A new Spore article popped up over at
Spiegel Online. Here's a snippet for ya:
To add to the fun, creatures keep appearing that the player has never seen before -- underhanded egg thieves, nimble animals adept at fleeing predators and clever mammals that hunt in herds. These unexpected enemies come from other players' planets. The company's central computer collects them, unnoticed, via the Internet, to insert them into other ecosystems wherever they fit. This guarantees constant competition.Interestingly enough, the author of the article is not getting the point. He also says:
The strategy also saves the company money. The expensive elements of a conventional game are the scenery and the moveable figures. Special effects designers can spend their days working on nothing but realistic little clouds of dust and smoke. But "Spore" doesn't need this kind of staffing, because the player does most of the work. The company provides the empty planets and the construction tools, or editors. "The players create practically everything in 'Spore,'" says Wright.So... developing an entirely new way of creating user content, hosting servers and providing bandwidth for potentially millions of user created creatures and galaxies is -cheaper- than sticking in the 50 different creatures they otherwise would have?
Uh huh... :)
