Ok, like a lot of people, I read the reviews for Spore.  Although the reviews seemed kind of mixed I decided to buy the game anyway.  Will Wright usually creates some pretty good games.  But there are some aspects to this piece of software that really turned me off pretty quickly.

First of all, I will not discuss DRM.  I am sure that topic has been pounded into the ground so I will leave that one alone.

My first quibble was about how the game was set up.  Every time you create a creature (or anything else for that matter), it gets uploaded to the server.  Just to make it clear, EVERYTHING gets uploaded to the server.  So if I am busy upgrading something, and I do it seven times, all the versions get uploaded.  Even if I decide to mess around and create a building with one window on it, it gets uploaded.  Needless to say, I did not like that feature.  I checked all the manuals and forums to see if I could gain more control over what goes to the server and what stays on my computer.  Unfortunately, I had no such luck.

Another negative feature I found.  If I am offline and I create something and go online later, the object gets uploaded (of course), but this time on the header, the software uses my real name and not my screen name.  If I am online when I create something, it defaults to my screen name which is not a problem.  I value my privacy and I believe screennames are there for a reason.  I am sure if someone wanted to hack the system, they could find out whatever they wanted.  But I am not going to volunteer information.

My final gripe is this.  With all the problems going on, I decided to contact Tech Support.  I wrote a very informative e-mail message using EA's troubleshooting program which probably took me a good 15 minutes to draft up.  I am very detailed when it comes to describing what kinds of problems I am having with a piece of software.  I sent it out and waited for the 48 hour response.  In about that time, I did receive a response.  But I was dismayed when I opened up the reply.  The e-mail I received had a bunch of forum links that were "supposed" to be related to my problem.  But if you looked really close, most of the links had absolutely nothing to do with the problem I had.  In contrast to this, I had some issues with Twilight a short time ago.  I followed the same procedure using the Stardock support e-mail address.  When Stardock replied, I could tell that someone actually read my e-mail and tailored a response to my specific problem.  It was very informative and helpful.  (Kudos to you Cari, thanks again.)

With all this going on, I really have not played Spore since I discovered these issues.  Maybe a patch will fix it later, only time will tell.

Other fun names for games I will probably never play:

World of BoreCraft or World of WarCrap (I just can't see myself playing these...ever.)