The intersection of Spore and MMOs

Will Wright's surely-a-masterpiece Spore got a date earlier this week, and just last night the floodgates opened on press coverage of it, so we've got lots of new info to drool over in the weeks to come. But Mike, you say to me, Spore isn't an MMO-- why are you talking about it here on Massively?

You're right-- it's not an MMO, but it does have MMO qualities: creatures you create in Spore will show up on others' screens and vice versa, via the game's constant online connection. You'll never play a game against someone else, but your game will live in a huge, persistent online world, and your content will become others' as well. We're talking about Spore because it will intersect a lot with the MMO industry this year-- and even more than you may think.

Because not only is Spore a game that utilizes a constant internet connection just like an MMO, but Spore is a game that has something else in common with MMOs: it's something you can only do in a PC environment. I know-- EA is releasing boiled down versions for the DS and mobile platforms. But Spore, as in the masterpiece that everyone is expecting in September, can only be done on the PC (as in personal computers, running OS X or Windows). And MMOs, despite Everquest Online Adventures and Final Fantasy XI, are in that same realm of "requires a real mouse and keyboard interface to play the way it's mean to be played."

So WoW's biggest competitor this year may not be Age of Conan or WAR, as we've expected. It may be Will Wright's big game-breaking game. I've been planning to write about Spore on Massively ever since I saw the announcement earlier this week, but Relmstein beat me to it: Spore has a lot in it that attracts the exact same audience of the MMOs we play. It doesn't fall within the MMO genre (I guess you could call it simulation, except you could really call any game that), but there's no question that a September release date for Spore is going to send at least a few shockwaves through the MMO world. World of Warcraft was notable for toppling the Sims sales records, and now Will Wright and The Sims people might be planning to, after all this time, make their strike back.