The general consensus on Spore is that it's a 8 or 9, mainly because of a lack of depth in some of the stages of play. It says something about designer Will Wright's reputation when he's getting asked why the game isn't a 10. He's completely fine with the game not being perfect, though.

In an interview with MTV Multiplayer, Wright was asked whether the game had been dumbed down for a casual audience. Wright responded: "I'd say that's quite accurate. We were very focused, if anything, on making a game for more casual players. Spore has more depth than, let's say, The Sims did. But we looked at the Metacritic scores for Sims 2, which was around 90, and something like Half-Life, which was 97, and we decided — quite a while back — that we would rather have the Metacritic and sales of Sims 2 than the Metacritic and sales of Half-Life."

I'm not sure I agree with his example - Half-Life's not exactly some underselling, critical darling, nor is it all that complex - but I get his general point. While hardcore gamers aren't happy when a game feels streamlined and simplified for casuals, it's important to keep in mind that a game loses accessibility as it grows in complexity. Even if a game has a gentle learning curve, not all gamers want to spend much time learning a game in the first place.

I'm not sure if I'm impressed or stunned that he'd be this honest and admit that he'd rather have a great-selling, decent game than a decent-selling great game. Still, whether the lack of complexity in aspects of Spore's gameplay was a conscious design decision to court casual gamers or Wright's just making excuses for the game's flaws is up to the individual gamer to decide.