As visionary as Will Wright is, I think Spore has been compromised by his commercial sensibilities — or those of Maxis’ marketers. An interesting article in this month’s Seed suggests that the game was originally less commercially viable than it is now, and the original vision was muddied somewhat by the need to reach a wide audience. Unfortunate, but perhaps inevitable.
But this? Once again the expansion monster rears its ugly head. Not that we don’t expect it after the decade-long cavalcade of Sims expansions, but… really? Releasing a “Cute and Creepy creature parts” expansion a month after the game is released? Real classy. It’s almost as if the content was ready when the game shipped, but you decided to withhold it and sell it later for extra! I understand it’s a business, but when even Spore can lose its magic due to industry pressure, it’s a sad day indeed.
Spore is an awesome game, but it gets old quite fast! Paying for extra content like this is the reason I am giving up on gaming.
Spore: Creature Party
Spore: Romance
Spore: Downtown Life
Spore: College Days
Spore: Dazed and Confused
Spore: Rambo
Spore: Alien vs Predator
Spore: Gone in 60 Seconds
Spore: What the Hell happened?
Spore: Bunch-o-random Crap before we release Spore 2
I am so glad that I played the pirated version and deleted this game. I was so psyched up about it before it was released and then after I played it, I promptly uninstalled it and forgot about it.
It’s not really an expansion pack, it’s more like those “Stuff” packs they do for Sims. I assume there will be actual expansions in the future that will add additional gameplay as well as stuff, but for now it’s just stuff.
I think the bigger problem is that this expansion pack does nothing to improve the weakest part of the game. The game play. The creature creator is inspired, but this add on pack seems ridiculous. I wonder why they don’t employ a microtransaction model like Gaia and Stardoll e.g. charge $0.50 for a beak. Also the software seems like it would be a good loss leader if it would get people to buy things like their 3D printouts which are reviewed here:
http://replicatorinc.com/blog/2009/01/review-spore-sculptor-3d-printing-service/