I bought Spore, even after seeing all the warnings about piracy, because I had such faith in Will Wright and Maxis. I thought that they would make my money worth it. Now? My list is down to Valve and Maxis. If The Sims 3 or Spore 2 comes out, I'm going to pirate it first to make sure it's worth my money. I'll buy it afterwards, but my trust is gone.
Turns out that the creators, and sharing your creation, and then pimping your creation IS the entire game. Your meticulously designed creation which took 3 hours to make is evolutionarily no better than a 10 year old's cell with legs and googly eyes, with the only difference being how much time you have to "sell" it on the official forum to get any attention. It's an intelligent introvert's worst nightmare: your works will not be noticed amongst the hundreds of millions based on merit, but on how marketable it is and how much marketing resources is backing the creation.Your beautifully designed planet with semi-realistically balanced ecosystem performs absolutely no better than a randomly generated neighboring planet inhibited by "variations on the theme of vomit-green spheres."
As a new best selling game it's not bad, but I was looking for a "simulation" game. I did find a spectacular one though, so this year wasn't a complete loss : http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves
I don't understand how the 'game industry' expects to beat piracy when it costs so much for so little assurance that you'll get what you want.
If this had been (nearly) any other product, I could have returned it, gotten my refund, and gone on my way.