The Lone Deity = Bad Sales? January 19, 2008
Posted by adrenjarvi in Games, Ludology, Rant.trackback
I was perusing thar interwubs before work when I came upon this nugget from a site I had not previously visited: Gamegiants.com(a site that I don’t think I’ll visit again) . In there, they drop this nugget:
The biggest problem with Spore is it is not truly multiplayer or multiplayer interactive…..This will be Spore greatest failure and it will spell its demise.
Seriously? Having a game be single-player will spell it’s doom? This is their backup:
World of Warcraft is the most popular online game for a reason. Not for gameplay itself or graphics. It is the social aspects of the game.
For one: Bullshit. There are tons of games out there with just as many social aspects but not nearly the playerbase. It is actually due to both graphics and game play (the lack of realistic graphics allows low-end machines to run it, and the gameplay is incredibly tuned). More importantly, it is an MMO. These are, by definition, Massively multiplayer, all the while being online. Spore is an Uber-sim. It is, in fact, made by the creator of “The Sims”- one of the most popular games online. He makes a remarkably odd caveat:
Spore does, as stated, allow for the things that players create to be actually uploaded into other players worlds.
This is AMAZING. This is the reason spore will be awesome: You, the lone deity, are crafting a world that you completely control. You will foster this creature- nay, this species- from a cell to a civilization. Then, you get to show of the LIFE you created to others, championing your skills as a life-bringer against all others. I feel that I am beginning to understand child beauty pageants.
Multiplayer games are very popular; but one need not shove multiplayer where it doesn’t belong. After all, single players games can be, and often times are, quite amazing.
“This is the reason spore will be awesome: You, the lone deity, are crafting a world that you completely control.”
All I have to Say is Black and White II.
There is an obvious parallel there, although in B+W 2, you never crafted the species you cared for. A combination of the two concepts seems a tantalizing prospect. B+W2 (a good game in it’s own right, I don’t think it qualifies as a ‘burn’) never gave you the aspect of showing off the prosperity ( or tyranny) that you brought about, save for dragging a friend over to a computer monitor. The flexibility of spore will be it’s saving grace, and it’s network of players, while not interacting specifically with one another, will be instrumental in it’s replay value.
All I have to Say is Black and White II.
I meant Spore will sell like B+W II a retail failure…..
What I meant is the comparison falls apart when you look deeper into it. True, they are both “God Games”, but spore is in fact the first game where you create the beings that follow you. Also, there is no (or, rather, yet to be announced) “magic” in the game- I can’t crush my creatures with a giant monkey, but I can have them build WMD’s and go to town on someone elses’ cached creations.
The idea is that it cannot be condemned solely due to it’s single-playerness. Right now, the only thing I see standing in the way of what is to be an awesome title are the delays, slowly letting the air out of the hype bubble.