Spore is Amazing.

i downloaded it for 5 bucks onto my ipod and its super fun. well worth the 5 dollars and the replay value is great, you can listen to your own music while the game is being played and it even shows the album art work for a momement in the cornor of the screen.

best 5 bucks iv spent.
cause i cant afford the pc version. and if i had it my computer sucks so bad it would just freez as i played it.

I just watched a show about it on...errr maybe discovery channel? the other night...It was weird..i like never watch the tv, and turned it on for some distractions while setting up a new PC...it looks...amazing. and super addictive.

side note: on the show, they had this scene about how the body moves, and they had all these people running up and down some stairs, and the game creator watching them, and he slurps a milkshake. HA!

I do think I'll end up getting it when my computer is at a point where it can actually handle the game. Right now I've got a teeny tiny hard drive and my video card is pure crap. But someday, someday...

some day you can have giant spitting penis monsters, too.

Or until the cost of implementing it outweighs the benefit, which is why some people avoid DRMed material. And it's not that effective anyway.

I don't think anybody is faulting EA for trying to prevent theft; the fault is in the way they choose to do it. By limiting the number of installations, EA is treating the consumer who paid for the product like a criminal. In my book, that falls under the heading of "not okay".

even better.

The balls are HAIRY!

Eh. I'll believe *that* when I see it.

Frankly, the main place I'm coming from on the issue is this: I collect games. I go back to them on occasion. Sometimes I miss a game for years but find out about it later and have to have it. I therefore always want to be able to access and play my games. Now, ten years from now, 100 years from now. Whenever I might care to.

I realize that shifts in hardware and software run an increasing risk of causing problems with that all on their own, through no fault of the original developers. And while I don't necessarily appreciate that, I don't blame them. Of course not. But any time you create artificial barriers between me and playing a game, you up the risk of later unplayability dramatically. It might be as simple as those old system requirements tests that wouldn't let you install or play if you failed some ancient check that wasn't familiar with modern hardware or software. It might be Starforce's litany of problems, including now an incompatibility with Vista (resolvable, apparently, by downloading an update, but who the fuck wants to update poisonous DRM like that). Or it might be something as hugely likely to fuck you in the future as this variety of SecuROM. Activations run out and they don't support the game anymore? Fuck you. Buy the game secondhand and the activations are out? Fuck you. Activation server gets taken down without activation being patched out? Fuck you. Etc. And those are just the obvious ways it might interfere with me being able to play my own games in the future. Who knows what conflicts will arise, what perfectly legitimate stuff might suddenly raise red flags in aging DRM?

Oh, and FYI, I haven't bought Spore because nothing I've read has convinced me it's much of a game. I'm not saying it needs to be, or that it's been positioned otherwise, just that I don't have much use for toys.

and yet i keep paying $15 every month to play a game. actually, $30, because i have two accounts active most of the time, as i had to buy a new set of discs when my install fucked up and figured what the hell, why not. every year or so having to pay maybe $30-40 if i actually manage to get new computers or have problems requiring a reinstall is peanuts compared to that. that's what a lot of the big game companies are looking at.

with the level of pirating going on out there, i just don't see DRM or it's progeny of the future going away for big name releases, no matter how much we all complain. that's why i think the aim should be to come up with something that actually works rather than the current type of DRM, because then nobody will have problems.

hey, if it's not your type bag, then it's all good, man. some people only play sports games, after all.

I'm sorry, I don't see it the same way. If I'm playing a single player game, or a game that has a single player mode, I don't think that I should be required to have an internet connection in order to play. Fuck, I have enough of a problem just getting these text based boards to load without timing out.

And, as much as games are moving towards MMO, there is still a market for single player games. I, for one, prefer single player games because in MMOs, in order to accomplish goals, I have to rely on other players, which are not always reliable or available when I want to play.

I'm fine with other security measures, such as having the disk inserted to play, and authentication keys, but having to go online whenever I want to play isn't a viable option for me. It's too bad too, because I fucking love the Sims, and the other titles from Wright, and I was really looking forward to this game, but with their chosen type of DRM, it wouldn't be worth it for me.

you seem to have skipped the part where i mentioned that you don't have to be online to actually play it, you just need to register and create an account the once. could be wrong, though.

still, the days of single player computer games increasingly look to be on the way out. i've found that most good single player games are more and more coming to be found on the consoles, and even then they're a hard to find commodity (well, good ones, at least). as much as i'd like to side with you on single player games (i solo 99% of the time on WoW, for instance), that just doesn't seem to be the way the market for computer games seems to be going.

furthermore, i'd like to reiterate the the point about it being in the future when the level of connectivity we experience has drastically increased for the US, and merely heavily increased for most of Europe and Asia. i constantly feel like we're getting seriously screwed by the service provided here, as a side note.

now that i think more about it, i think the better bet would be to, rather than appeal to game companies to not put DRM in by either spirited arguments or by not buying the game (which i honestly doubt will ever put enough of a dent into their profits to work), but to try to work it so that they are legally unable to place such restrictive DRM onto their product. granted, i doubt that will be too soon in coming, or even necessarily possible in the near future, but i think it's a more feasible option than just not buying the games.

It's not like I've never bought a game with questionable DRM features, I just haven't paid full price for one. I wait until it's cheap and just buy it on Steam or something.

I used to be a huge gamer, but I'm not anymore. There are many factors why, but this is one of them.

I don't get why these companies continue to spend money on DRM that doesn't even work.

Because they're scared, and DRM represents the only thing they can see even making a dent.

It's not unlike the RIAA and MPAA's reaction to the same issues.

They can either sell it to me, or rent it to me. DRM of any kind means the product is not %100 yours.
DRM causes Piracy

me too...

this is why I am okay with just observing the hubs gameplay for awhile... he wun shuddap about this game--I'm curious, yet still unmoved... hmmm

spore seems like a very good game. it better be worth the 50 bucks im going to spend on it....

I have been waiting for Spore to come out seemingly forever. I just remember its release date kept getting pushed back. I hope it's worth it.. because it looks super promising. Despite all the DRM crap. I still want it.