@sbrumm1983: yeah, supposedly due the the constant addition of new species and planets, plus the already planned universe you're supposed to "never experience everything". or some shit like that. Iunno. My co-worker runs a fansite so basically all his reserves are for spore and nothing else. dude has had it reserved since 2005.

Can you imagine the achievements for this game?

"100 points - Died before you finished the game."

ManjiKengo

@ManjiKengo: Lol it might be but there is no way I will experience everything then. I guess it just falls into the category of games I won't finish.

sbrumm1983

Why not? The WarCraft III and StarCraft Battle Chests were in the PC Top 10 Bestsellers for years (I believe that War3 is still up there thanks to WoW). Halo and Melee, both games released at the beginning of the last generation, likewise dominated the charts of their respective systems throughout the Xbox and Gamecube's life cycles.

The true classics never really go away.

Hrist

Only the PS2 can be 10 years. Every other console will just hear of it as the legend it is once it dies.

Ruglia

@ManjiKengo: er....due to the sheer vastness of space....

ManjiKengo

@sbrumm1983: isn't the gameplay time for spore supposed to be more than 1 life time?

ManjiKengo

Or when you're EA you just keep on making the same game every year. Zing!

t0yrobo

I am very excited for Spore myself, but there is no way I will play that game for 10 years. It just isn't gonna happen. You know what games they do need to bring back on the shelf though. All of Lucas Arts adventure games. Whats it take to throw those in a compilation and make me happy?

sbrumm1983

Expansions that will make you pop in the game for 5 minutes to check out what's new then pop out the game and play something else, waiting for a more meaningful expansion, even though it'll never happen? Horray!

Expect Spore: Tribe Accessories.

TheCheese33

If I can play a game for a month, that's long enough ... I don't really need content spanning a decade. To be honest, I feel like the world has been spammed with enough Sims add-ons.

Side note: That photo made me laugh.

jayntampa

When games play toward the gamers, they can last years. It's all about content, adding it, consistently allowing for more growth. If a gamer loves a game, they don't want it to be over. Of course, this means the game itself has to be very good from the get-go.

JohnnytheFuture

Hardcore gamers don't play the same game for more than a month. Really? I've been playing Melee for over six years, and I've bought 3 separate copies.

TheEngineer: Rocking the Goggles

@Foggynotion: Couldn't have been more than 2 mins. 3, tops!

Luke Plunkett

So how long did that photoshop job take you Mr. Plunkett?

And why no Falkor?

Foggynotion

Confirmed:

Spore 2009
Spore 2010
Spore 2011
...

NeoAkira

Surely the ideal spot is somewhere in between.

Sabre_Justice: Okay, no more long name.

@sbrumm1983:

It's finally all mine! - Play for 30 years and don't remortage your save.

Bellamy

you guys and your god damned photoshopped pictures.. makes every day a new adventure in hilarity.

relax_guy

@Bellamy:
Strom Thurman Achievement - Play for 100 years

sbrumm1983

That´s why EA has the same shit over and over again with 2007, 2008, 2009 1010 date son it, while Capcom has tons of different kinds and shapes of shits and poops with Megaman Helmets on it?

Wyld

Capcom is right for "console games" and EA is right for "pc games." That is all there is to it. Personally if I dont buy the game in a few days of its release then I wont ever buy it.

Xcite79

@Ghede: That's an intriguing point, because, though Super Mario Bros. may not sell now like it would have back in the 1980s, its gameplay surely would and does.

I think that the vast development of technology in the past 20 or so years also comes into play here. Film, as an artistic and commercial medium, didn't mature for decades as well, in the beginning audiences were very satisfied watching a train move, or a mother and father feeding their child oatmeal. These "masterpieces" didn't develop with the creation of film's technology, there had to be a precedent that the industry could be built on.

This is the transitionary period that the video game industry currently exists in. Though I think technology would necessarily have to plateau, so that the players wouldn't believe what they are experiencing was something obsolete, or not worth giving a shot 20 years down the line.

JohnnytheFuture

@ocalot:

100 points - Recieved saved game from your father's will.

Bellamy

@ManjiKengo: Seeing your achievement made me come up with one based upon it.

100 points - the game finishes you.

ocalot

Translation, they will not create too many original games, instead they will just rehash the same game over and over and over again.

Azriel77

I think this can also be a response to an article comparing the "timelessness" of movies to the shelf life of games. The article writer compares all video-games to the Godfather. He says the Godfather would sell just as well today if it hadn't been release back then, but Super Mario Bros wouldn't. His conclusion is that all video-games are irrelevant.

[www.theglobeandmail.com]
That particular bee has been buzzing in a lot of bonnets.

Ghede

@ManjiKengo: I'm not gonna lie. That would be one of the freakiest things you could ever see on a friends score. I think I had it reserved in 2005, but I moved so I had to cancel. At least now there is something that is close to a release date.

100 points - Wasting 10 years of your life!

sbrumm1983

@Bellamy:
lol nice.

Congratulations Dr. - Play through college and Med School

sbrumm1983

Wow! Someone is delusional. Will Wright made The Sims, not EA. And it's Will Wright who's making Spore right now. They would never be able to come up with that kind of stuff just being EA. Just look at the rest of their games.

Shinryoma

@Wyld: Definitely agreed. Then again, I truly haven't bought anything from EA in ages. The current foreseeable future shows that this fact is unlikely to change.

Blizzard's Starcraft, Diablo and Warcraft is proof though that games can be made to play for the ages, as they are solid in gameplay, storyline, creativity, and other factors that I just don't feel makes an EA game. To this day, I still find myself playing Starcraft, and doesn't see end of that coming till Starcraft II comes out.

Madden and Tiger Woods? No thanks.

Soldier_CLE

Please tell me this means that Rock Band will be augmented via additional content, and they're not just gonna release an '08 version where you have to buy the whole thing over again because they added a second pedal to the drums or something. Cuz that's what I expected.

supercrap

@Shinryoma: Will Wright made the Sims, but the franchise was built by the hard working Sims Business unit, cranking out expansion packs and accessories for the game. Will's genius was in building this facsimile of reality that could be added to almost infinitely with more content and features.

Spore, they reckon, has the same potential. And, what part of EA buying Maxis are you not aware of? Will Wright works for EA. He's a vice president and studio director. Will makes a game = EA makes a game.

ludwigk

ATREYU!

wiriamou

As it's EA, I have to interpret this in the most cynical & pessimistic way possible.

ErskinPig

Man, I don't know if I'll have enough HDD space for 10 years worth of DLC...

boopadoo

Hardcores can play a game 10 yers ( counter-strike, quake, starcraft, etc...). Games that add nothing to the table die fast, but classis life longer.

tei

(sorry for the double post) I'd bet Korea will be playing starcraft 2 until quantum computers are invented.

Quine

oh yeah, and the prices of EA games stay the same for 10 years too? ... well nothing's changing then.

infi

@TheEngineer: Hates the UE3: yea, i wouldn't really be angry if they didnt release another smash ever, since I can definitely spend 7+ years with brawl (spent a good 4 with melee, only stopped cuz of brawl).

Quine

Indeed StarCraft already proved this is very well possible. Look at games like EVE online, they just updated the graphics engine so it's looking good enough again. They can do that for years if they want. So yeah, Spore lasting 10 years is not something totally strange to me.

Even Pokémon has essentially been the same for 10 years and keeps selling even though nothing is actually new apart from updated graphics and some new monsters.

Comparing games and movies is very well possible but comparing godfather to mario bros. is not really fair. Movies have matured for decades, games haven't. That would be the same as comparing the latest Final Fantasy (just an example) to a black and white silent movie, there's a real possibility FF will be fun after a long time, the movie is now not considered fun anymore. Games are reaching this technological saturation point fast but are not there yet.

TrekVogel

You gain +5 protection from being lame by use of Atreyu.

-EDGE-

What else is new...EA been selling the same crap to us every year with the YEAR stuck to the end of it and people still suck it up like a hoover vacuume. EA you are sick.

nxp3

Of course EA thinks a game can sell forever. Look at Madden. Each year they take copies still on the shelves, add one to year, repackage, and shazam it sells like hotcakes for another month or so.

What? You thought Madden was new every year?

TRT-X

How many games are sold every day that were released over a decade ago? (Hint: Virtual Console)

psychobaka

We need to learn "high quality" "low tech" somehow. As in adventure games. Theres still people playing Monkey Island alike games, even if that games have zero replaybility. The problem here has ben the 3D. With 3D is almost imposible to make a game that will look good in 3 years. Thats what is killing most longetivity in games, the 3D. But seems theres not options, is also the 3D that has move soo much people to gaming, to begin first.

tei

ARRRRTTTEEEEXXXX!!!!!!

JudgementOfCrom2

I hate to be the grammar Grinch, but here goes:

"Capcom reckon a game's shelf lifetime can sometimes be measured in days. A view EA don't, predictably, share."

No! No! No! Journalism professors are rolling in their graves. This should be written as follows:

"Capcom reckon(s) a game's shelf lifetime can sometimes be measured in days -- a view EA (doesn't)share."

You see Capcom and EA are both singular proper nouns. Capcom is not a "they," it's an "it," as is EA. You don't say, "EA eats their own turds for profit with each release of Madden."

Instead, you would say, "EA eats "its" own turds for profit with each release of Madden." A singular noun should be matched with a singular verb

Sorry for having to do that, but kids out there pick up on journalists' bad mistakes and become even dumber. Just look at what's happened with the Halo community!

DugDawg

@DugDawg:
Luke is Australian. It is correct in Australia.

kingofallcosmos

I've played some console games for 10 years (Wipeout XL, Beatmanias) but of my 10 year old PC games, about 1/3 still work properly. Of my 20 year old PC games... maybe a couple still work?

Sure, I could keep the PCs they work on around, but that takes up a huge amount of space and effort to hook them up as opposed to say, dropping a Dreamcast in a shopping bag to keep the dust out and putting it on a shelf.

fuchikoma

I completely agree with EA. Just look at the top 10 PC Games. WoW, WoW Expansion, Starcraft Battlechest, Warcraft 3 battlechest, the original Warcraft battle chest, and all the Sims titles have stayed on there for what seems like forever to only temp. Being bumped off be each other and new titles for as little as only a week. The fact that people are still buying Starcraft proves Capcom wrong, and actually shows their lack of quality.

On the flip side. Capcom is also right. A game's success CAN be judged on the first few weeks. If the game is unable to sell 50k units in the first month, dont expect a sequal...

Justcrim

@BMErdin: Looked it up. Last Sept/Nov, they pulled online service for nearly 50 games.

BMErdin

Didn't EA pull the plug on a bunch of their game servers a few months back? Or was that a different company?

BMErdin

Duke Nukem... Forever! Yes you can do just that.

whiskey