Items tagged with Spore
Spore is not only a retail hit, it's a BitTorrent hit, according to a recent top 10 assessment of PC game piracy by TorrentFreak. Spore's SecuROM DRM earned it negative customer reviews at Amazon.com, protest Spore creatures, as well as lawsuits. According to TorrentFreak (and honestly, many others), it also earned the game a ton of pirated downloads. As expected, Spore is by far the most downloaded game on BitTorrent, in part thanks to the DRM that came with the game.Spore has been, by TorrentFreak's numbers, downloaded 1.7 million times already, and that's just since the title was released in September. It's as many, including me, have said: people who really want to pirate a game will do so....
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DRM (and lawsuits) aside, Spore has sold a ton of copies. In late September Electronic Arts (EA) said it had already sold 1 million copies (combined PC, Mac and Nintendo DS) sales since shipping on September 7th, despite DRM "Protest Creatures" and critical end user reviews at stores like Amazon.com.Slightly over a week ago listings for something appeared at both Amazon.com (since removed) and GameStop appeared, showing a add-on pack called the Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack. There was a ship date of November 18th, but no additional info, and no word from EA about it. Showing up on the EA Store as a pre-order is pretty good confirmation, however. And, with that listing on the EA Store, we...
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Spore is a critically-acclaimed game, but (at least by users) its DRM has been universally panned. Many of those who know anything about the SecuROM copy protection used in the game don't want it near their computers, unless they absolutely have to. And while Electronic Arts (EA) has "loosened things up" slightly, the DRM has spawned thousands of negative reviews at Amazon.com and protest creatures. And now, it has birthed a class action lawsuit (.PDF). The lawsuit was filed on Sept. 22nd by Melissa Thomas, represented by Alan Himmelfarb and Scott Kamber with KamberEdelson LLC. The lawsuit makes a number of statements, including: What purchasers are not told is that, included in the purchase,...
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Spore's rather draconian DRM, which besides being the already hated SecuROM limits the user to 3 installs and only one online account per CD key, has fostered extremely bad user reviews on Amazon.com as well as "protest creatures." At least part of that DRM will get loosened up soon, via a patch, according to reports. When asked by MTV's Multiplayer about the activation issue, which is mostly a problem because you can't de-authorize PCs, as you can with iTunes, for example, EA's response was: That will be changed, according to the EA spokesperson, who told Multiplayer that the current limit on the number of computers that can be associated with a single copy of “Spore” is “very similar to a solution...
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Don't expect this issue to go away anytime soon. We know many are (understandably) upset over the DRM used on the critically-acclaimed game Spore, not just because of SecuROM but also because of the "three activations limitation" and one account per CD key (which was not noted in the manual; in fact the opposite was said in the manual!). And hey, if the game allows you to create the creatures you want, why not create a protest creature, eh? A look at Sporepedia (Spore's official encyclopedia of creatures) shows that users aren't shy about expressing their displeasure. A search for DRM, for example, leads to a ton of creatures, one shown above. A typical "Description" is given above --- "Get rid...
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With the release of EA/Maxis's Spore (one of the most hotly anticipated games of 2008) only a mere 10 days away, more details about the $49.99 game have come out as well as another sneak-peek video of what gamers can expect come September 7. In the meantime, players have been busy creating creatures for Spore, with the $9.99 Spore Creature Creator, which has been available since June 17. And the many varied user-created creators have been quickly populating the Sporepedia for users to admire and even download if they wish. For the truly die-hard Spore wannabe, EA/Maxis even sponsored an "Ultimate Spore Creature Creator Dance Off Contest" on YouTube, where users uploaded videos of their creatures...
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Gamers, start your tentacles! Today is the day that Electronic Arts releases the long awaited, first step of the Spore evolution: Spore Creature Creator. For the uninitiated, Spore is a single-player, simulation game where you manipulate the evolution of an entire species of creatures from single-cell organisms through the development of civilization and even onto deep-space exploration. It is the brainchild of Will Wright--the genius behind the Sims series of game titles. Spore has been referred to as "Sim Everything" or even "Sim Life." Available today for both PC and Mac, the Spore Creature Creator is a stand-alone product and creativity toy box where players create their own unique creatures,...
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Electronic Arts' Spore could easily be one of the most-anticipated games of all time. Created by Will Wright--the genius behind the Sims series of game titles--Spore has been referred to as "Sim Everything." It is a game where you manipulate the evolution of an entire species of creatures from single-cell organisms through the development of civilization and even onto deep-space exploration. Spore is still on track to start shipping in the U.S. on September 7th, and Spore Creature Creator is scheduled to hit the shelves in just six days from now. As launch time gets closer, EA has released the minimum system requirements for Windows PCs with discrete graphics cards: 2.0GHz P4 processor or equivalent512MB...
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EA has released a video preview of the "Cell Phase" of Spore--the hotly-anticipated brainchild of Sim's creator Will Wright. The video shows vivid samples of what a game player might experience when first starting out with a new creature in the first phase of the game, called the "Cell Phase" or "Tide Pool Phase." Spore is "an epic journey that takes you from the origin and evolution of life through the development of civilization and technology and eventually all the way into the deepest reaches of outer space." The game is made up of five phases:Tide Pool PhaseFight with other creatures and consume them to adjust the form and abilities of your creature. It's survival of the fittest at the most...
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DailyGame reports that the Spore Creature Creator--precursor to the long-awaited Spore Creature-- will start shipping on June 17: Gamers worldwide will have their first chance to create their own Spore space amoeba on June 17, when Electronic Arts will ship the complete retail version of the Spore Creature Creator. A free Spore Creature Creator demo will be available for download on the same day. DailyGame goes on to report that the Spore Creature Creator will cost only $9.99 U.S. The free demo will be limited to 25-percent of the available creature-making parts. Gamers will be able to share their creature creations with other users. EA/Maxis' obvious motivation here is to start whetting the...
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