Patience Is A Virtue (and so is revolutionary game design)
1)Spore, like Football Superstars, is in a league of its own and breaks ground where few have dared to tread.
2)Spore was created by legendary designer Will Wright and Maxis, now under the EA banner.
3)Spore was released in the UK at 1am this morning.
Because of points one and two, I've been awake since point three.
There is an almost infinite variety of hobbies that we can choose to take an interest in, but I'd argue that no other arouses quite the same mix of passion and impatience as gaming. The 50 times a day I answer the question, “WEN CAN I DOWNLODE FOOTBALL SUPERSTARS?!” is testament to this. Our hobby is built on an industry where years pass between the first mention of a concept and the thrilling moment that we get our hands on the box or see the download unlock timer tick down to zero.
All this time while the developers are putting the game together, marketing departments are whipping potential buyers into a frenzy, reviewers are teasing us with vague snippets of information, and fans are amassing in such great numbers that they send web servers to their graves at the faintest hint of an update!
I've spent some time thinking about this, because I'm that sort of nerd, and I think I've figured out why. While books and films can also be hotly anticipated, I've no doubt that their pre-order figures are far below those of video games. Despite the glitz and glamour of a film premiere, we very rarely see queues stretching along streets all over the world like we do for the release of a new console or major game. I think it's because as players we feel that the games belong to us. Unlike other forms of media we're not a passive observer; once the game is running we're the star!
I think the player has every right to lay claim to their games too! We're seeing publishers and developers like CyberSports and Monumental deliberately conducting a lot of their work in the public eye and encouraging the fans to explain exactly what they'd like to see, and your input genuinely does influence the decisions we make! I hasten to add that I don't say this out of self-promotion; many of you will remember that Steve and George were getting in amongst the players-to-be long before I came on board!
We're also seeing this sort of community direction taken to its most extreme level in initiatives like David Perry and Acclaim's “Project: Top Secret” which saw a community of 100,000 put their heads together to design a game from scratch with the ultimate prize being to have your game made by Acclaim under your direction. The end result is the creation of an IP revolving around breeding and racing anime creatures so I can't help thinking the idyllic concept lost its way somewhere along the line, but it's a remarkable way to make a game and every member of that community has a very tangible connection to the finished product... which they'll no doubt be screaming for long before it's finished and go on to play it at stupid o'clock in the morning on release day ;)
Anyway, I could hardly lead into an article referring to Spore and not tell you what I made of it. On about five hours of play I can say that I'm very happy! In spite of what the communal nerd rage of the internet might tell you, it does deliver on its promises and it's a hell of a lot of fun – there's just no pleasing some people. It does feel quite watered down at times, but you can't expect the RTS phase to match up to Command & Conquer or the space phase to have the depth of GalCiv; there's a reason why those games aren't all released in one streamlined package like Spore! A lot of people have pointed to the Metacritic rating of 87 as an indication of failure but I'd say it's a pretty fair appraisal, all things considered, and an average rating of 87 out of 100 is still a fantastic achievement! It's an astonishing concept and I feel Maxis have done an excellent job of laying the foundations, but being an EA-published game expansions are sure to come and there's plenty more Spore to explore. I'm sure I won't be the only one counting the days until the release of the next installment. It's our game after all!
