The people who make games like The Sims a mega hit aren't the folks who even understand DRM.
Go to the forums on the hardcore gaming websites, and ask how many people play The Sims, and buy the expansions. I doubt you will find anything more than a minute percentage. Yet at the same time, every week, five of the top ten games on the NPD charts are The Sims. Hardcore titles like Crysis hardly feature, yet always top the lists of most torrented titles.
That's a shame about Crysis -- being torrented to holy hell. Especially with it often going for now $19.99 or $29.99. Crysis is a great shooter.
I wonder how well Crysis and Crysis: Warhead are selling over Steam now. B/c of the whole DRM fiasco with that, suddenly, Crysis and Crysis: Warhead began to sell like crazy over there. Though from what I know, like Bioshock over Steam did, the same exact install limits are still intact in The Steam Version.
In fact, I was looking at some most torrented games 2007 list on the GFW forums and found it populated by games like Crysis, COD4, C&C, World in Conflict, Company of Heroes, Titan Quest: Expansion, Unreal Tournament 2007 etc... all the titles that were torrented more than The Sims (which wasn't even on), yet didn't come near in sales. The funny thing is that while Titan Quest and World in Conflict were high on that list, neither franchise managed to survive.
Are you saying none of The Sims games even been torrented?
So what does that tell you? Here are some simple facts:
1. On the most popular titles of 2007 list, you had all the hardcore PC games with none of games from The Sims franchise in sight...
2. On the NPD lists (which obviously showed actual sales), The Sims + expansions owned over half the top 10 of 2007.
3. Hardcore gamers freely admit to hating The Sims.
I wouldn't say I hate The Sims; I actually loved The Sims.
Never bought Sims 2; waiting for a Complete Pack.
I am sure you can draw your own conclusions.
As for Spore, the fact is that it was designed to appeal to the sort of people who would love games like The Sims.
It also has space strategy games and civilization building elements, too -- which could get the hardcore strategy gamers involved. Though, many have complained how those game pieces in Spore are not nearly as complex as say games that have one of Spore's pieces for the whole game (Civ represents the civ builder; Homeworld, Starcraft and Sins represent locking down the space-strategy game; etc etc).
Spore seems to try to be a jack of all trades, but master of none. I ain't played Spore, but I can think of one game that was a jack of all trades and somehow managed to do it very well -- Fable: TLC. It was a RPG; action game; Sims game all rolled in one.
Of course, if Spore wants its elements to get deeper, expansion packs seem like they way EA should go with that. And knowing EA and that they probably will go that way (like they did with The Sims), Spore could be incredible when it has a Complete Collection Box put out for it.
And when it came to hype, Spore was like The Dark Knight of PC games. It was featured on tons of mainstream magazines, radio shows, tv shows, talk shows, comedy shows etc. It was marketed to the sort of people who would actually pay money for a game, and wouldn't be able to pirate it even if they wanted to.
Very true.
Though, there were still many hardcore gamers ready to pony up for Spore...until they heard about the DRM.
I am not saying that Spore's DRM had no affect on sales. I am sure the game lost a few hundred thousand customers purely because of its DRM. But, I bet, when EA looks at the fact that the game has nearly three thousand negative comments on Amazon.... all it thinks is WELL FUCK 'EM.
You know why?
Because Spore was still the best selling game on Amazon, despite the negativity.
Keyword here is "was." Do you really think it'll still sell well (like it did upon its release), once the word keeps spreading about its nasty DRM? B/c really, the DRM just seems to keep on escalating more and more; not dieing down when we talk about this game's DRM and its one user per PC limit.
How will your casual Joe runs into issues b/c of the game's DRM?? Will he join the parades of those against the DRM and boycott EA until they do something about the DRM that is a little bit more acceptable? Will he turn into a pirate, eventually?
EA says they will -- and I hope for their sake, they live up to it; and throw revokes in, at the least. Do that, they might get sales from gamers like myself. And I hope like they say they will, way down the line, remove the protection completely
edit:
I am in no way defending the crazy DRM of Spore or anything. It has been pretty much the reason why I haven't bought the game.
Right, I understand that.
But I can list three friends who are casual gamers at best and loving the title.
That's cool.
But, I wonder how they'll react when the DRM gets in their way, for some reason...
