EA may charge for Spore Access Our friends at Sporeum found this tidbit in a Gamespot article. In addition to dropping hints about new platforms, Gibeau also hinted that Spore might not be entirely free of charge. He told analysts that the online mode of the game could be an "opportunity" for an "expanded digital revenue stream." He did not elaborate if said stream entailed microtransactions, in-game advertising, subscription fees, or any combination of the three. How would the Spore community reaction react to this? Could this be the Achilles' heel for Spore?
Would be for me. Pity cos I was starting to get almost excited again. How many subscriptions do these bozos imagine that ordinary people can afford? (After they've bought Spore for PC, Wii, PSP, DS, Xbox, Abacus ) I expect some cynical accounts manager has just discovered that the Expansion Pack end of the Spore franchise is looking decidedly weak and has suggested floating the idea of charging for access to the Sporepedia as a way of keeping revenues buoyant while Spore 2 is in development ...
At least they made TSO for free now . Perhaps you could teach an old dog new tricks...hehehehehe :ducks:
If that be the case then I surely won't have to worry about being online when I get the game. If I have to pay anything other than the intial cost of the game in order to play it then I won't get it at all.
Well hopefully there will be a retail no "extra" cost singleplayer mode and then the multiplayer if they are going to do this ,so people can play by themselves if they want to
I'm sure if EA charges people for accessing the Sporepedia people will find a way of exchanging characters by some other means, even if means downloading and installing them manually.
I'm sure there will be a number of sites promoting people's personal stuff because some people won't want to sort through the millions of possibilities out on the web.
LOL I am playing EA-Land and being amused by the all the old simlish ... which I still prefer to the new-fangled stuff. Some of the old simlish actually sounds like conversations, instead of the TS2 strangulated phrases. As I see the Sporepedia aspect, the player's game will be able to trawl the web to download the most suitable "competition" for their particular creature's ecology. If we're reduced to operating outside the "Official Exchange" because of petty profit whoring then that will devalue the game's playability.
/me"jumps through Josh's hoop and then marvels at our illustrious leader's powers of persuasion onder:
Expect a monthly subscription, considering they are providing you with a pipeline to new content from other users. Expansion packs are also inevitable, which they will also charge for. As a rule of thumb, "if its in any way considered new content, expect to pay for it". No doubt there are exceptions to that rule, however, they are few and far between. Just go in with mindset that you will be paying out the wazoo (remember what they'll need to make up in R&D - 10 years of dev now?). So, if we end up not having to pay a monthly fee, you'll be even happier.
LOL, I like the cut of your jib, Cringe ... especially the name. But I'd love to know what sort of content could be added by expansion packs ... Maybe there will be a Pets expansion .... "now your creatures can domesticate ferocious species and turn them into cute and cuddly pets" Or possibly a Seasons-esque expansion. Spore (TM) Epochs: This time your creatures' planets will have ice ages and climate change to cope with. Sorry ... but such additions as I can conceive of do not amount to expansion packs. If the content is all user generated (by play rather than by creative tinkering) then anyone can make original content. The only question is how long it will take the community to create the tools needed to access and share the content outside of the official system if EA is crazy enough to make the Sporepedia subscription only. Besides. The fat lady ain't singin'; Spore remains little more than Lies and Propaganda, and even if and when it does hit the shelves there are more ways of skimming the fiscal cream off the dairy goodness of the paying public of gamers than charging for access. Spore is not a MMORPG. A player would not require constant access to the Sporepedia simply to play, merely some access for the purposes of locating species to fill ecological niches, or -- in the space phase -- planets to explore or conquer. The most reasonable solution would seem to me to be using advertising to support the servers. Commercially speaking, I am perplexed by EA's decision to throw open TSO while maintaining the fiction of subscription accounts as the premier customer. It has occurred to me that making free access to TSO is a slightly cynical ploy to bring in fresh fodder (I mean "players") for the paying customers to "play" with. As a means of propping up what was fast becoming a bogged down and fast-fossillizing economy, it remains a matter for conjecture regarding the success or otherwise.
Excellent points. On the point of expansion packs, try not to think in the MMORPG format. If I were to put myself in their shoes, trying to develop marketing ploys on pay-per-content, on an off-line game, I would focus my attention on vehicles that are already deployed in the market place. A console-style business model. Take for example Guitar Hero or Rock Band. Both extremely popular games, and available on both the PS3 and XBox 360 systems. So out of the 20,30,40 (I don't know how many) songs available with the game, you may get to play 3 or 4 artists that you really enjoy. Content out of the box that draws the consumer (you) into pay-per-content. How? Easy. Loading screens, long wait periods that show colorful pictures with captions such as "Download more of your favorite artists via XBox live or Playstation Network! Just press these buttons on the controller in your hand to start browsing more songs available from all of your favorite bands!". And look, for a measly $3.99 you can get a pack of 4 songs from Metallica! So with these controls in the hangs of the players, getting a few more dollars down the line is almost guaranteed. The experience you have while playing the songs of your favorite bands is the marketing campaign. And not that it would be much of a comparison to any model Spore will choose, but this takes no effort, and both games above are available on both platforms mentioned, reaching a much larger target audience, bringing in twice the revenue for each. So, in reference to Spore... What would you buy for $3.99? There are dozens of people trying to figure out that right now. Eventually, they'll find something. And as for the subscription payments. Another easy one, new content is added every second of every day, 365 days a year by randomly generated creatures by other players. Always updating and always available. Never create the same thing twice! Play forever? Perhaps. I don't know. Everything above this sentence is speculation, nothing more than educated guesses. I truly don't what the future holds but I can tell you I'm excited. I really hope an open beta comes along soon. I've been stoked on the idea of this game for a couple of years now, but it's been nothing but rumors and development issues. I've still got high expectations, maybe even more so from the delays.
Heh, we're all pretty excited by the prospect of finally getting our hands on the game. In my mind the short-term success is an unquestionable certainty. In the long term though I have real doubts about the game's legs. These are doubts born out ignorance; until I get my hands on the game I can't know how addictive and flexible it is. But for a game to achieve legendary status over a long and profitable life it needs to have an x-factor. Much is made of Spore's open-ended sandbox gameplay, but that can be major negative just as easily as its greatest positive. There exists a danger that for some players the game might quickly become formulaic. My own doubts centre around how much fun I expect to get out of it once I get my first species into space. If I run into something like Alien or the Borg first time around and get annihilated I might well lose interest. On the other hand if the other species are difficult to conquer then the same ennui is apt to develop. This, I suspect, is one of the primary reasons for the delay, in spite of all our anti-EA rhetoric. (Whoa! I'm capable of saying something nice ) Whatever, we can only hope that Will has gotten it right. His track record is almost exemplary, but no-one is exempt from producing at least one lemon in a career. But if the long delay is the result of protracted fine-tuning then the received wisdom of a billion ancestors might be proved right: you can spend all your life fletching a bent arrow, but it'll never fly straight.
Didn't you hear the latest news? Spore has gotten a major, game-ending quest for those who want/need one. The center of the galaxy is where it's at. To those who find it, the true meaning of Spore is revealed...
That's I am making Pierson's Puppeteers ... the centre of the galaxy is exploding and only the Puppeteers have the technology to take their planet with them to a new galaxy. Geez ... I'm such a geek.
