This is what I was afraid of with everyone singing it's praises before the game had even been previewed before their eyes... Set the expectations astronomically high and in the end, not only will it not meet its expections of beyond the stars, but it won't even make it to the sky...

I hope that impression is wrong...

Yeah, I'm a little shocked by this idea that it's done in six hours myself. Though, I suppose you could stay at a single stage for almost as long as you'd like, doing as you please.

Even still, it seems like such a pathetic length for a game that, on paper, seems to be truly epic. From cells to conquerer of galaxies? How could you NOT be epic?

By watering it down to bite sized, casual friendly increments, that's apparently how.

Glad I never gave a shit about this in the first place. Ridiculously out of control hype machine FTL.

I, for one, think this just might be a good thing. I was worried before that the Space phase might take at least a couple of months to get interesting, while people played through the game, making crazy monster things.
But the way it seems to be now, the "Universe" will quickly fill up with thousands (millions?) of unique monsters to conquer/enslave/lord over.
Besides, I don't want to spend dozens of hours with one creation. I'd MUCH rather create dozens of creations, giving a couple hours to each of them. Then maybe spend a long time tooling around space with one of my favorites.

Hey guys, remember how awsome Fable was supposed to be?

...Yeah, that's why I don't get excited for stuff like this anymore.

leaning towards 2 myself. i'd rather play deeper implementations of each of the genres this just skims over to get to the "space". aside form looks, how different will each species/civilation be? it sounds like theres only 3 types?

"2. Spore kinda blows"

Blasphemy!

At least, I hope that isn't the case... I've been waiting a long time for Spore (and, it would seem, I will continue waiting a long time for Spore), and I am one of those unfortunate people to place this game in a brighter light than it could possibly be worthy of.

5 hours? That's not only disappointing, that's depressing.

I'm going to go find a rocking chair, face the corner, and repeatedly mubmle beneath my breath "work in progress... work in progress... work in progress..." until I can convince myself that '5 hours' turns into '15-20 hours', with the space play being an extended experience beyond the main game of growing into an interplanetary civilization.

I don't think you can really put Sims games in a category where you measure them by length of time to "finish". They're sandbox games, meant to be played repeatedly with different approaches.

its sad to hear this i wasn't to keen on the space aspect but i though surely i could spend the better half of my time building new creatures and experamenting with different society scenarios.

I must say this game had me excited, and still somewhat does, but that preview footage and this post make me wonder if there is any actual gameplay in it, or if it is just about the character creation. Will this be the offline City of Heroes? With a sharp drop after the creation phase, it could be. Here's hoping it isn't.

I think Rabidmoose has the right idea. But, It would be cool to have interaction with your other species. So, let's say you make one species, and get it to max civilization. Then, you go and create another species on a different planet. It would be excellent if that species could then go to your original one, and you could play with yourself.

Okay....That was a ridiculously long set up for such a crappy joke.

As soon as the idea came up for a console version I started having dirty thoughts in my head about #2.

Spore will be eaten by the hype monster

I agree with Freddycutter. Also, previews/betas usually run an accelerated progression than release builds, right?

Don't freak them out from releasing the damn thing, please. It only feeds the casual/throw-away/quick game industry :(

This is what happens when you set the hype machine to overdrive.

did anyone ever think that all it was was sort of a training before they set you out into the real sandbox enviorment of it? Isn't spore a non-linear game...

I'm not sure the X hours gameplay thing really applies to Sim games like this. I mean really, how long technically does it take to 'complete' The Sims? from making a character to maxing out his job and achieving his lifetime goal can't take more than a few hours of gametime surely?

How long did it take to take a city from a fledgling village to filling in the sea to place more arcologies?

The key with these games is A replayability - doing it again differently, and B, pointless continuation. Even when your racing around the galaxy in your space ship (correct me i'm wrong but this is how i understood it) you could play through the whole game again on another planet, modifying the genes of species and sending down monoliths or whatever.

I agree the hype on Spore is too much, but I'm going to allow Will the benefit of the doubt for the time being, he has enough of a pedegree behind him to have earned that.

I question if this article refers to the sped up demo seen at the Leipzig. If that is the case we can not base playing time off of what has been said here. It is more than likely that they gave a dumbed down version of the game that the press could breeze through in order to experience the full game.

It was never stated how it was learned that the game would last five hours. So unless it was said specifically by maxis I doubt that we are getting the full truth.

I remember somebody, maybe Will Wright, saying that the "stages" are more tutorials to the tools you can use to do whatever you want. After you get into space, I imagine you can find a new planet to start making critters again for as long as you want. Or you can start a new city. Or conquer other civilizations.

hype kills games. There is no way around it, I'll wait until it drops and then read some reviews.

It's Will Wright, I guess he knows what he's doing.

Well. I hope he knows what he's doing.

Anyway, I'll judge the game once I've played it.

@parallellines: Most succinct observation I've read all day. You, sir, get a multi-tap nomination.

Hold on, so with all the great things that have been said about this game, most of you have been like "meh, probably gonna suck." As soon as there COULD be a slight problem with it, you all jump on the anti-hype bandwagon!

I say we approach this game as optimistically as possible. Any negativity will surely only result in disappointment.

As I find out more about Spore, it gets more and more disappointing. When info first came out, Spore sounded like an awesome game where you got to influence the evolution of a species, then you start out designing it from the start--not using clever little tricks to get them to turn into what you want, then the combat comes out and it basically becomes another RTS, but without any of the fun plot stuff. Now all we have to look forward to is space? That blows.

Also, the short time for character creation etc might prove invaluable. Imagine the replayability when you can take different creatures from cell to space in a matter of hours? You could play the game countless different ways. I for one will certainly be playing through this game more than once to approach it in a different way. Black and White, as it were.

Are people seriously considering questioning Will Wright? Come on.

The guy is a freaking genius and one of the greatest game creators of all-time. He knows what he's doing and I'll certainly reserve judgement until I, oh I don't know, play it myself.

And to what another poster said, yes Wright did essentially say that the beginning of each game was more or less the "tutorial" to prepare yourself for the space part of it.

Little articles like this drive me nuts because they force the internet fanboys to go into full self-destruct mode, as is clearly shown in these comments.

It's Will Wright. The Game will be great, period.

OR... it could have been shortened for demonstration purposes?

Spore is a Sim game. It is not meant to be played from start to finish in the quickest way possible then put aside. The five hours are (most probably) if you go straight to the Space Stage (which, admittedly is what most will do with their first creature). Normally players won't skip to the Tribal Phase as soon as it becomes possible to upgrade to the Creature one. Players who love the Creature Stage might even want to stay in the Creature game and play it as a Sim game. The game doesn't force you to advance.
Moreover, Will has said that the first stages are more of a tutorial. In the Space stage you will gain access to all the editors and the stages (though the latter hasn't really been confirmed it has been hinted).

As long as there are always computer and there is no time limit I am fine with that.

Stupid Civilization... after 4000 years the game decide to end. I want a world to go infinite.

I have no problems with a 6 hour game, if there is enough variety that when you play it again, it's totally different.

I mean, if there is this huge after-game where your created world can be conquered by anyone from around the world -- I'll probably be creating world after world just to see who finds them :)

In the end, I guess it comes down to changing the expectations of what we want in a video game. How long does a game of chess last? There's enough strategy there to keep people coming back. I always saw Spore as a different sort of game, not one about the narrative, but rather about the creation process -- where the users create the narrative afterwards.

Wow, I really hope there's a feature where you get a film of your world being take over :D How would you like to wake up to the e-mail, "Your world has been dominated. Click here to view the footage."

Isn't this gonna be like the Sims where you make one family, get bored of them, and go make a new one. But the fact that you can make new species that behave differently, look different and do everything else differently should help add to the replay value.

@mva5580: Either that or they force obsessed fan boys to further cram their nose up another "industry legends" backside in a show of solidarity.

Clearly you enjoy Will's games..good for you. I'm sure you still play the sims...and if so how do you have to time to complaine about anything...doesn't your sim need to go to the bathroom??? Yeah thats "genius" game design"....whatever fanboy.

Mr. Pot meet Mr. Kettle

@Spindaden: I agree with this sentiment. I used to min/max The Sims 2 to understand the gameplay mechanics. I once timed myself to see how long it would take to make a robot with maxed stats plus the gold robotery badge, and financially independent, starting with a starter family of two blank humans, and using no cheats.

In about 34 minutes, I had a maxed stats Robot living with his family of robots and over 500,000 excess simoleons. Additionally, he owned a home business with virtually no limit to his profit potential (like he bought the infomercial on limitless wealth). The robot had also mastered a number of retail skills and perks that could make people buy stuff at will.

So, I could effectively progress through the entire game in 34 minutes! Which is not to say that Sims2 only contains 34 minutes of game play.

Basically in the sim-games, you can burn through the game progression ultra fast until you essentially plateau in terms of achievements, or you can spend the day watching clouds, and playing kicky bag with the lesbian couple next door while cheating on your wife with both of them.

So you can spend hours of game time being a convenience store clerk, living in an unfurnished box and sleeping on the couch. But if you want to get that nice flat-screen TV, or raise a family with the friendly neighbor you just met, it only takes 10-30 minutes of progression for you to achieve your goals.

The reason SimCity and the Sims are such addictive games is because that they offer highly compelling game play whether you are progressing or not, as game play, game progression, and goals are designed to be highly independent.

Because of this, game progression (the usual goal within a video game) takes a back seat to game play (the traditional form of entertainment that drives you to progress), and the player goals are essentially user defined. This is in stark contrast to most games where progression is the goal, and gameplay is almost entirely geared towards progression.

What Mr. Wilson seems to be ignoring with the 'Five hours and your done' is that you don't need to, and in fact, should not sprint strait for the space game. Spore, like all of Will Wright's games are not story driven. They have a begining and need have no end should the player keep playing it out. You don't need to finish the creature phase at all. If one was so inclined they could simply not form a tribe and continue playing and evolving their creature. The same goes for any stage in te game.
While there is always a chance that a game will bomb, it is my opinion that Spore stands a better chance a longevity than any other game.

@jayntampa: That is a very good point to make. Imagine you'd spent 20 hours building your perfect civilisation, only for someone to conquer your planet or destroy it entirely (as I've heard you can do)? A lot of people would probably lose the incentive to start playing the game again from the start.

But with the ability to create your perfect society in a matter of hours, it allows you to start again if you lose your poop-seeing creatures. I'm assuming this is something Will Wright took into account when deciding how long you would spend in each stage.

If this is indeed the case, then congrats to good ol' Wrighty.

Of course, someone can beat SMB in what, a little over 5 minutes? Does that mean that's all it's worth? Of course not. Sitting down, you could probably beat any of the Civ games on the smallest world setting in under 5 hours as well. (Certainly I've been able to do it for the ones I've played). But that's missing the entire point.

With the first level acknowledged as an introduction, the point of the next four three is to spend as much time as you want on them. A player interested in getting to the next level could burn through them in that hour and a half, while anyone who actually enjoyed what they were doing might spend 2-3 times that long easily. Certainly enough to stretch out the initial phases of the game to something even a length-queen might appreciate. (Length as measured in game time of course. Get your mind out of the gutter.) And then as Will has said, there's an unlimitted universe out there to explore. Hopefully you won't be done with that so quickly.

And all of that avoids the biggest point of all: replay ability. Why do people play a second round of Civ? Why do they make 15 Sims, or create an alt or two in WoW? To try things out a different way. And think how many different ways one could go about Spore. You've just gotten so worked up in the "single player campaign" aspect you're used to seeing in most games, I think you've forgotten the point behind this one, and lost the forest for the trees.

Urgh.
The Sims has got only 8 hours to play with.
The whole point about Spore is the creativity. Creating stuff, explore ! Make everything interresting. That worked with The Sims franchise and the SimCity franchise.

SHEEZ.

I was shocked and appalled, but after some thinking, maybe this is for the best.

If you think about it, that's plenty of time for the creation stages.

I mean, I sure as hell would not like to spend 3 hours as a single cell, followed by 5 of the next stage, 3 of the next, and so on.

Besides, just because you can reach space in 5 hours, doesn't mean you have to. Maybe you can stay in a stage as long as you want until you decide to "activate the next". You cant become a land animal if you never touch the shore!

Seriously! Mark Wilson, way to buy into the "every game must be at least 40 hours long to be considered worth playing" mindset! You should be ashamed of yourself! Inevitably, in almost all cases, a game that is short (and good) will be packed with unique, interesting gameplay that you'll be itching to come back to, and a game that is long will stretch out every little thing you can do (no matter how tedious and boring) in order to fill that x-hour amount of time the designers want you to spend with it.

The same thing happened with "The Movies", everything was done in a day, and you can fill extra time making movies and destroying sets to built a new one...too bad, I hope this is not the case...

Most Will Wright games are not intended to be consumed in a linear fashion and I have to imagine that this one is not either. So, five hours is probably the point by which you'll have seen all the game systems. But, to say this equals five hours of gameplay is indeed as another poster has said...blasphemy. You can probably pick up all the game systems in The Sims 2 in about an hour or less and we all know someone who is still playing it way too much years after the release.

It appears we've entered a new phase in the Spore release build up: the anti-hype stage. Then, once our expectations are all sitting way down low...they'll release something that totally rocks and the hype will crank up again. Yawn. Whatever. I'll try it when it come out. That's all I know. If it is good, I'll probably pick up a copy of my very own.

Yeah, guess I should have read this entry before posting in the other thread. You basically summarized my thoughts on the matter.

Mr Kotaku is very wrong, the concept of the game is to exsperiment and exsplore once the simple rules are mastered. The creature editor alone is good for many hours. As an example take your average racing or sports sim the rules are learned within the first hour of play. All after that is simply reppitition of the basic play tweeking the car/team. The fun of tweeking and experimentation with a creatures adaptability through your direct input is an open ended game in and of its self, since u will never know what u will encounter in the way of other players content. This is due to the nature of human whim and fancy, not a set and predictable computer programed plot line. This game is limited only by what u want to put into it, like any of the sims games. One just has to have the imagination and attetion span to make use of it. Not every body has been dulled down by the 5min, instant attention grabing, advertising mass media. This sort of game is a good change from the simply repeditive, ever increasing hand eye cordination speed, kill every thing that moves no brainers that dominate the market today. Do not underestimate the desire for imagination and exsploration, or more simply thought provoking entertainment over the more viseral, adrenal, flash bang wow that even I admit can be fun now and then.

@parallellines: Difference is peter mollyneux (or how ever you spell that french name) is KNOWN for promising everything and delivering little. Will Wright is known for being innovative and creative.

As a sidenote - the new Spore graphics look like disneyfied crap. The old and rugged look was much more appropriate.

"The developers said the first phase of the game will probably take about 30 minutes to play through, while the next three will take about an hour-and-a-half each. Of course you could also just spend endless hours customizing the look of your creatures and city."

30 minutes for what is essentially flow seems fine to me. An hour and a half of the next 5 stages is fine with me. You guys have to think about it like this: The game starts when you get into space. So it's 5 hours of training you for the game, then the real game begins.

Reserve judgement until you've played it.