Spore infomercial spawns mad scientists

By Polybren, GameSpotPosted Oct 24, 2008 10:40 am PT

EA has heavily touted Will Wright's latest game, Spore, as a game about science and evolution, so much so that the game's limited edition included a 50-minute National Geographic documentary about it. However, as reported in the latest issue of the journal Science, some of those interviewed for the...

EA has heavily touted Will Wright's latest game, Spore, as a game about science and evolution, so much so that the game's limited edition included a 50-minute National Geographic documentary about it. However, as reported in the latest issue of the journal Science, some of those interviewed for the documentary say when they agreed to do the show, they weren't told about its strong ties to the commercial product.

"I literally never heard about Spore until I saw myself on television in this infomercial about the game," Harvard University geneticist Cliff Tabin told the journal. "It's an outrage."

University of Chicago paleontologist Neil Shubin told the journal he was only told partway through his interview, when Wright showed him the game. Shubin said he doesn't endorse games, "particularly one that claims to be evolution." An EA representative had not returned GameSpot's request for comment as of press time.

The "infomercial" slant of the show can be seen from the tagline on its official site, which invites viewers to "journey into the billion-year history of the human, led by a computer game visionary, who might be revealing the secret genetic machinery behind life."

As for the claim that Spore might be revealing the secret genetic machinery behind life, a companion story on the Science Web site suggests not. The journal's "Gonzo Scientist" correspondent John Bohannon played the game with a handful of prominent researchers to grade its depiction of actual science. According to Bohannon, the game doesn't just dumb down the science involved, but actually "gets most of biology badly, needlessly, and often bizarrely wrong."

"The problem is that the game features virtually none of the key ingredients of evolution as we understand it," T. Ryan Gregory of the University of Guelph told the journal. For starters, there's no splintering of species into multiple off-shoots, no mutations or diversity within species, and no natural selection. And while creatures do change over time, they can completely overhaul size shape, color, appendages, and other features all within a single generation, as if a hummingbird could give birth to a tiger.

However, it wasn't all bad. Just as many reviewers found the game more engaging in its later phases, Bohannon's panel found the science involved improved toward the end of the game as well. While they gave Spore an "F" for its depiction of genetics and evolutionary processes in the cell and creature stages, the game's final space stage garnered an overall B for astrophysics, with an A for its galactic structure.

"Spore is essentially a very impressive, entertaining, and elaborate Mr. Potato Head that uses the language of evolution but none of the major principles," Gregory told the journal.

116 Comments

  • gsat555

    Posted Jan 12, 2009 10:25 pm PT

    Hey, these scientists believe in survival of the fittest and then when they get taken their upset. Looks like EA is more evolved than they are. If you teach the garbage you can expect to be affected by it. Now if they believed in absolute morality then they would have the right to be upset. But they don't.

  • shyguy75

    Posted Nov 22, 2008 6:04 am PT

    wow wow wow slow down there scientist i doe not think that spore is about science because killing strange morphed creepy creatures with made up weapons ships tanks and poison is very scientific because stairing at your screen saying haha you go boom is vary smart nothing against spore in fact it is one of my top games it is just not very scene ful so scientist man should back off!

  • Laserwulf

    Posted Nov 14, 2008 11:51 am PT

    Talk about a misleading article title! Here I expected to read about someone who played Spore and was then inspired to genetically engineer abominations, hire an army of minions and try to destroy the Earth.

  • chwynn

    Posted Nov 10, 2008 5:48 pm PT

    jonyman said:
    "if anything spore should show people that evolution is false"

    They are already accused for misrepresenting evolution, so what good will it do to lie entirely?

  • tanjo

    Posted Nov 4, 2008 9:00 pm PT

    E.V.O. on the SNES is better than Spore's "evolution".

  • Raykuza

    Posted Oct 31, 2008 4:29 pm PT

    I kind of expected more actual evolution as well, but I wasn't disappointed. The game (keyword being game) was fun.

    jonyman how would a game with no basis on facts or reality prove or disprove a scientific theory?

  • Seto_Akari

    Posted Oct 30, 2008 5:36 am PT

    Don't expect too much from it.It's just a kid game

  • jonyman posted Oct 29, 2008 8:36 pm PT (does not meet display criteria. sign in to show)

    jonyman

    Posted Oct 29, 2008 8:36 pm PT (hide)

    if anything spore should show people that evolution is false

  • IXIWhistIXI

    Posted Oct 29, 2008 7:57 pm PT

    laxhammer it is a game, but they made outrageous claims.

    It's not like scientists reviewed the game and said it was completely wrong, EA went to them and had them endorse the product with out knowing. Wright being the idiot he is was suggesting the game was vastly realistic in terms of evolutionary science when it indeed is not.
    this is why the game failed so bad...it was talked up like it was one of the most complicated games in history only to be released and proven to be one of the most shallow games past the creature creator.

  • laxhammer

    Posted Oct 29, 2008 3:33 pm PT

    Its a game...

  • marcthpro

    Posted Oct 28, 2008 10:31 pm PT

    The only part in spore which is probabely the most near of evolution theory is space stage vessel and other life form but why all with leg ? and wing tough there maybe in the world such aliens as you see in spore you never know
    cause if the sciences is right about the big bang that universe is in expansion meaning we are a little mini dot of the world
    evolution could work maybe different in another Galaxy Then milky way at last we can say it probabely not like that the evolution we know off and if there is A god behind that or not it rather sick to talk about this life is a paradox
    with the conception of time and space right now

    if i could see nice documentary that is 95% Sure that it how life evolution and compare it to spore id do spore is a game
    but a sciences game really ammazing and make you think about the life how it is in fact it good and it in complexity but if i was Creator of spore id make a version more realistic maybe in future expansion i played Several SCi-fi games and it was not gameplay that was alway amazing but the fact of evolution like Galactic Civilization II & master of orion 2
    but this time in real-times for spore it should how ever as better Warfare & Diplomacy no doubt about that

    i did like star-trek saga / Stargate sg1 / And other Scifi thing
    so spore is mostly un-educational beside the space thing a little for diplomacy for beginner a real educational game are rather borring such as diplomacy II and Civilisaiton IV they aren't too much popular but they are in a way educational about culture & ideology when you think about it oneday we will find a way to make game educational & Fun at same time it just a matter of time

    when i was a kid i ad mathematic games with activity on a floppy disk then CD then it died and got no use after Grade 5 but did help me to understand math in a more accurate way since i did find it fun in group activity with some mate in 1996-1999

    we just need to do same with sciences to keep young people interrest into it i read sci-fi novel all weekend with contradiction most of time to other thinking thousand of theory and fact that are true so some game are educational in way of to devlope ability of thinking such as strategy game but not that much try play spore at hard and if ur still starving for thinking ability ? find harder game of thinking

  • craigape

    Posted Oct 28, 2008 3:52 pm PT

    Did these scientists ask? But who goes to the store and buys a game they think is educational now days? Besides if your like me you haven't even heard of this yet.

  • scyldschefing

    Posted Oct 28, 2008 11:51 am PT

    These scientists have every right to be be upset. They were mislead. According to the article published in Science, each of the interviewed scientists was sent an email: The e-mail describes the documentary as an investigation of "recent discoveries in evolutionary science" with no mention of Spore or Wright.

    So they though they were being interviewed for a documentary on evolution. And it was by National Geographic, an otherwise legitimate maker of nature documentaries. Why would they have thought it would have been anything else but a documentary on evolution?

    Not only that, but the documentary is misleading to the viewer in that it makes it seem like Spore is scientifically correct, which it is not.

    So these scientists are mad since their appearance on this documentary might make people think that Spore is based on real science. That's perfectly understandable and completely legitimate. They're not complaining that Spore isn't real science; they're complaining that Spore is pretending to be real science.

  • OptimusMegatron

    Posted Oct 28, 2008 10:40 am PT

    Mad scientist from spore game?? Who are mad enough to say that??!
    Spore is about fun building and customizing creatures!! Not mad scientist! Freak!

  • otanikun

    Posted Oct 28, 2008 9:30 am PT

    Good god people, morons morons everywhere, but not a single sane person amongst them; it's a video game and wasn't designed to teach the theory of evolution versus creationism.

    It's about having fun and watching these little guys grow and build their own civilizations, think the sims but with little alien dudes.
    Besides I didn't hear anybody complaining about Civilization when it came back out long long ago, or about Black & White 1&2, you play a god in those games, OMG!

    These people need to learn to take things with a grain of salt and not take things like evolution in video games too seriously, case in point the grading of the evolutionary process; I'm pretty sure research was done quite extensively to make it look right but it's purely for fun, not actual scientific basis and pure concrete facts.

  • brian_13un

    Posted Oct 27, 2008 10:40 pm PT

    Oh spore is just a game for everybody relax and just play it right

  • grungehead1991

    Posted Oct 27, 2008 10:25 pm PT

    @king_of_da_sax
    i think they're mad because Wright touted it as being scientic

  • king_of_da_sax

    Posted Oct 27, 2008 7:34 pm PT

    last time i checked video games werent meant to be scientifically, physically or, heck, even politically correct... i've seen the creatures on Spore, of course its not gonna be scientifically acurate...

  • MattHopeKids

    Posted Oct 27, 2008 6:31 pm PT

    They agreed to do interviews and didn't even know what they were being interviewed about? I thought they were supposed to be smart.

  • ace62394

    Posted Oct 27, 2008 3:12 pm PT

    Seems like the scientists there have too much spare time on their hands.

Spore Quick Links

Summary | Reviews | News | Previews & Features | Images | Videos | Downloads | Answers | Hints & Cheats | Forum

advertisement
Spore Boxshot Enlarge the boxshot
Spore

Game Stats

Full Game Details »Close
Also on

Games you may like…

Users who looked at content for this game also looked at these games.

See More Similar Games
advertisement