Agreed, the success of the The Sims had nothing to do with the previous Sim games and everything to do with giving consumers an addictive, unique and accessible experience.
As to the multiple tiers being intimidating, Wright has stated that users will be able to choose themselves when they move in to another tier. I think that the ability to see/interact with your friend's (and stranger's) creations will give the game a lot of replay value. I know I'm looking forward to seeing how my creatures stack up to my friend's.
I don't think Will Wright's success is dependant on the Sims brand... "The Sims" was many, many, many times more popular than the SimCity games ever were.
I think Wright's success is dependant on his ability to make highly addictive simulation games, which are easy to pick-up-and-play, yet have an amazing hidden depth as you learn how to micromanage everything. The difference between SimCity and the Sims is the immediate appeal of the concept.
I think the immediate appeal of Spore is very high. But I think the limiting factor on this game versus the Sims is the 8-tiered nature of it. Especially if the creature-creation proves to be the main appeal of the game, some players might be put off by all the other stuff going on. On the other hand, if you put a playable creature-creation demo in Best Buy, its going to sell the game on the spot.
Another question is just how much EA advertises the game. An interesting advertising avenue for Spore which doesn't exist for any other games, is sending Will Wright on the talk-show circuit. I recall that he was on Colbert in support of the game already. (Don't see the actual interview on YouTube, but there's this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBcINzORNv8 ) Being the maker of the most popular game in American history (well... basically tied with PKMN R/B: http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?sort=america ), and EA being a smart and aggressive company, it wouldn't surprise me if they tried to get him on network talk shows. Being able to show off that creature-creation tool to a wide TV audience would hugely benefit the game. But that's mostly speculative.
As I argued previously, I no longer am sure that this game can reach the 5 million mark for several reasons. First, the Sims had the Sims marketing brand behind it, countless people had played SimCity and SimAnt (okay maybe not SimAnt) before playing the Sims. Spore has not recognizable brand which it stems off of, which usually boost sales if you are in the main line or a branch off of a popular brand.
Second, the time for the Sims was perfect, but I think much like WoW, it was more of a fluke, at first, that went right rather than expecting it to reach that many sales. I don't think the current market will support a none MMO game on the market that can reach 5 million for the PC. While the expansion pack for WoW has sold well, it is due to the fact that WoW is a cultural phenomenon and already had a built in base of around 8 million that were looking for an expansion to a game they already loved.
Spore does not have such a rabid fan base with which to build huge sales off of and while its concept is somewhat easy to get across, it is not as simple a game as the Sims. The real question is whether people enjoy evolution as much as they enjoy the monotony of regular life.
I think the demand for this game will be huge. Will Wrights last social experiment, the Sims, was the best selling video game ever. I think Spore will follow suit, breaking new ground in social gaming. I for one, can't wait to get my hands on it and see how an organic gaming universe will take shape.
Looks like I missed the opportunity to short Spore back down. 40DKP rise yesterday? People are on top of their game now with the shorting after short-term influxes!
I am surprised how rabid the buying was on this game yesterday. Although the buying is likely attributed to people just wanting the stock, and not really evaluating whether Spore will sell 4.3 million copies, I think the amount of buying interest itself is a sign of demand and expectation that there will be strong demand.
I do agree that this is a short-term sell as the buying action is unrelated to fundamentals.
The rise in Spore price is completely due to new users putting more money to work and not a fundamental change in the game's likelihood to sell. This is a short-term strong sell.
I have seen video of this game on G4TV this game is bringing something completely different to the table i cant want until it releases! seems like a perfect game to me so far :)
I'm not sure what you guys mean by "hype." The amount of talk about the game around the Internet?
For most unreleased games, I trade by historical comps. I compare previous installments of the franchise and similar games in the genre.
Another way to evaluate the total sales is to look at the market segment and figure how many large is the market for the game and how many of those people will get the game to a certain probability.
I think these two methods are generally how products are evaluated in terms of predictions of sales.
"So far it seems to me that the simExchange is more about predicting hype than predicting the end result."
If you think about it, for a lot of these games like Spore that aren't coming out for a while, isn't hype all we can work with for predicting how many copies the game will sell? We really can't look at execution of game play other than speculating from the past work of the design team.
I think at this point, buzz and sales predictions go hand in hand until we get closer to the games release when demos become available.
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As to the multiple tiers being intimidating, Wright has stated that users will be able to choose themselves when they move in to another tier. I think that the ability to see/interact with your friend's (and stranger's) creations will give the game a lot of replay value. I know I'm looking forward to seeing how my creatures stack up to my friend's.