This article from Gameplayer cracks me up… The author believes that Spore will tank. I don’t believe that for one minute. His reasons? Well, it’s not “The Sims”, lacks multiplayer, and the delays killed it.
Spore aims to simulate the entire evolution of life. Gamers are given a planet and asked to play God, customizing, modifying and personalizing a range of critters from their microscopic phase right through to their super-intelligent, anal-probing, space-travelling end. Each user’s planet will be unique, with near limitless design options for their organism creations, not to mention the exponential differentiation that occurs from the ability to interbreed species. Finally, users will be able to upload their planet to a virtual galaxy, where other players can interact with it.
Cool stuff, hey? We’ve had an opportunity to sit down with Will Wright and get a personal tour of his vision and it is arguably the most impressive project in development anywhere in the world, on any format. If he pulls it off it truly will be futuristic, mind-blowing stuff. But regardless of whether he hits his goals or not, Spore is a tough sell.
Here’s the long and short of it: as a result of many reasons we will detail below, Spore has plonked itself right between the mainstream and the gamer audiences, but could end up attracting neither.
Everybody is allowed to have an opinion. Like Will Wright has said himself, Spore can go either way. It could be really huge or a dismal failure. Who would have thought that The Sims Online would tank, but it did in a massive way.
When random people picked up the original Sims box, they saw stuff they could relate to. Houses, people, neghbourhoods, barbecues, etc. To most people who haven’t been following videogames, Spore would just look like the next Pokemon.
This is just my two cents.
True, I tend to forget that fact…
In my opinion, I think it is the fact of user-created content that makes the game sucessful. I mean, with The Sims you were able to have walls, floors, skins, objects – you name it! When it was time for The Sims Online, none of that was possible.
With Spore and it’s extensive 3D tool built in, players can create whatever their heart desires.
Yeah, I will probably have to eat my words when the game comes out and sells billions of copies!