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News of Spore Delay Miscommunication

Posted by Zonk on Wed Jun 20, 2007 04:10 PM
from the hah-they're-just-jerking-our-chains-now dept.
Entertainment Games
Ars Technica's Opposable Thumbs blog reports that the much-anticipated title Spore has been pushed back yet again from its tentative release in 2008. That's right: it's now delayed until 2009. Just to remind you, Spore was announced at GDC 2005. They have some commentary on the delay: "When you see a live demo, it's pretty much the same demo everyone sees. It may look like the whole thing is off the cuff, but in reality you're seeing a carefully scripted show. It's possible giant chunks of the game are missing, and the illusion of the title being near completion is mostly smoke and mirrors. With a game this open-ended, it's possible the development team is running into a slew of unforeseen problems." Update: 06/21 07:24 GMT by Z : Unfortunately, there's been some miscommunication here. The previous announcement of Spore's delay already included the possibility of the game not shipping until 2009. EA's fiscal year ends in March, with fiscal 2009 running from the end of this next year into the beginning of the year after. Next Generation clarifies the issue.
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[+] Will Wright's Next Game: Spore 41 comments
1up.com has a look at Will Wright's newest game, revealed today at the Game Developer's conference. Entitled Spore, the game promises to be (in a word) unique. From the article: "Wright's latest creation spans the rise of a space-faring civilization from its humble beginnings in the primordial soup. 'It's actually a lot like WarioWare...It features a wide variety of game types as a sort of homage to my favorite games.'" PC Magazine has details as well, as does Gamasutra.
[+] Spore to Ship 'When It's Done' And Not Before 135 comments
Citing the sheer potential of the title, EA executives John Riccitiello and Frank Gibeau stated in a conference call yesterday that Spore will not ship until it is finished. Next Generation reports: "'It's one of those breakthrough products that might come across the industry every three, five, seven years ... We could not be more bullish for the potential of the franchise as we are right now,' said Riccitiello. He said that he still expects the game to ship in the 'March, April, May' 2008 timeframe. However, Riccitiello said, 'We will make the choice of shipping a better game than an on-time game given the high potential for this franchise.'"
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  • Obv. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Dragon of the Pants (913545) on Wednesday June 20 2007, @04:12PM (#19585545) Homepage
    [Obligatory comparison to Duke Nukem Forever]
  • We have a new contender for vaporware that may be able to challenge Duke Nuke'em Forever. Spore Forever!

    • Re:Spore (Score:5, Funny)

      by syrinx (106469) on Wednesday June 20 2007, @04:17PM (#19585647) Homepage
      DNF was announced in 1997. That's *ten* years. If it's 2015 and Spore still isn't out, then maybe.

      There's a great quote on bash.org somewhere (can't get to the site now at work), something like "I bet in 1998 you'd have never guessed that you'd get married before Duke Nukem Forever came out". As someone who got married a year and half ago, I can definitely relate.
      • As someone who got married a year and half ago, I can definitely relate.

        Come now, if x is NaN, then how do you exaluate d x? ;)
    • Right, because a game which was announced two years ago is completely suited for challenging a game announced over a decade ago for the "vaporware" crown.
  • This fuels my fear that Spore will be another in a long line of games that sound absolutely fantastic in terms of potential, but end up terribly disappointing. I'm excited as hell about Spore and I'm hoping that the release push-back just represents an intent to release the game only when its potential has been realised. Blizzard tends to have this attitude (although they're smart enough not to talk release dates until they're pretty solid) so hope springs eternal.

    Still, on balance, I'd prefer that a g
  • Notice the summary only mentions the second of the three guesses in the referenced article. At least try and give some kind of balance.
  • The fiscal year for EA begins in April, so this is really April 2008.
  • That's a misnomer. EA's fiscal year ends march 31st. So the question is when does the year start? Meaning does fiscal 2008 start April 2007? If that's the case it's still tentative for 2008. The ever-so-fiscally savvy blog doesn't mention anything pertaining to this.

    And when the fuck are we taking news off of blogs and not trade pubs?
    • Because there wasn't a link to the Game Informer with this news?

      Although, that's a surprising twist... Game Informer getting a couple of scoops this issue (new DNF picture being another one).

      2008. The year the Games Industry flipped out.

  • We're such suckers... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CaseM (746707) on Wednesday June 20 2007, @04:27PM (#19585857)
    I don't mean just about this game, specifically, but how many times are we shown a pre-rendered video or told a "target" release date for the sole purpose of keeping our interest piqued for a game that hasn't even a remote chance of getting out on time (i.e. Spore) or never looking like that (the PS3 pre-renders a couple of E3's ago)...and we never learn.

  • It's a huge game from a huge name, and if EA is hoping to piggy-back a big announcement using the buzz of the game's release, it could be a good business decision to let the game sit for a while.

    Someone should let EA know that buzz isn't a fixed quantity. You think you have it one day, and then in 2 years buzz depreciates into "just another game."

  • this is kinda obligatory... (Score:3, Funny)

    by wooden pickle (1006975) on Wednesday June 20 2007, @04:31PM (#19585923)
    My guess is that Spore will just end up being a mini-game in Duke Nukem Forever.

  • quoting Shigery Miyamoto... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CockroachMan (1104387) on Wednesday June 20 2007, @04:49PM (#19586205)
    "A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever."

  • Be patient (Score:5, Funny)

    by naoursla (99850) on Wednesday June 20 2007, @06:33PM (#19587619) Homepage Journal
    These things take time to evolve.

  • article is bogus (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 20 2007, @07:17PM (#19588143)
    EA says otherwise. [next-gen.biz]

  • Will Wright Quote... (Score:3, Funny)

    by GaryPatterson (852699) on Wednesday June 20 2007, @07:29PM (#19588277)
    In an interview for GameBotherer magazine, Will Wright stated:

    Well, since we started Spore a lot's happened in the industry. XPSP2 came out, making PCs safe again, then Vista with all the DirectX-10 goodness and even Apple's relevant for gaming now. Hell - consoles are amazing these days! Have you seen what the PS3 can do? Sure it's a bugger to program for, but you've got like three or six or some other number of processors in that thing! We're just not sure what to develop for though - there are too many options now.

    We figure we should give it another three to five years and see which way the wind's blowing before committing to a release date. We'll probably rewrite the code a few times to pick up all the other platforms - PS3, Macs, Wii, Gamecube, Nintendo-64, Sega Megadrive, some toaster that Tim worked out how to program for and maybe, if we can find time and have nothing better to do, maybe Linux as well. But don't quote me on that last one.

  • EA is about to make you his bitch (Score:3, Funny)

    by Wiseman1024 (993899) on Wednesday June 20 2007, @08:15PM (#19588751)
    I guess 2009 will be most exciting year in computing history. Not only it'll be the year of the Linux desktop, but we'll see a simultaneous release of:

    - Spore
    - Duke Nukem Forever
    - GNU Hurd
    - Perl 6
    - PHP 6
    - Python 3000
    - Bytecode compiled Ruby

  • In 20 years (Score:3, Funny)

    by 4D6963 (933028) on Thursday June 21 2007, @05:44AM (#19591965) Homepage Journal

    From the the Future of Games article : "In 20 years, players will look back at Will Wright's Spore as the game that ushered in the era of user-generated content."

    Heh, in 20 years, players will look at Will Wright's Spore and say, "Can't wait till it comes out!"

          • Re:Will Wright... (Score:5, Insightful)

            by timster (32400) on Wednesday June 20 2007, @05:51PM (#19587083)
            I'll tell you what would hurt more than abandoning it -- working on it for another year and then releasing a bad game. Now, I'm a big fan of Will Wright's previous games, and I'm sure hoping that Spore will be great, but lots of great game designers have made really bad games in the past.

            Remember Daikatana? It's possible to delay a bad game again and again, and still end up releasing a bad game. If EA can't make Spore into a good game, it would still be better to cancel it.

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