What in hell? - Apparently these are my priorities.

Oct. 2nd, 2008 12:49 pm Apparently these are my priorities.

There has been an insane amount of busyness lately - new apartment (yay!), the best BSO concert I've ever sung (yay!), pending unemployment in December (booo!), promising job prospect in October (finished round 1 of interviews today - yay!), turning 30 tomorrow (gasp!), etc etc.

Naturally, this short post is about video games.

I picked up a copy of Spore a couple of weeks ago. I have mixed feelings. There is a lot of good: the design tools are great, and the community features are very robust. Lots of creativity out there, and it's a lot of fun to play with everyone else's creatures and vehicles. It's fun, and it has a good feel; this is the first time a "sandbox" game has really engaged me (I don't count Civ as a sandbox, for no particular reason).

There is also a lot of bad: the game is very broad, but also VERY shallow. It's basically five games in one: the cell game (short), the creature game (fun but frustrating), the tribe game (lame), the world war game (fun), and the space game (great). Of those, only in Creature and Space do you get to spend a lot of time with other players' creations (the lack of sharing in the Cell stage is a conspicuous omission).

And there is tons of ugly, which I will sum up in three words: Published By EA. It's been a long time since I dealt with Electronic Arts, and I had forgotten how utterly crap their standards are. Two weeks after a mostly stable release, they put out a patch that is absolutely game-breaking. Systems that worked fine before now don't (yay invisible enemies); the space game crashes constantly; save games corrupt all the time. There is no way to remove the patch short of a full re-install, but even if you do that you need to look in hidden folders to remove other corrupt files. It is ridiculous to expect an end-user to go through all of this, and I hope someone was fired over this patch - it shows a complete misunderstanding of QA, which is about par for the course with EA.

So, it's entertaining, and will keep me playing for a while. But, for the first time in years, I really feel like the money I spent on it was wasted. Pick it up in six months for $25, and you'll be happy; pay $50 to beta test it now and be sad.

If anyone else is playing, look me up (ounceofreason) - I haven't made any buildings or vehicles, because my art is teh suck, but I've got some decent-looking creatures.

Tags: games, geek

Current Location: ShaveLab 3000

Comments:

From:	jan_andrea
Date:	October 2nd, 2008 05:49 pm (UTC)

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Gah, I didn't realize you'd already moved. And pending unemployment? Boo indeed :( I hope the new prospect goes well!

And your birthday snuck up on me, but happy birthday tomorrow :D

What's your new address? And are you coming up next weekend? Sophia's going to stay with Mom and Bob, so we'll be meeting them in Concord to hand her off; it would be great if we could coordinate something :D Also, we are thinking of taking Stephen to the older-kid sites in Boston while she's away (i.e. art museum, harvard or MIT museums) and would be happy to drive you back down or meet you down there.

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From:	ounceofreason
Date:	October 2nd, 2008 06:10 pm (UTC)

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As far as I know, the plan is for me to go up to Sullivan Friday evening, and then head back to Boston some time late Saturday. Sunday is the designated Day o' Rest, though if you want to meet up in the afternoon that would be cool.

It would make sense to carpool with you guys back to Boston - what time are you in Concord? Maybe it doesn't make a lot of sense for me to come up that weekend, if there's going to be so much driving around and crazyness. I was planning a weekend trip to NY the weekend after; maybe I should switch the two.

I'll give you a call when I know more.

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From:	ounceofreason
Date:	October 2nd, 2008 06:10 pm (UTC)

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Also, as I said to Mom a few months ago, I'd rather do family communications in emails, rather than in this public journal.

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From:	jan_andrea
Date:	October 2nd, 2008 07:33 pm (UTC)

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Gotcha.

jan.andrea@gmail.com :D

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From:	skacover
Date:	October 2nd, 2008 09:50 pm (UTC)

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That was a very cute exchange. It sort of reminds me of when I told my dad I played D&D over the weekend and he asked "Who won?"

I was really looking forward to Spore, but I have to wonder: as consumers we make a really big assumption that quality and customer service are the way to success. Clearly there are lots of big companies that do not meet these standards at all--could it be that making a superior product and caring for one's customers is actually *not* the only way to make tons of money?

There has been a huge amount of buzz about Spore for the past few years (It was a very ambitious project, and my imagination promises me the stars and the moon will be delivered by this game). Maybe viral and conventional advertising is all you need.

But then, take TES IV, Oblivion. That's about the buggiest game I've ever played, but I dropped tons of money on all the expansions and still play it occasionally.

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From:	ounceofreason
Date:	October 3rd, 2008 12:52 pm (UTC)

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Buggy games with good hype will sell very well in the first couple of weeks. Fans of the game will always buy their copy (and despite how much it annoys me, I am a fan of Spore.. I guess...), but I wouldn't push anyone else to do so.

Blizzard is the counter-example. They put out 0-1 games a year, but whatever they release is going to be the best game published that year. They're also good at marketing, but positive word-of-mouth can keep their sales going strong for years.

EA's marketing is targetted at the less-informed, more casual player. Their big sellers (The Sims, especially) are very addicting, so even if it doesn't work that well you'll still want to keep playing (and shelling out cash for expansions). EA keeps market dominance with products that I would consider inferior because their target audience has different standards than people who identify as "gamers." They annoy me, but clearly they are doing something right.

Bastards. ;D

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