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Will Wright: Mac users will love Spore

by Mike Schramm Feb 15th 2008 at 10:30AM

Well, who won't, right? If you haven't read a single gaming blog this week (you serious worker bee, you), then you may not have heard the big news: Will Wright's rumored-to-be-a-masterpiece Spore has gotten a release date. It's hitting stores (for both PC and Mac simultaneously-- now that's what I like to hear) on September 7, 2008. Which means that later this year, PC and Mac users alike will be playing God, and creating creatures that virtually evolve from amoeba form all the way up to space travel.

Mac|Life got a chance to sit down with Will Wright himself, and not only did he reveal some fun news about the game, but he thinks it will especially appeal to Mac users-- they expect the creative creature creator to do great things with Mac minds. Unfortunately, the game is a Cider port, and it's being released by Aspyr (that's right, I'm breaking my informal press boycott on them to talk about Spore-- don't disappoint me, Aspyr *see update below) but Wright sounds like he's expecting quality from this release, so I guess we should, too.

And just like all the other great developers out there, he's very interested to see what happens with the iPhone SDK -- Wright is apparently an iPhone owner, and would love to get Spore on there. Believe me, Will -- I'd love to play it.

[Via IMG]

*Update: Aspyr has contacted us to say that they are not publishing the game. And at first I was confused, because Lucy Bradshaw specifically mentions Aspyr in the interview. However, after reading it a few times, it seems that Bradshaw is actually giving reasons for why they decided not to go with Aspyr-- their native ports come out too late, and EA wanted to release Spore simultaneously on all platforms.

Aspyr also notes to us that they only do native ports, not Cider ports. So I guess my informal boycott against Aspyr is still on, but we're still not guaranteed to get a good game out of this: Madden '08 was created using Transgaming's Cider, and that didn't turn out so well. Wait and see.

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Well, who won't, right? If you haven't read a single gaming blog this week (you serious worker bee, you), then you may not have heard the...
 

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Steffo

Mike Schramm, some points:
1 - get your facts straight. If you knew anything about games, then there would have been no need to amend this post.
2 - even without Cider, its still possible to do a simultaneous port. Just look at console gaming where X360 is the standard lead platform and everything is ported to PS3, and released simultaneously. It just takes a bit of effort, which might be slightly easier with Cider, but by no means better. You get what you put in.
3 - performance is going to be several notches below that on PC no matter what form of porting is used. Unless, of course, you spend another year optimising the game for OGL with Apple.
4 - youre still an idiot for boycotting Aspyr. Its a stupid line to take and is one that is completely and utterly uninformed by how gaming and mac gaming actually works.

well done.

February 18 2008 at 1:40 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Steffo's comment
Mike Schramm

Thanks for reading and for the comment.

February 18 2008 at 3:47 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
eric f

Meh... I have no interest in this "game" whatsoever. ZOMG it's coming...

February 18 2008 at 9:43 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Pete

Good thing I have a Wii ;)

February 16 2008 at 1:40 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Viper007Bond

Hopefully the Mac version is an actual port rather than the it being developed at the same for both formats. I'd hate for my PC version to be somewhat nerfed on the high end of the graphics settings.

February 15 2008 at 11:06 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mo

WWDC '08: GameKit? (complete with MobileGameKit for the iPhone…)

Please…?

February 15 2008 at 9:01 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Shunnabunich

So, just as we all expected: there will be no Mac version of Spore, just a Windows version, and a Windows version that costs several times more, may or may not run, and apparently is supposed to be used on some other OS that isn't Windows. Thanks, Will, for at least confirming for us that Mac gaming is as dead as ever.

February 15 2008 at 8:43 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
CZ

I'm not fond of Aspyr, either. Mostly, I dislike their lack of support and the fact that Mac users pay more for games than Windows users do. It sickens me to see a Windows version of a game at $19 and the Aspyr port at $50 in the same store on the same day.

I'm sure glad there's Boot Camp.

February 15 2008 at 2:38 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to CZ's comment
PSM

I haven't purchased a Mac game in about 4 years. I had to build a PC gaming rig because Mac games (I'm lookin' at you, Aspyr) suck so much. So I will be getting Spore for the PC. But regardless of platform, I've been looking forward to this game for years, and I hope the release date winds up being accurate (I've had GTA4 on pre-order for almost a year now).

February 15 2008 at 3:36 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Andy

The irony of this statement astonishes me
"PC and Mac users alike will be playing God, and creating creatures that virtually evolve"

February 15 2008 at 1:36 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Andy's comment
Simon Arch

You know, despite what you may have read on the intertoobs, God and evolution aren't mutually exclusive.

February 15 2008 at 3:51 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
markthewarrior

No, they're not mutually exclusive, but Wright himself has pointed out that Spore isn't a game of evolution, it's one of intelligent design. The creatures don't evolve like the post says--we create them.

February 15 2008 at 10:37 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
ggolinsky

Cider is shit. No one's fooled. When a company releases a lazy, shitty cider port, it's only to make it seem like they're dedicated to the Mac. I'm getting tired of these terrible ports. I'd rather wait a month after the PC release and get a smooth, good port, than an automated, slow port, which won't even work on my Intel GMA, even if I lower the settings.
I've been using VMWare for Virtualization. As soon as I get another copy of windows, I'm ditching it for BootCamp, and just going with the windows versions of these games, because these companies rarely know the first thing about Mac programming, or good design for that matter.

February 15 2008 at 1:27 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
frank

i for one think spore sounds fascinating. diff'rent strokes!

February 15 2008 at 1:01 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to frank's comment
Simon Arch

Exactly! It's great to have options!

February 15 2008 at 3:49 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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