EA aims to create new worlds, businesses

Creator Wright calls Spore the world's first "massively single-player" experience because every new "Spore" creation can be uploaded to EA databanks and then used to populate other players' game worlds. Wright said one of the next challenges is how EA can we make the most of gamers' creations.

EA gave a taste of the game with the June 17 release of "Spore Creature Creator", a $10 mini-game that has led to the building of 3.3 million creations uploaded to Spore.com.

Of course evolution could hit a dead end.

"Obviously, gamers that waited this long for 'Spore' will probably love every second of it," said Chris Buffa, senior editor at AOL GameDaily. "These are the people that'll spend hours creating monsters and plundering space.

"That said, few games that take this long to make live up to the hype, and there's a possibility that what these people think 'Spore' should be, based on all the hype, will fall way short of the final product."

EA is offering an assortment of "Spore" choices, aiming for the largest audience possible. As well as the standard $50 PC game, "Spore Galactic Edition" ($80) comes with a poster, two documentaries on the game, a 128-page hardback book on the art of the game, a collectible case and a Galactic Handbook.

EA will tap the many users of Nintendo Co's DS with "Spore Creatures" ($30), designed for the portable. Rounding out the launch options is "Spore Origins" for mobile devices, allowing for short spurts of creativity on-the-go. Console versions of Spore are expected in the future.

"Casual gamers will likely play 'Spore' in short bursts," Buffa said. "It's always a matter of whether they'll 'get it,' since they're used to more digestible games that aren't as deep. As for the Sims fans, this is the next evolutionary step for Sim games."

Spore has shipped in Australia, Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria, Finland and expands to the rest of Europe and South America on September 5.