Spore to Ship 'When It's Done' And Not Before

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.'"

Will Wright to give Spore Demo Next Week

[dannyastro]

For those of you who just can't wait, Will Wright will be giving a Spore demo at his Stupid Fun Club studio in Berkeley on Friday, August 10th as part of a benefit party for Bill Pullman's new play. The tickets are expensive ($250), but all proceeds go to benefit the Magic Theatre. Besides Will and Bill, Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart and Bill Nye the Science Guy are also expected to attend. The invitation says that Will will demo Spore at the party! For more info: http://www.magictheatre.org/season0708/sfcparty.sh tml [magictheatre.org]

Things like this always make me worried

[Sycraft-fu]

I mean in general I support the idea of releasing a game when it is actually complete and not at some arbitrary deadline. I am not at all a fan of getting a game that is effectively beta and having to wait for a few patches to even make it playable (like, say Ultima 9). On the other hand, this is often a sign that "when it is done" may be "never". While development is certainly something that has unexpected delays and so on, when there is no ability to provide a timetable, that's worrying. It can be indicative that there's no clear idea of what is going on or a lack of direction or a staff that lacks the ability to do what is asked of them. I mean you'd great rather nervous if you were having a house built and you asked the foreman when it'd be done and they said "When it's finished, I can't give you a timetable." You'd be worried, and rightfully so. While he can't tell you the precise day it'll be done, you should at least be able to get a ballpark figure.

So I really hope it rules, and I hope this just means it'll be given the time it needs, but I worry this is signs that it may never actually happen.

Re:Here are a few

[Scotland Tom]

I'm not sure where you get "year 7." Spore was only publicly announced at E3 2005. Counting the amount of time Will Wright has spent privately developing the idea before that is ridiculous. I'm sure there are many other developers that have been going through a similar multi-year pre-production process on games that we know nothing about.

So, let's quit exaggerating things and call it at the 2 years and 3 months that it's actually been.