Spore (2008 video game)

Spore

Spore box art
Developer(s) Maxis
Publisher(s) Electronic Arts
Designer(s) Will Wright
Composer(s) Brian Eno
Engine Modified EAGL Engine
Version 1.03.0000 (As of November 17, 2008)[1]
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows[2], Mac OS X[2] (with Cider),[3] Wii
Release date(s) AUS September 4, 2008[4][5]
EU September 5, 2008[4][2]
NA September 7, 2008[4][2]
Genre(s) God game, Life simulation,
Real-time strategy
(see "Genre" section)
Mode(s) Single-player
Rating(s) ESRB: E10+
OFLC: PG
PEGI: 12+
Media DVD-ROM (hybrid disc), download
System requirements

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 computers in September 2008. The release date for Spore on the Wii console has not been specified.[2] Spore is also available for direct download from Electronic Arts.[7] 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 ninety-seven-page Galactic Handbook published by Prima Games.[8]

Contents

Development

Main article: Development of Spore

The name Spore was originally a working title, suggested by developer Ocean Quigley, for the game which was first referred to by the general public as Sim Everything. Even though Sim Everything was a first choice name for Wright, the title Spore stuck. Wright added it also freed him from the preconceptions another Sim title would have brought, saying "...Not putting 'Sim' in front of it was very refreshing to me. It feels like it wants to be breaking out into a completely different thing than what Sims (series) was."[9]

Civilization IV lead designer Soren Johnson joined the Maxis team to work on Spore.[10]

Music

Main article: Development of Spore (music)

The procedurally-generated music for the game was designed by Brian Eno, an artist famous among other things for his ambient music. The music is generated by the editors depending on which parts (eg: limbs, battle items, hands, feet, etc) are placed on the creature, vehicle or building. For example, something dangerous like a battle spike will give the music more of a ferocious feel, while something peaceful like a herbivore's mouth will give the music a more relaxed feel.[11] Music can also be created by users in the form of a short national anthem for their civilization or empire.[12]

Genre

Spore does not fall neatly into any single video game genre. While the game's creators and several media sources described it in 2006 as a god game,[13][14] other journalists have described it as a real-time strategy game[15][16] and life simulation game.[17][18] The game is made up of several phases of gameplay that draw on a multitude of games,[19][20] and thus a multitude of traditional genres.

Gameplay

Coined Creatiolutionism[21], 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. 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 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 prefer in each, it is possible to accelerate or skip phases altogether.[22][23] 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.

Unlike many other Maxis games,[24] Spore has a primary win condition which is obtained by reaching a quasar placed in the center of the galaxy, and facing The Grox, a large NPC species (or empire, as it is called in-game). However, the player may continue to play after the goal has been achieved.[25]

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.[26] In addition, some user-created content will be highlighted by Maxis at the official Spore site, and earn badges of recognition for their work.[27] 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.[28]

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".[27] Players can also ban any content in-game, at any time, and Maxis monitors content with notable numbers of player bans.

Interplay

The game is referred to as a "massively single-player online game" and "asynchronous sharing."[29][30] 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.[20] The data transmitted will be very small — only a couple of kilobytes per item transmitted. This was due to procedural generation of material.

After reaching the space phase, players can visit other players' planets, and interact with other players' species, tribes and civilizations.

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 interacted with them (for example, how many times other players allied with their species). The personalities of user-created species are dependent on how the user played them.[31]

Sporepedia

The Sporepedia is a major part of the game. It keeps track of nearly every gameplay experience, including the evolution of a creature by graphically displaying a timeline, showing how the creature incrementally changed over the eons; it also keeps track of the creature's achievements, both noteworthy and dubious, as a species.[12] 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 also upload their creations to Spore.com to be viewed by the public at the Sporepedia website.

Phases

There is a difficulty selector to each stage, allowing players to choose the difficulty for each part of the game.[23] Spore defaults to the easiest level.[32] The first four phases of the game, if the player minimally uses the editors, will take 6-15 hours to complete.[27] 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.

Cell

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, which breaks, 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.[12] Once the microbe has eaten several pieces of food, the player can enter an editor in which they 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 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.[33][12] If the creature dies, the player restarts from wherever it died.

The phase consists of five stages, which are halved themselves; every half-stage, the creature grows larger. As the microbe grows, objects that are in the background move to the foreground, which can mean being eaten by a microbe that had previously been swimming in the background.

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, it is possible to keep the cell-stage mouth opposite what is available in the creature stage, thus allowing a player to truly be omnivorous even if the game gives him/her herbaceous or carnivorous status. If that cell-stage mouth is removed, though, it cannot be regained).[12] 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

The creature phase is similar to the cell phase, but with several important differences. Principally, the environment is now truly 3D. Other creatures will inhabit the world, and most of them will have been created by other players. Creatures will automatically be introduced into the environment to maintain a balanced ecosystem. If the player creates a bigger, tougher creature, the predators that are downloaded will likewise be stronger than average.

In this stage, the basic goal is the same: earn DNA points, reproduce, and avoid being eaten by predators. One main difference is that, instead of being found mixed throughout the environment, members of a species – including the player's species – congregate at 'nests'.

Another difference introduced is the social aspect, allowing a player to earn DNA points through peaceful interaction. Socialization is the nonviolent alternative to consuming creatures for DNA, as befriending other creatures earns DNA points, allows access to their nests for healing, and allows members of that species to join a pack headed by the player.

Every time the player interacts with a creature, the game will create a quest depending on what stance is used. If the player is in a social stance, it will give them the goal of befriending a certain number of that species. If they are in combat stance, the goal will be to kill a certain number of that species, and therefore, render that species extinct. If the player's creature kills off or befriends a species, the creature will be able to heal at their nest.

Creatures have stats for Abilities, Attack, and Social, using a numeric rating system. Adding specific body parts grants the ability to perform actions, such as "Call" and "Jump".[34] Creatures can be given a name, description and tags. Body parts can be found during gameplay, which add that part to the editor for future use. These come from preying upon/befriending alpha creatures or finding bones of dead creatures. The only body part a creature requires is a mouth (or it will starve to death). If a creature has no feet, it will slide across the ground with the lower section of the torso, in a similar fashion to a slug or worm. Creatures also may have a limited ability to fly: gliding. A creature's ability to stay aloft is dependent on two factors: the jumping ability (how high in the air) and gliding ability (how slow the descent is and how many times the creature can flap its wings). Also, a creature may have the ability to sneak, sprint, charge or spit poison.

This stage will evolve the creature's social behavior, as the creature may make friends and form a herd or pack. Will Wright referred to this as a simplified version of the friend-making mini-game in The Sims. This mini-game is implemented by mimicking the other creature's behavior such as singing or dancing until their level of friendship with the player's creature rises. Creatures may also make friends with other species. The player may also encounter spaceships from other players from this phase onward, which may abduct the player or other creatures. The evolutionary goal of the creature phase is to increase the creature's brain capacity, which is done by gaining DNA points. Once the creature becomes intelligent, the player may progress to the tribal phase.

The creature phase has night and day cycles, with very short nights. There are also weather effects such as short rainstorms. Additionally, meteor showers will randomly take place with comets raining down from the sky and UFOs will sometimes visit the planet and abduct creatures (both of these will frighten the NPCs, making socialization impossible).

Tribal

After the player's species evolves its brain far enough, it enters 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.[35] The player is given a hut, a group of fully evolved creatures,[34] as well as two of six possible "super powers", unlocked depending on the species' behavior in the previous phases.[36]

This stage begins with a cutscene parodying 2001: A Space Odyssey. In this phase, the game is similar to a RTS (real-time strategy game). 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'.[34] 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.[37] Contact with other tribes of the same species, or even different species, can take place in this phase, and creatures also learn to speak. Their language is dependent on the type of mouth they possess; primate-type mouths, for instance, result in Simlish, or the Insect type mouths result in the language of the warrior bugs from Starship Troopers.[27] Creatures, as with The Sims, also "speak" with icons embedded in word balloons.[38]

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.[38]

There are five other tribes along with the player's, 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. When the totem pole has five pieces, the player may move forward to the Civilization phase.[27][35]

Civilization

The events of Tribal Stage have left the player's species in complete control of the planet, but the species itself has since fragmented into several nations, similarly to the way humanity now lives. The player retains control of a single nation. 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 player's tribal camp is now a city. Players now have two new editors: the building and vehicle editors. The player can build four types of building (City Hall, House, Factory, and Entertainment) 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 arrange buildings (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.[39] The main unit of currency is "Sporebucks".

Instead of military conquest, players with a Religious trait construct special missionary units that convert other cities via propaganda.[40] 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.[41] 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.[41]

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

The space phase provides new goals and paths to follow as the player begins to spread through the galaxy during which, you can also edit your civilizations.

The player may now terraform and colonize neighboring uninhabitable planets with special tools (water tool, volcano tool, etc). Although these tools start off limited and very expensive, the player can obtain infinite versions. Terraforming tools include a heat ray which can create more favorable conditions on, for example, an ice planet. 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.[42] 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.[20]

The player may cause ice comets to crash into a planet to create water, or force volcanoes to erupt to increase atmosphere.[42] Players may build colonies on the surface of an inhospitable planet once they gain the ability 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. During earlier phases of the game, it is possible to see other creatures on the planet being abducted for this or other purposes. The player may utilize various tools such as fireworks to interact with primitive lifeforms, 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 50,000 planets in the game's galaxy (including Earth and the Solar System).

Players can make contact with other civilizations, called 'empires', most of which are created by other players. Intelligent species can be found, and when the UFO visits that world, they 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.[27] 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 fight off an invasion of their home planet, colony, or an ally's planet, from space pirates, environmental collapse, or attack from enemies.[43]

EA has stated that there will be a storyline and 'secret ending' which can be found within the Space stage, and that 'only the most hardcore gamers' will get to it, which is the previously mentioned Staff of Life in the middle of the galaxy guarded by a hostile race of cybernetic aliens known as The Grox, who are extremely difficult to befriend and even harder to defeat.[44]

Sandbox

The space phase is sometimes referred to as a sandbox, because the player eventually gains near-complete control of everything, though in the initial stages of the Space phase, the player inevitably must interact with other civilizations as in previous stages. It has been mentioned that the space phase works on two axes: a horizontal axis (the ability to interact with many planets in a variety of different ways) and a vertical axis (the ability to revisit different phases of gameplay).[20]

Editors

See also: Spore Creature Creator

User-generated content is a major feature of Spore; there are eighteen different types of editors (some unique to a phase), and even a music editor which allows players to create and share songs to be used as a national anthem in the Civilization stages and above.[12] 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 they have molded the torso, they can then 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, as said before, slither on the ground like a snake or slug.

Other editors are used for buildings and for vehicles. Eventually, players can 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.[45] 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 game play, as you will not see your creations in the actual game, too these creations can not be shared online but this will likely change if the editor is made official.

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.

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

Spore uses a modified version of the controversial digital rights management (DRM) software SecuROM as copy protection,[46][47][48][49] which requires authentication upon installation and when online access is used.[50] This system was announced after the originally planned system met opposition from the public, as it would have required authentication every ten days.[51] 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.[52] In response to customer complaints, this limit was raised to five computers.[53] After the activation limit has been depleted, EA Customer Service will consider further activations on a case-by-case basis.[54]

As a result of the protection scheme, out of 3184 of the reviews on Amazon.com, 2671 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.[55] Former Maxis developer Chris Harris labeled the DRM a "screw up" and a "totally avoidable disaster".[56]

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.”[57]

Despite the use of DRM, Spore has been cracked, bypassing the copy protection mechanism. The game was distributed over BitTorrent file sharing protocol, has been downloaded over 1,700,000 times, and was ranked the most pirated game of 2008.[58][59]

In response to reactions over Spore's DRM, Frank Gibeau, president of EA Games, 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]

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.[62][63][64] 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.[65]

Reception

 Reception
Review scores
Publication Score
1UP.com B+[66]
Eurogamer 9/10[67]
Game Informer 8.75/10
GamePro 4/5[68]
GameSpot 8.0/10[69]
GameSpy 4.5/5[70]
IGN 8.8/10[71]
PC Gamer UK 91%[72]
PC Gamer US 91%[73]
X-Play 5/5[74]
Aggregate scores
Aggregator Score
Game Rankings 86%[76]
Metacritic 85%[75]

Some reviews expressed amazement of Spore's grand scope and attention to detail. 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."[77] 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."[72] GameSpy praised, "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."[67] 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."[66] 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."[69] 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."[71] The New York Times gave a mildly unfavorable 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."[78] Kristen Salvatore's 91% PC Gamer US review summed up the Spore experience, "As it was with The Sims, it isn’t right to judge Spore in the context of so many of the other games we judge."[73]

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."[79]

By September 24, 2008, the Windows, Mac and DS versions of the game sold a combined one million copies worldwide, according to Electronic Arts.[80] In its first three weeks on sale, the game sold 2 million copies, according to Electronic Arts.[81]

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 natural evolution in some key ways:

In October 2008, John Bravo 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 Cell and Creature. William Sims Bainbridge, a sociologist from the U.S. National Science Foundation, reviewed Tribe and Civilization. NASA's Miles Smith reviewed Space.[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]

Spore and intelligent design

Although other intelligent design advocates seem pleased with Spore, 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.[88]

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.[89] Spore Origins is the mobile phone/iPhone[90]/iPod[91] 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.[92] The iPhone version takes advantage of the device's touch capabilities and 3-axis accelerometer.[93]

A Wii spinoff of the game has been mentioned by Will Wright several times, such as in his October 26, 2007 interview with The Guardian.[94] 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."[88] The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Spore are still under consideration.[27][95] Frank Gibeau, president of Electronic Arts' Games Label announced that the publisher might use the underlying technology of Spore to develop eclectic software titles, such as action, real-time strategy and roleplaying games for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii.[96]

Merchandising

There will be 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.[88] 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.[20] 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.[97] The Spore Store also allows people to put their creatures on such items as T-shirts, mugs and stickers.[98]

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.[99] 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.[100]

Expansions

An expansion called the Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack was released on November 18, 2008. It wasn't a full expansion pack that would add game play, but rather an item pack, containing about 60 new body parts, similar to The Sims 2 Stuff packs.[101] An expansion pack for space has also been confirmed for future release. It will allow the player to beam onto planets, rather than using a hologram. It will also add an "Adventure Creator" which allows for the creation of missions to share with the Spore community. It will be released in spring of 2009.[102]

See also

References

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External links