spore

EA kills 'Tiberium,' says misses quality standards

For fans of the Electronic Arts franchise Command and Conquer looking forward to the spinoff game, Tiberium, I'm afraid I have some bad news.

According to a story in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal, EA has decided to shutter production of the new first-person shooter, citing quality issues.

Tiberium was "not on track to meet the high quality standards" EA sets for its games, a spokesperson told the Journal. "A lower quality game is not in the best interest of the consumers and would not succeed in this market."

The Journal article calls the move … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 818: The Zipless Squirt

It's an "in the wild" sort of show today: love on the bus, Zune-style; a Tesla in the wild; an anecdotal Netbook in the wild; and wild assumptions and paranoia about Internet tracking ensue as Rafe Needleman returns to BOL. Also, the birdman flies over the Channel. Awesome. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 818

Jack Thompson Disbarred http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/25/1822207 http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10051241-52.html

AT& T, Verizon to refrain from tracking users online http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/25/AR2008092504135.html… Read more

EA hit with class action suit over 'Spore'

Electronic Arts may have attempted to appease angry customers by amending its digital rights management policy on Spore, but the company's DRM troubles aren't over yet.

Earlier this week, a class action suit was filed in the Northern District of California Court on behalf of Melissa Thomas and all other Spore purchasers. The suit contends that EA violated the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act and Unfair Competition Law by failing to inform consumers that by installing Spore, they also inadvertently install a program called SecuROM. SecuROM is a copy protection program that limits the number of times software … Read more

'Spore' hits a million copies sold since launch

Spore, the new evolution game from Electronic Arts, has sold a million units since its September 7 launch, the publisher said Wednesday.

The sales figures are for copies of the game on the PC, the Mac, and the Nintendo DS.

The results are impressive and important for EA, especially given the heavy expectations that awaited the game, which was first announced in 2005 and was first expected in 2006, and also because the game has been beset by some controversy surrounding its DRM (digital rights management) restrictions.

And early indications from retailers around the country showed that the game was … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 813: Gonads: It's a science word

Quit laughing. This is serious business, related to cell phone radiation and sperm motility and viability. Also today, we talk about the new, NEW Microsoft ads (again), EA backtracking on its unpopular decision and Mark Zuckerberg sticking with his, and whether weather will make a difference in PlayStation 3 sales. Our bet: no. With guest host Jeff Bakalar! Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 813

New Microsoft Commercials Are Live http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/18/new-microsoft-ads-are-live/

EA Relaxes Rules on Installing ‘Spore’ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122178384121054773.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10046288-16.html

Zuckerberg: ‘Change … Read more

EA retools 'Spore' DRM activation features

Faced with growing criticism about the way its newly released game Spore is activated on computers, gaming publishing giant Electronic Arts did a little retooling of its own.

EA has increased the number of computers that can be loaded with the game to five from three, despite earlier precautions with its digital rights management (DRM) policy intended to reduce piracy of its copyrighted software.

Spore, released two weeks ago featuring unlikely creatures that can be tailored to the user's liking, has altered other DRM limitations embedded in the software, the company announced.

Frank Gibeau, EA Games Label president, said … Read more

EA seeks to remedy its 'Spore' DRM mistake

Applying a Band-Aid to a gaping head wound, Electronic Arts has decided to apply more liberal protections to its hit game Spore.

As reported in The Wall Street Journal, the game maker plans to expand the number of machines allowed under its digital rights management plan:

In a statement, Frank Gibeau, EA game label president, said the company was "disappointed" by the misunderstanding around its digital rights management software and that it would expand the installation limit from three machines to five. He added that EA is also expediting the development of a system that will allow customers … Read more

The psychology behind open source and gaming

One of the things that drive success in online games such as World of Warcraft is the community and ecosystem that surround the game itself. This is much akin to open source where projects grow and become successful as individuals become part of the whole.

How we define our individual identities and the forms of social participation that we pursue to shape these identities drive our engagement. Whether it's software or gaming, we shape the world around us.

This existential viewpoint also explains a bit why Spore is such an interesting game (despite its archaic DRM)--we get to … Read more

EA Mobile, Eidos Interactive sign agreement

Despite a failed deal with Take-Two Interactive, and a Spore DRM backlash, Eidos Interactive signed an agreement on Monday with Electronic Arts announcing exclusivity to multiregional distribution and licensing rights to selected titles from the their catalog for EA Mobile.

Now, Eidos will provide licenses to EA across all existing mobile channels and mobile devices for four key titles: Tomb Raider Underworld, Just Cause 2, California Games X, and Minesweeper, with a future option on the mobile versions of the majority of Eidos videogames for three years.

According to a news release, Javier Ferreira (VP of European Publishing for EA … Read more

Open source teaches us how to sell games

I'm loving Dave Rosenberg's blog even more now that he has "left" open source to contemplate starting a gaming-related company. As he demonstrates in a post about Electronic Arts' DRM shenanigans with the newly released Spore, the lessons learned from open source apply far beyond Linux and Apache:

If there is one thing that open source has taught us it's that there are "users" and there are "customers." Odds are that all of your customers will be users first, taking your software for a test drive and then deciding if they want to pay for it. It's all about getting people to consume your software.

The video game industry remains one of the last hold-outs in the war against consumption. Instead of encouraging more use, EA royally botched the launch of Spore with a seriously misguided DRM choice.

Amen. The first order of business, in any business, is adoption, not protection. Until you have adoption, there's nothing to protect. Intellectual property is meaningless if no one covets the property, which follows adoption.

As Dave suggests, by focusing on protection of Spore to the detriment of adoption, EA has potentially left large piles of cash on the table.… Read more