ELECTRONIC ARTS' long awaited evolution title Spore is at last set to go on sale at the end of this week, about three and a half years after the game company began work on it.
The game is being released more than a year late. The company claims delays were caused by final polishing and the addition of peripheral features such as in-game social networking.
Spore has generated intense interest among gamers, as well as high expectations. During the summer, the company let people design creatures to populate players' virtual worlds. Gamers responded by creating over three million fanciful creatures with a vastly diverse range of different shapes and characteristics. The entire population of player designed creatures may be encountered by each individual player in their own virtual game world.
In Spore, players guide the "evolutionary" development of virtual creatures and constructs from tiny globs of proteins through primitive organisms and complex creatures to societies, planets and galaxies. Scientists caution that real evolution actually works in ways far more complicated than the simplistic mechanisms Spore depicts, but they welcome the thoughtful interest in evolution that the game is anticipated to generate among its players and critics.
The game Spore is the invention of accomplished game designer Will Wright, developer of the wildly successful Sims series game franchise that has taken in more than $1 billion in revenue since its launch in 1989. Analysts believe that EA has sunk US$75 million into Spore.
Spore will be available at stores in Europe on Friday and in North America on Sunday.