Meet the Fucking Spartans.

Rant all you want about the excess of western society and the amount we spend on idle entertainment, but computer games are not exceptional. Take note that computer games have finally come of age, that one of the most anticipated games of all time has a larger budget than some stupid parody flick.

But this is not particularly spectacular. Keep it in perspective.

Oh, and the budget for halo 3, a totally unrevolutionary THIRD IN THE FRANCHISE 'another god damn FPS'? $53 million US dollars.

Whatever its merits as a game (which remain to be seen, you havent played it). At least Spore will do a few things people havent seen before. Everything from user-generated content and procedural generation and animation to the broad cross-genre nature of the game makes it at least worth applauding for its boldness. This is EA we are talking about, they could have just gotten Will Wright to pump out another Sims.

I think halo 3 is an RTS.

[Lolsquad_Steven]

You like the space stage, really? So far i've found spore not to be revolutionary at all, the space stage is like a simple version of patrician, the whole game is like playing a bunch of minigames.

[rattle]

^ agreed (Populous, Civ, etc.)

The revolutional thing about Spore is, like jc said, the amount of procedural generated content. It's probably one of the first 3D titles which does it on such a large scale.

[PicassoCT]

^ agreed (Populous, Civ, etc.)

The revolutional thing about Spore is, like jc said, the amount of procedural generated content. It's probably one of the first 3D titles which does it on such a large scale.

Let´s bet who will use it in every Game to come, to outsource Modellers&Designers - EA. Cheaper Production Coast (I´m shure there will be a Planet&Plantdesigner out there soon)

PS: We are allready so outsourced that the Source is Free. Can´t we have that in limit for Spring- making every Players Frankensteinkrogoth his own special Kreation

"It waaaaallks!" - i always wante to say that. Oh, shit, it´s just another Penisbot.

I also completely agree with the Envyrant, damn Will Spector for hassadeur-forcing EA into a risky development Adventure of a Game, dam him for having the chuzpe to trick EA into opening the "User-Generated-Pandorocontentbox", damn Destiny for giving him millions, damn him for getting all the good luck, walking of the decadedancefloor with the homecoming software Queen. I should have been that Bastard...

PS: If Spore is to more then ninty percent filled with user Content, tell me again why it is EAs Game? And if the Central-Concept is copied by people like Argh, why should i buy EAs Stuff again?

[1v0ry_k1ng]

Not Funny,I just looked its not on rapidshare yet.

er, RS links appeared at warez-bb on 3/9/08
why DL it though, its the online content that makes it so awesome and you dont get that without a legit cd key

[smoth]

If the Central-Concept is copied by people like Argh, why should i buy EAs Stuff again?

because someone like argh cannot make spore.

[PicassoCT]

If the Central-Concept is copied by people like Argh, why should i buy EAs Stuff again?

because someone like argh cannot make spore.

Somebody like ARGH, driven by Rage & Rant, can make the first Spring - AutoRagDolling Uniteditor..
Heads, Feads&Arms, Weapons, Coreconnections.. you need four Parts, to connect, and the Ability to var them (Colour, Size) thats all.. -> PS: if you let them Lego, like the Player wants them, you are more free as Spore already.. walking Starfish for the workx

OF curse we can donate now for ARGHs first million, but i like his //ungratefull Spring Vampirecomunity, i´ill show them - Codecommentcomedy as entertaining as it is.

And this is the Inernetz- the "Can´t be done!" is currently out of Order. Pleaze use the Phrases ".. no sane [Wo/Man] woul do that.." or ".. it would be simply stupid, to waste so much [Fill in Ressource here]" instead. Thx for your cooperation, have a nice day!

[SinbadEV]

don't think of it as 50 Million spent on developement... think of it as denying 50 Million man hours worth of dev time to other companies... which for a company that makes money by reselling the same crap is like money in the bank.

[BrainDamage]

some food for thoughts

spring estimated development cost:

http://www.ohloh.net/projects/6454

Project Cost

This calculator estimates how much it would cost to hire a team to write this project from scratch. More »
Include
Codebase 615,088
Effort (est.) 168 Person Years
$ 9,263,584

springlobby estimated development cost:

http://www.ohloh.net/projects/springlobby

Project Cost

This calculator estimates how much it would cost to hire a team to write this project from scratch. More »
Include
Codebase 111,605
Effort (est.) 28 Person Years
$ 1,553,88

[manored]

Not Funny,I just looked its not on rapidshare yet.

er, RS links appeared at warez-bb on 3/9/08
why DL it though, its the online content that makes it so awesome and you dont get that without a legit cd key

I personally think the cooler part will be to add my own content, I dont see much significancy in seeing a unlimited number of randow creatures instead of a limited one.

[Machiosabre]

after reaching the tribal stage and domesticating a homo sapien I finally saw 50 million dollars at work:

[Argh]

GTA IV has only sold 1.5 million copies thus far. Remember that number.

My record on predicting a game's performance in the market, even here on the Forum (so you can check my record, if you're interested in a real debate, instead of trolling) has been pretty good.

For example, to much booing and hissing at the time, I said that SupCom would be massively underwhelming, and wouldn't sell very well. And it was, and hasn't sold terribly well. It made a profit, but GPG may or may not have been sunk after StarSiege tanked. We shall see.

Funny, how everybody agreed once it was out- and some of the very same people who think I'm wrong now were the same guys who were wrong about that, then.

You guys waving torches are basically acting like, by writing my essay, I stomped on your religions, or something. It's like Spore's financial success is either irrelevant to its philosophical premise (which I can tell that you guys haven't bothered looking into- please, read the GDC speech before spouting more stupidity) or that it's guaranteed, and I must be wrong, because I'm not Will Wright.

Well, I ain't Will Wright. Never said I was. Can't stand boring sim games, never understood their appeal. DRB loves 'em, and as I always trust his judgment about titles I can't stand, I assume that he's right- SimCity was cool, and the Sims had a quirky appeal that, as he put it, "got non-gamers playing a dumb game about jerking around people who don't exist for hours and hours".

So, no, I ain't Will Wright. I don't "get" his games, never have, don't claim to, either.

However, if you look at all of Mr. Wright's titles, you will see that his success has not always been a given. Sometimes, he's made some real stinkers.

I mean... c'mon, people... little history lesson here. SimAnt? SimCopter? SimEarth? Have any of you idiots ever played SimCopter? It STANK ON ICE.

So... please don't tell me he's an infallible god. If there's anybody out there with a legitimate claim on that title, it would be good ol' John Carmack of iD, who has never made a video game that has not been profitable, so far as I know, or Sid Meier.



So I find it more than a bit silly that this has become a hate session, instead of a reasonable analysis of the economics involved. EA's bet is giant. And I don't think it was reasonable.

Let's assume that the game is everything its core audience (i.e., the haters here, unless they're just trolling) thinks it will be. Let's assume that I have no clue as to who will buy Spore. That's fine with me- I really don't have a clue about that.

I don't think anybody else is very sure, either- EA has admitted they're having trouble figuring out how to market Spore effectively, and are trying a lot of weird things that I suspect will mainly backfire or just waste money, like stupid billboard ads that say stuff like, "can you spare a chromosome?", etc.- the kind of ultra-geek stuff that is not likely to sell to average gamers.

Let's assume all of that, and that EA figures out better marketing strategies before Gold.



Now, how is Spore going to double GTA IV's sales? Or otherwise recoup its costs?

For example, the argument about the lasting worth of the new algorithmic techniques. OK, I'll buy that, if it resulted in millions of future dollars saved. But where's some proof that EA expects significant cost savings down the road?

I looked around, and tbh, I didn't see a lot of evidence to support that, which makes me strongly suspect that they didn't really find a lot of "magic bullets" to some of the very difficult (if not entirely intractable) problems they were facing, and had to make up for that by sinking a lot of money into content.

Which is what I predicted, here on this Forum, about this game, many, many months ago. Go look it up.

I may be a terrible game designer... but I know how the actual process of selling a game works, and I usually know when something will sell... and in this case, the math speaks for itself.

Spore would have to do more than twice GTA IV's sales to break even. To be a big hit, profit-wise, and pay for development of another title of the same cost (and then some, for EA's shareholders)... it would have to sell four to five times as many copies (or merch, or whatever provided the profits).

That's improbable, people. I rest my case.

[AF]

I like how many people who are just about to get their hands on spring happen to find a long set fo posts by you ridiculing them and denouncing spore and labelling all its flaws.

How would you like it if you were about to buy your dream house and I turned up, took you on a tour of it and pointed out tonnes fof laws, labelled potential flaws that 'could' happen, having never been in the house before, then wrote newspaper articles on how foolish you were?

Nothing as great as a killjoy is there?

[Argh]

I like how many people who are just about to get their hands on spring happen to find a long set fo posts by you ridiculing them

Er, please explain how saying that I think Spore represents a bad investment decision means that I'm, er... ridiculing people wanting to play Spring?

How would you like it if you were about to buy your dream house and I turned up, took you on a tour of it and pointed out tonnes fof laws, labelled potential flaws that 'could' happen, having never been in the house before, then wrote newspaper articles on how foolish you were?

Nothing as great as a killjoy is there?

Meh. It's an analysis. Game designers have to do that, y'know. Given the hate-mail quotient, I probably should have just kept it to myself, granted. But I thought it was a worthwhile thing to point out the difference between what was promised and what was delivered here. In short... you're just shooting the messenger. I didn't undress this Emperor.

[Panda]

Er, please explain how saying that I think Spore represents a bad investment

BLASPHEMY!

[Argh]

BLASPHEMY!

Shall we find a stake... er, nevermind...

Hey look- behind you! It's Elvis! <runs>

[manored]

I actually found sim ant, sim earth and sim copter fun... Altough sim ant gets repetitive fast and sim earth is too complex.

[Gota]

Well.
Playing spore..Im in the space stage...What a bore...The only part i found fun was the cell stage..seriously the game is zzz...
its not interesting at all.
Basiclly a dress up game...
If you liked to secretly dress up in womens clothing and try out diferent skirts and lipsticks youll like this game.

all stages are a bore and are extremly simple in the way they play.
Space stage,i guess,is more packed but its still boring..
Do not buy this game..the code might be revolutionary but the gameplay sux.
For those of you who think you wont be able to get online content manually,all i cany say is pfffff.
Played,deleted....

Aslo many things are missing..i can totaly transform my creature within one stage of evolution..
There is also no apparent evolution going on..creatures dont get better chances of surviving cause of certain attributes that are more adequat to the perticuler planet.. creatures are just there for YOUR use..no reall continuation and no dependance on the enviornment.. u just randomly make creatures and collect shitty badges.

most body parts just climb an effeciency ladder...meaning one is jsut betetr than the one before it no matter what.
You start out with one type of paws and as you collect DNA points(the game's currency),you buy paws that are jsut absolutly better.
Not cause this planet has many plants that those paws wil have an advantage in collecting but jsut all around better.

You cant make a sea creature or a half sea half land creature.
Where are the other types of cellular organisms?parasites viruses etc..
nothing...in that first stage you just swim arround in the primordial goo and swollow either meat or algae and try not to get swollowed by other creatures...primitive....it's exactly like that game argh once gave the link too.
You swim in water and swollow others liek you and becmoe bigger than mvoe to the next stage where u have bigger creatures etc..

when u get to go to the ground u jsut take ur creature add legs and thats it.
Creature gameplay is just like the puddle gameplay only in 3d and not 2d but its even more boring cause there is a lot of walking and a lot less action.
As a land creature u need to make friendls or kill other creatures..
The more you do that the more "brain power" you get and the more of your tribe's members you can take with you on those hunting expeditions.
Combat is of course very simplistic.

Tribe stage is a very primitive warcraft 3 game.You have your chiftien
that has a few abilities and the regular memebrs which u control in a very basic rts like gameplay(its also very easy even on hard).
You can try and ally with your neighbors or kill em(by playing a minigame that envolves repeating the order in which they dance,sing, pose or some other thing) ..
At the tribe stage,again,its all very basic and has nothing to do with biology or sociology..you dont really develop social systems,in some complex way,that allow you to do stuff others cant and you dont need to adopt to the enviornment.

There arent really any evolutionary advantages..
like the ability to climb on trees or fly or dig into the ground like insects..
No "tech trees" where u choose different ways of having kids with the advantages and disadvantages each system brings and so on..
As i said,you just rampage around the place you started in,killing all tribes or allying with them using the same minigame gameplay.

Civilization places you with an a bit bigger base and you can build 4 types of structures,homes,factories which boost the speed at which you harvest the games mineral,but makes your citizens unhappy and an entertainment center which makes them happy again(also a turret that can defend your city).
You build tanks,ships,airplanes(one type of each) and can either use religion economy or warfre to take other such cities(a very very very simplistic civ like gameplay).

you take over al lthe cities and go to the space stage by makign a spaceship in your editor.