10 Video Games That Were Sold On Lies
7. Spore
Expectations were high going into Spore, not least because it was the latest game from The Sims designer Will Wright.
EA made plenty of lofty claims about Spore’s procedural generation too, and in Wright’s GDC 2005 demonstration of the game, he revealed several gameplay features that were eventually cut. While this tends to happen a lot throughout the course of game development, it’s staggering just how many parts of the demo only got as far as the cutting room floor.
Spore’s creatures looked a lot more realistic back in 2005, when compared with their more comical 2008 counterparts. There were also features like underwater life and editing tools that were completely removed.
This isn’t as knowingly dishonest as showing off false gameplay footage that you know doesn’t represent your final product, but it is careless. Teasing your game at such an early stage in its life cycle is bound to leave people feeling disappointed when it ultimately undergoes changes.
Perhaps in this instance, a non-gameplay CGI trailer would have been preferable.