Spore will fail
despite its truly awesome premise, Spore could tank. It could be gaming’s Titanic, a technological marvel defeated by its own grandiose nature. Let us explain…
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We’ve had an opportunity to sit down with Will Wright and get a personal tour of his vision and it is arguably the most impressive project in development anywhere in the world, on any format. If he pulls it off it truly will be futuristic, mind-blowing stuff. But regardless of whether he hits his goals or not, Spore is a tough sell.
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Spore has plonked itself right between the mainstream and the gamer audiences, but could end up attracting neither.
Take The Sims: it is humongous. It’s so big that the series’ publisher, EA, has given it its own label within the corporation: we now have EA Games, EA Sports, EA Casual and The Sims. For a company that packs such mega-selling franchises as Need for Speed and FIFA, this is some statement to The Sims pulling power. However, it was not gamers who carried the series to such massive heights. The Sims, its sequel, and their ludicrous numbers of expansion packs are the textbook definition of ‘mainstream’ in terms of both gameplay, and marketing. And once the brand took hold, it soared.
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Spore, has no brand power. To gamers it is known, but to the mainstream audience that flocked to The Sims in droves it means nothing. Further to this, the name Will Wright means nothing to this audience as well: to gamers he’s a genuine celebrity, but to mainstreamers he is just a name on a box. ‘From the guy who brought you The Sims’ holds some clout, but little more than a ‘John Carpenter Presents’ on a horror film.
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How is EA going to market Spore? It won’t even help their cause if they design the box art to look exactly like The Sims, and have The Sims written all over it, and you know why? Because The Sims 3 has been announced. Its very existence is already chewing chunks out of Spore’s potential audience.
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The complexity of the gameplay is going to further ostracise mainstream audiences. There isn’t one simple gameplay mechanic to master in Spore: the game is broken up into seven sections that each play differently to the other. And worse still, they take their lead from real gamer’s games. Like hardcore stuff: Diablo for the Creature Phase, Populous for the Tribal Phase, Civilization for the Civilization Phase and Masters of Orion for the Space Phase. Like, c’mon…
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So between the lack of a brand, complex gameplay, online and the impending The Sims 3, cornering the casual market is going to be a challenging (and expensive) frontier to conquer for the EA marketing team. But wait, there is always the gamers… isn’t there?
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The delay has had bigger repercussions than simply raising suspicions. It cost Spore the community enthusiasm and momentum it had coming out of E3 2006, it caused it to be unreleased at the time of The Sims 3 announcement, and it will now mean the game must launch in an environment saturated with plenty of quality alternatives – from MGS4 to GTA IV, 2008 is the year of software, following two years of bitter console wars.
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Finally, there is the inevitable loss of sales which will come through piracy and warez which do, like it or not, need to be considered when talking about PC sales, and veteran gamers.
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The Sims raised the bar for Will Wright and EA will have epic expectations. And in light of that series 50 million plus sell-through, Spore could be deemed an epic fail, even if it sells relatively well. Spore, could be Will Wright’s Black & White.