This article has been updated with details from TransGaming below.
Don't open the shrink-wrap.
I enjoyed Spore at its launch last fall, even though I faced many bugs. So I was looking forward to the first real expansion pack, Galactic Adventures. (I'm not counting the weak Creepy & Cute cash-in.) Too bad the updated game--and even the original--won't launch on a dual-processor Mac anymore.
I'm playing on a loaded Mac Pro, and even though I couldn't find any official recognition on Spore message boards, EA told me that dual-processor Macs face this problem. A game update in the past few months introduced this bug, since I'd been playing fine before.
EA representatives admitted the issue and said that they're waiting for TransGaming--the Mac developer--to fix the problem. But other than saying that the companies are working on it, EA had nothing significant to add.
I have no idea when to expect a fix. And that's too bad if you just bought the game for your high-end Mac and had no warning. At least you can commiserate with me in the comments here.
Look, EA, TransGaming: fix this, and break this trend. Am I asking too much to expect games to be bug-free, especially from these show-stoppers? Sometimes, I actually wonder if I'm too demanding, given the record between those companies. Have gamers been so beaten down by buggy titles that they're more tolerant of problems?
EA had exited the Mac market before enlisting TransGaming and its Cider Engine to port over Windows software. Since Macs and Windows PCs run on essentially the same hardware now, the Cider Engine acts as a wrapper around the original Windows game code to translate those requests into Mac commands. With this approach, EA, Ubisoft, and a few others have shipped about two dozen Mac titles.
I want to play games on my Mac Pro, but if this is the typical result, I'm starting to reconsider. Why do I even bother? I can get a better experience on an Xbox 360 or even a Windows PC. Or maybe I should stick with smaller companies that seem to respect the Mac audience more.
Update 8-12: A TransGaming representative responded to this article, saying that the company had previously identified this problem. A patch "is in the deployment process and should be available to consumers shortly," according to the spokesperson.
Details from EA suggested that this bug would affect a wide margin of multi-processor systems, but the TransGaming representative has "confirmed this occurrence in less than a handful of cases" and says it's not a greater multi-processor issue.
I look forward to the patch and will update this post when Spore works again.
lukeforester1
August 12, 2009 at 8:08pm
Thats what I don't like about big gaming companies. Were only paying 50 frickin dollars for a cd and a case that cost about 35-40 cents. Sure there are the costs of designing and building the game, but if people are realizing that it wont run on their computers AFTER they spend the money, with no warning, they might as well buy a blank disc at staples. At LEAST it would live up to it's expectations. or work.
MacRob
August 12, 2009 at 12:42pm
You can still play the release version (2.0 Mac) as long as you don't upgrade it. I have found many forums where people have found fixes for playing updated versions, but the fixes seem to be random. What works for one person doesn't always work for everyone else. I did upgrade and couldn't get it to work, so I had to erase and completely reinstall. I lost all of my progress, except for the creatures, vehicles and buildings that I had created. I don't know if EA is shipping any cds with updated mac versions on them yet, but my version is 2.0 Mac, I'm using a MacPro quad 3.0.
