Will Wright on Spore, SimCity and the Sims video games - with video

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Spore Franchise Launches First Game on Facebook Platform play it now

Spore Islands Now Available for Play in Open Beta

Maxis, an Electronic Arts studio, announce they have taken their renowned integration of social connectivity to the next level with a fun and original game application built on Facebook Platform, Spore Islands. Now available, Spore Islands invites Facebook users to experience the Spore universe in a new way by competing against each other in the ultimate survival of the fittest game.

Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena arrives in store today

The Epic Fight to Save the Galaxy is Now on the Wii and Nintendo DS

Battle, create and explore in Spore on Nintendo consoles! Today, Maxis, an Electronic Arts studio, announced that the highly-anticipated Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena are now available at North American retailers and will hit store shelves internationally on October 9th.

Spore Hero exclusive video game for Nintendo Wii is arriving soon! HD launch trailer

Launching on October 9, Spore Hero puts you in an entirely new adventure. Create your own creature hero and fight against an alien menace that is attempting to destroy your planet.

Spore Creature Creator Now in 2-D New FLASH Application Gives Spore Players New Ways to Get Creative Now available for free

The revolutionary Spore Creature Creator is going 2-D! Maxis announce Spore Creature Creator 2-D, a new Flash application where players experience an all new take on the variety and creative fun offered by the original 3-D Spore Creature Creator. Now available for free* at www.spore2d.com, players can create a creature from scratch or import a creature from the Sporepedia, the library of 120+ million pieces of user-generated content in Spore.

Spore Hero on Nintendo Wii Do you have what it takes to be a Spore hero?

Spore Hero delivers the unparalleled creative freedom of Spore in a story-driven action-adventure game created exclusively for the Nintendo Wii. Set in a rich and vibrant 3D world, Spore Hero empowers you to become the hero as you embark on an epic quest to fight to save your creature’s new home world from destruction!



This new and original Spore adventure starts with a bang – literally! Hurtling through the galaxy inside a blue meteor, you have just crash landed on a strange alien world. But something evil has followed you and brought dangerous red meteorites crashing down on the unsuspecting planet. Only a true hero can save the world from being destroyed by this new threat! Do you have what it takes to be a Spore hero?

In fighting to save your new home planet, your hero will engage in courageous battles, amazing adventures and much more! As you explore your mysterious world, you’ll encounter and unlock more than 250 new parts and abilities to help you complete quests, win fights, unlock combos and learn new fighting skills.

Creatures will come alive in Spore Hero, thanks to the revolutionary technology known as Spasm. Spasm, also known as procedural animation, is tailored specifically for the Nintendo platform allowing you create any creature your imagination can desire. Want two heads and seven legs, six arms or more? Spore Creature Creator gives you all the tools you need to enhance your hero as you fight, bite, spit and charge your enemies with the Wii Remote.

Spore Hero features a dynamic multiplayer mode, where you’ll use your battling skills to become the ‘baddest’ Spore hero around! This mode allows you to create your ultimate warrior by using any combination of your earned parts in a special multiplayer mode Creature Creator, or choose one of your previously created creatures.

About Spore
The critically-acclaimed Spore for PC lets gamers build their own personal universe from scratch, evolving life from a single-cell organism to a galactic god over hundreds of millions of years. Players design a species and guide it to sentience, then help it build a society, develop its culture, and ultimately explore an infinite cosmos of worlds created by other players. The Spore world continues to grow with two games built from the ground up for Nintendo Wii and DS. Visit www.sporehero.com for more details.

Key features

• Fight to Save the World— Built from the ground up exclusively for the Nintendo Wii, Spore Hero features an intriguing storyline taking you on a journey to fight a mysterious dark force that threatens your creatures new planet. Embark on exciting missions, intense battles, and incredible action-quests to save the world!

• Create a Hero—Spore’s much-loved Spore Creature Creator comes to the Nintendo Wii for the first time, offering a robust library of more than 250 parts to create your unique hero! One eye or five? Wings or a horn? The possibilities are endless!

• Battle Your Friends- Put your combat skills to the test as you engage in embroiled battles with a friend in a multiplayer mode! Create a decked out creature or choose a previously created or pre-made creature to challenge friends with.

• Evolve— Evolution is taken to the next level in Spore Hero as you earn and find new parts, such as limbs and accessories to enhance your hero. As new parts play a direct role on your creatures abilities, you’ll have the power to charge your enemies with newly-acquired horns or fly to new levels with recently-unlocked wings!

You can even lend your parts to fellow creatures, helping them evolve along the way.

Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena video games exclusively for the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS

Get ready for heroic battles, vibrant worlds and boundless creativity! Maxis, an Electronic Arts, announce Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena will be available at North American retailers on Oct. 6 2009 and internationally on Oct. 9, 2009. Built from the ground up exclusively for the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS platforms, Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena introduce a new level of action-packed adventure and combat to the critically acclaimed Spore franchise.

“Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena give Spore and Nintendo fans a new, dynamic and engaging way to interact with their customized creature heroes,” said Lucy Bradshaw, VP and General Manager at Maxis. “Players’ heroes take center stage as both games, distinctly tailor-made for its Nintendo platform, infuse creativity, combat and adventure to create a unique gameplay experience on the Wii and Nintendo DS.”

Spore Hero delivers the unparalleled creative freedom of Spore in an action-adventure game created exclusively for the Wii. Set in a rich and vibrant 3D world, Spore Hero empowers the player to become the hero as they embark on an epic quest to save their creature’s home planet from destruction. Along this journey, players engage in fun battles, and solve puzzles to collect and unlock more than 250 new creature parts, all with unique abilities. These parts, which can be used to customize creatures in the revolutionary Spore Creature Creator, can change the way creatures will play and fight in the world. Players can also utilize their brawling skills in a dynamic multiplayer mode, where they battle their friends with their own customized creature to become the ‘baddest’ Spore hero around!

Spore Hero Arena catapults players into a galaxy filled with fun and intense arena-based combat. Featuring an all-new story set in the same universe as Spore Hero, Spore Hero Arena takes players on a quest to save planets in their galaxy from an evil force. Throughout the game, players create their own unique gladiator hero creature and guide it from planet to planet as they fight enemy creatures, collect new parts, gain upgrades and unlock special abilities that will benefit their hero. Developed with multiplayer capabilities in mind, Spore Hero Arena also allows players to battle with up to three friends locally or play with a friend over Wi-Fi, taking the Spore gameplay experience to an entirely new and interactive level.

Available for $49.99 MSRP, Spore Hero is rated E10+ by the ESRB. Spore Hero Arena is available for $29.99 MSRP and is rated E by the ESRB.

To learn more about Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena, play minigames and download fun content, please visit www.sporehero.com. For screenshots or press materials about the Spore franchise, please visit http://info.ea.com.

About Spore

Spore, available for PC and Mac, gives players their own personal universe in a box. Create and evolve life, establish tribes, build civilizations, sculpt entire worlds and explore a universe filled with creations made by other gamers. Spore gives players a wealth of creative tools to customize nearly every aspect of their universe: creatures, vehicles, buildings, and even spaceships. Spore Creatures, available on Nintendo DS, takes players on a quest to save their species and the entire Galaxy. Meet, befriend or fight other creatures in a number of unique Touch Screen-based activities. Spore Galactic Adventures, available now, allows players to beam down to planets for the first time and play, create and share missions with friends online. Available in October, Spore Hero, exclusive to the Nintendo Wii and Spore Hero Arena for the Nintendo DS, catapult players into the role of a fully-customized hero creature fighting to save its planet.

Spore Galactic Adventures Spawns 100,000 User Created Adventures - The Fog Valley of a Thousand Deaths

It’s only been a month since the launch of Spore Galactic Adventures and already EA’s Maxis studio has hit a major milestone with more than 100,000 user-created adventures! Spore fans have taken creativity to new heights, creating imaginative, wacky and fun missions with the game’s easy-to-use Adventure Creator. Dive in today and play various imaginative and epic Adventures such as “The Silent Beacon,” “Valley of a Thousand Deaths” and “The Fog” by visiting the game’s Sporepedia at www.spore.com

Expanding on the original Spore game, the Spore Galactic Adventures expansion pack gets your creature out of its spaceship and exploring colorful and wacky new planets. Players can turn their creatures into space captains, battle epic monsters in intergalactic arenas and engage in intense planet-side races. In each mission, players earn experience to rank up their captain and earn game-changing items such as the Plasma Pulser and Swarm Magnet. In addition to the adventures in the box, players can download 10 all-new adventures created by the writers of the outrageously funny, pop-culture parody TV show, Robot Chicken.

To support Spore’s dedicated fan community, www.spore.com features a bevy of fun content including additional downloadable adventures, contests and news.

Available for PC and MAC for $29.99, Spore Galactic Adventures is rated E10+ by the ESRB. The Robot Chicken adventures are rated TEEN by the ESRB. As an expansion pack, Spore Galactic Adventures requires the original Spore game to play.

To learn more about Spore Galactic Adventures or to download a free trial of the Spore Creature Creator, please visit www.spore.com.

Spore Galactic Adventures video game expansion arrives worldwide

The Spore universe is expanding with infinite adventures! Maxis announce that Spore Galactic Adventures, the expansion to the critically-acclaimed game Spore, is now available at North American retailers and will hit store shelves internationally on June 25th. Designed to expand the Spore universe, Spore Galactic Adventures delivers hilarious new adventures to players who aspire to become their own space captain, beam down to strange new planets, create customized adventures, and take their favorite Spore creature from zero to galactic hero!

“Spore Galactic Adventures enhances the Spore experience by blasting players off into space, turning ordinary creatures into legendary Space Captains,” stated Lucy Bradshaw, VP and General Manager at Maxis. “For the first time, players can beam their creatures down to planets to experience all-new adventures or create custom-made missions of their own and share them with the world. With more than 105 million creations available in the Sporepedia, the Spore library of user-generated content for use in players’ missions, the only limit is their imaginations!”

Expanding on the original Spore game, Spore Galactic Adventures adds variety and fun by allowing players to get out of their spaceship and explore colorful, wacky new planets. Players will turn their creatures into space captains, battle epic monsters in intergalactic arenas and fight intense planet-side races. In each mission, players earn experience to rank up their captain and earn game-changing items such as the Plasma Pulser and Swarm Magnet. In the box, the game includes 16 off-the-wall missions as well as an “Adventure Creator” tool that players can use to design their own missions. These personally-created missions can be shared with friends online and can be classed in leader boards that track accomplishments, rank and medals earned.

In addition to the adventures in the box, players can download ten all-new adventures created by the writers of the outrageously funny, pop-culture parody TV show, Robot Chicken. Available for free to all Spore Galactic Adventures owners, the Robot Chicken adventures take players through such wacky quests as a mission to obtain a library card by finding a ruler-yielding librarian her true love, and an adventure to save a princess by battling demonic snowmen in a snowglobe. Conceptualized by Robot Chicken co-creators Seth Green and Matt Senreich, the Robot Chicken Adventures were imagined by the show’s writing team including Matt Beans, Doug Goldstein, Mike Fasolo, Breckin Meyer, Dan Milano, Tom Root, Kevin Shinick, Hugh Sterbakov and Zeb Wells. With such a unique cast of imaginative characters, players can expect to experience missions with exploding poo, angry yetis, and banana wars.

To support Spore’s dedicated fan community, www.spore.com will feature a bevy of fun content including additional downloadable adventures, contests and news.

Available for PC and MAC for $29.99, Spore Galactic Adventures is rated E10+ by the ESRB. The Robot Chicken adventures are rated TEEN by the ESRB. As an expansion pack, Spore Galactic Adventures requires the original Spore game to play.

Spore Galactic Adventures Goes to the (Robot) Chickens - Free trial of the Spore Creature Creator

Maxis Teams with Adult Swim’s Robot Chicken Writers to Create Hysterical Adventures for Spore Galactic Adventures Available at Launch

What do planetary rest stops, man cannons, and banana monkey wars all have in common? They’re all elements of Adventures created by the Robot Chicken writers exclusively for Spore Galactic Adventures, the highly-anticipated expansion pack for the critically acclaimed videogame, Spore.

Maxis, an Electronic Arts, announce that the Adventures created by writers from this outrageously funny, Emmy award-winning TV show will be available as free downloadable content when the game launches June 23.

The campaign was conceptualized by Robot Chicken co-creators Seth Green and Matt Senreich and executed by the writing team including Matt Beans, Doug Goldstein, Mike Fasolo, Breckin Meyer, Dan Milano, Tom Root, Kevin Shinick, Hugh Sterbakov and Zeb Wells. With such a unique cast of imaginative characters, players can expect to experience missions with exploding poo, angry yetis, ruler yielding librarians and more! Check out Robot Chicken’s exploits as they create Adventures at www.spore.com/wtf.

“We’re big fans of Spore, so teaming up on Spore Galactic Adventures was a natural fit and so much fun for all the guys at Robot Chicken,” said Seth Green, co-creator of Robot Chicken. Co-creator Matt Senreich continued: "We're all gaming geeks, so when the Spore guys said they had an alluring proposition for us, how could we say no? Instead of creating absurd worlds with toys, this gave us the opportunity to create literally anything we wanted as gamers. Geek moment. We think that RC fans will love the pretty random and absurd adventures we created and we can't wait to goof around with the ones the fans create."

“Gamers and Adult Swim fans alike are going to absolutely love the hilarity found in the Robot Chicken missions created for Spore Galactic Adventures,” stated Kip Katsarelis, lead producer of Spore Galactic Adventures. “Our development team had a blast working with the guys and couldn’t stop laughing the entire time we were together. Their Adventures truly reflect the extent of their wild imaginations as well as how the in-game Adventure Creator tool can create almost any type of story imaginable. Players can only guess the level of absurdity and fun that are in these Adventures.”

Spore Galactic Adventures adds a tremendous amount of variety and fun to the original Spore, allowing players to beam down to planets, play Maxis-created Adventures and create their own customized Adventures. Now players can get out of their spaceship and turn their creatures into legendary space captains, battling epic monsters in intergalactic arenas and fighting intense planet-side races along the way. In each mission, players earn experience to rank up their captain, gain game-changing items and accessories such as a Plasma Pulser and Swarm Magnet. Once the captains and Adventures are created, players can share go online to share with friends around the world at www.spore.com.

About Spore

Spore, available for PC and Mac, gives players their own personal universe in a box. Create and evolve life, establish tribes, build civilizations, sculpt entire worlds and explore a universe filled with creations made by other gamers. Spore gives players a wealth of creative tools to customize nearly every aspect of their universe: creatures, vehicles, buildings, and even spaceships. Spore Creatures, available on Nintendo DS™, takes players on a quest to save their species and the entire Galaxy. Meet, befriend or fight other creatures in a number of unique Touch Screen-based activities. Available in fall 2009, Spore Hero, exclusive to the Nintendo Wii and Spore Hero Arena for the Nintendo DS, catapult players into the role of a fully-customized hero creature fighting to save its planet.

To learn more about Spore, Spore Galactic Adventures, Spore Hero, Spore Hero Arena or to download a free trial of the Spore Creature Creator, please visit www.spore.com.

Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena two games built from the ground up exclusively for the Wii and Nintendo DS

The Spore franchise continues to evolve as Maxis, an Electronic Arts studio, today revealed details about Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena – two games built from the ground up exclusively for the Wii and Nintendo DS platforms. Building on the franchise’s core tenets of creativity, exploration and adventure, Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena will immerse Nintendo fans into all-new experiences when the games launch this year.

Spore Hero delivers the unmatched creative freedom of Spore in an accessible, story-driven action-adventure made exclusively for the Wii. Set in a rich and vibrant 3D world, Spore Hero empowers players to create their own Hero as they embark on an epic quest to save their new home world from destruction as a dark force threatens the planet. Taking full advantage of the Wii controls, Spore Hero engages players in heated battles, humorous missions, curious puzzles and more. Throughout the game, players will collect more than 250 parts with unique abilities and experience the unparalleled customisation of the revolutionary Spore Creature Creator enhanced for the Wii

Building on the success of Spore Creatures for Nintendo DS, Spore Hero Arena catapults Nintendo DS players into a 3D galaxy filled with fun, intense arena-based combat. Players create a unique gladiator Hero creature and guide it from planet to planet as they fight dangerous enemy creatures and complete special missions, collecting new parts and abilities, gaining upgrades along the way. In the quest for combat, they’ll seek out to defeat each local champion and unlock special abilities that will benefit their Hero. By combining special abilities, parts, and upgrades, players create a fighting style of their own in hopes to stop an evil force and save the galaxy. Spore Hero Arena will also feature multiplayer capabilities as players can battle with up to three friends locally or play with a friend over Wi-Fi.

“When Maxis first considered bringing Spore to console players, the Nintendo platforms jumped out as a perfect fit. Whether it is the stylus-driven action of the Nintendo DS or playful controllers of the Wii, the massive Nintendo audience is the ideal home for Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena,” said Lucy Bradshaw, VP and General Manager at Maxis. “Nintendo fans will love the humor, ability to create their own Hero, fun gameplay and immersive storylines we’re creating for these two games.”

Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena will be available in 2009.

About Spore
Spore, available for PC and Mac®, gives players their own personal universe in a box. Create and evolve life, establish tribes, build civilizations, sculpt entire worlds and explore a universe filled with creations made by other gamers. Spore gives players a wealth of creative tools to customize nearly every aspect of their universe: creatures, vehicles, buildings, and even spaceships. Spore Creatures, available on Nintendo DS, takes players on a quest to save their species and the entire Galaxy. Meet, befriend or fight other creatures in a number of unique Touch Screen-based activities. Spore Galactic Adventures, available 26th June 2009 is a highly-customisable expansion pack for Spore, adding a tremendous amount of variety and fun to the Space game. Players can beam down to planets for the first time ever, play Maxis-created Adventures and easily create customised missions.

To learn more about Spore, Spore Galactic Adventures, Spore Hero, Spore Hero Arena or to download a free trial of the Spore Creature Creator, please visit www.spore.com.

Over 100 million user created creatures in SPORE universe

What do beaked coralfish, whimsical snow globes and intricate atom models all have in common? They are all pieces of content created by players of the critically-acclaimed video game, Spore. Today, Maxis, an Electronic Arts studio, announced that since launching the Spore Creature Creator in June 2008, Spore fans have created and uploaded 100 Million creations – an average of more than 307,000 daily – on the Sporepedia at www.spore.com, the Spore library of user-generated content.

The 100 Million represents a variety of uploaded creations including 31,017,761 Spore creatures – more than 19 times the number of known species on Earth. The creator of the 100 millionth creation may receive a NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT graphics card, Spore and the upcoming expansion pack Spore Galactic Adventures (Official Rules: http://www.spore.com/comm/contests/contestrules/hundredmillionrules). The 100 Millionth creation and the entire collection of player-generated content can be seen at the Sporepedia.

Spore is widely recognized as one of the first games to make user-generated content the central focus and let player creativity drive much of the humor and whimsy of the entertainment experience. Players’ signature creations are the beating heart of the Spore franchise. Though user-generated content is common in social networking sites, the Spore series has pioneered how this content is made, used and shared in video games. In the upcoming Spore Galactic Adventures, players will be able to take their customized content to the next level as they create their own Space Captain and use the Adventure Creator to create missions to play and share with other Spore players through the Sporepedia.

“This is a staggering milestone to have met in less than one year from the launch of Spore Creature Creator,” said Lucy Bradshaw, VP and General Manager at Maxis. “We continue to be astounded by the outrageous creations and incredible creativity that Spore players have poured into the Sporepedia, from lifelike animals to fantastical creatures and futuristic spaceships. We can’t wait to see the ingenuity our players reveal through the missions they create in Spore Galactic Adventures!”

In the coming months, the Spore franchise will introduce new games; Spore Galactic Adventures for PC and Mac, Spore Hero for Nintendo Wii and Spore Hero Arena for Nintendo DS. Spore Galactic Adventures, available June 23, is a highly-customizable expansion pack for Spore, adding a tremendous amount of variety and fun to the Space game. Players can beam down to planets for the first time ever, play Maxis-created Adventures and easily create customized missions. Available in fall 2009, Spore Hero, exclusive to the Wii and Spore Hero Arena for the Nintendo DS, catapult players into the role of a fully-customized hero creature fighting to save its planet.

To learn more about Spore or to download a free trial of the Spore Creature Creator, please visit www.spore.com. For screen shots or press materials about Spore, please visit http://info.ea.com.

Lead SPORE video game designer to embark on lecture tour of US colleges - Free SPORE trial link

The Spore franchise is going to college! Maxis, an Electronic Arts studio, announced today that lead designer, Stone Librande, will be embarking on a lecture series.

It will reach some of the nation’s top game design college programs including Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Southern California and Carnegie Mellon University.

Aspiring game designers, engineers and artists will have the chance to hear Librande speak about “Designing Playfully” and learn more about the career opportunities inside the creative, global videogame industry. Students will also be among the first to get their hands on Spore Galactic Adventures, the highly-anticipated expansion pack to the platinum hit Spore.

Maxis’ “College Invasion Tour” hit Georgia Institute of Technology on April 10, and will head to University of Southern California on April 16 and Carnegie Mellon University on May 1.
During the tour, Librande will guide students through the intuitive Adventure Creator in Spore Galactic Adventures while inspiring and teaching them how to make game concepts come to life. This easy-to-use tool gives students the ability to prototype design concepts and experiment with new ideas.
“Maxis and EA are huge proponents of college game design programs and nurturing rising talent,” said Lucy Bradshaw, VP and General Manager at Maxis. “The robust creative capabilities of the Adventure Creator in Spore Galactic Adventures, empowers future game developers with a different way to experiment with game design. I can’t wait to see what the students create.”

In FY09, EA welcomed 250 interns to studios in the USA, Canada, UK, Sweden, Germany. Last year alone, the company hired approximately 80 new graduates, fresh out of college.

“The games industry continues to grow with the rise of online gaming, casual gaming and the exciting challenges of new markets,” said Cindy Nicola, VP, Global Talent Acquisition. “EA is passionate about attracting and hiring the brightest graduates as they are our next generation of leaders. Our university partnerships and the talent they produce are key components of our overall talent strategy and we are deeply committed to continuing to hire interns and new graduates across EA.”

Librande is a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Laboratory and California Institute of Arts Film/Video School. He has worked in a wide variety of technical and creative fields, and has been employed as an art director, video producer, software engineer, freelance illustrator and, for one long summer, a tractor driver on a farm in Oregon. He has also taught a game design course at Cogswell College in Sunnyvale, CA.

About Spore
Spore, available for PC and Mac, gives players their own personal universe in a box. Create and evolve life, establish tribes, build civilizations, sculpt entire worlds and explore a universe filled with creations made by other gamers. Spore gives players a wealth of creative tools to customize nearly every aspect of their universe: creatures, vehicles, buildings, and even spaceships. Spore Creatures, available on Nintendo DS™, takes players on a quest to save their species and the entire Galaxy. Meet, befriend or fight other creatures in a number of unique Touch Screen-based activities. Spore Galactic Adventures, available June 23, is a highly-customizable expansion pack for Spore, adding a tremendous amount of variety and fun to the Space game. Players can beam down to planets for the first time ever, play Maxis-created Adventures and easily create customized missions. Spore Hero, exclusive to the Wii™ and available in fall 2009, catapults players into the role of a fully-customized hero creature fighting to save its planet.

To learn more about Spore, Spore Galactic Adventures, Spore Hero or to download a free trial of the Spore Creature Creator, please visit www.spore.com.

Spore API Contest Challenges Aspiring Developers to Create the Ultimate Spore Application!

Calling all aspiring developers! Think you have what it takes to create the next must-have Spore app or widget? 

Show off your master skills by entering the Spore API Contest! Utilize the extensive content in Sporepedia to create your app from scratch, or download the source code from one of the sample apps to develop the ultimate Spore app. 

Whether it's a display of your own creations, a visualization of current Most Popular New creations or a scenic diorama of Sporecast creations, your only limit is your imagination!

For some inspiration, check out our gallery of some cool applications created by the Maxis team with the Spore API, including a creature battle, aquarium, and a buddy browser!

How to Submit:

• To enter, e-mail a link to your application to: MaxisSaguaro@Maxis.com
• All original applications created using the Spore API will be accepted, and you can enter as many applications as you'd like!
• The deadline to submit your app is April 6th, 2009

Prizes:
Grand Prize: NVIDIA graphics card
First runner up: Copy of Spore game and Spore Galactic Adventures
Second runner up: Copy of Spore Galactic Adventures

For full submission guidelines and contest info, visit: http://www.spore.com/comm/contests/

Best of luck!

Sims 2 tops US PC video games chart - 8 out of 10 games form EA or Activision

Electronic Arts and Activision dominate the top ten of the US PC games chart for the week ended January 24.

US PC games chart follows:

01 The Sims 2 Double Deluxe
02 World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Expansion Pack
03 Spore
04 The Sims 2 Apartment Life Expansion Pack
05 Fallout 3
06 World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest
07 World Of Warcraft
08 Left 4 Dead
09 Civilization IV
10 Call Of Duty: World At War

Spore Hero Nintendo Wii, Spore: Hero Arena Nintendo DS, Spore: Creature Keeper Windows P), and Spore - Galactic Adventures expansion in 2009

EA UK has confirmed several new Spore games for Wii, DS & PC, as well as a Spore expansion pack. Yes, Spore fans are finally getting that Wii version of Spore in Spore: Hero for Wii. Another new game tie-in will be Spore: Hero Arena for DS, a standalone Spore: Creature Keeper on PC, and more Spore PC expansion packs with the first of them titled Spore: Galactic Adventures. All of them will be arriving in 2009.

But what about those Spore version on Xbox 360 & PS3 that the game’s creator Will Wright talked about back in 2006? Spore senior producer Morgan Roarty had this to say: “I think first and foremost we’d have to have the right design. The obvious out of the box thinking would be to port the PC product… but I don’t think that’s really the right design. [We’d] possibly go deeper into space… but in my mind, before something like that would get greenlit, it would have to be the right design.”

More details on each new Maxis game below:

Nintendo Wii debut Spore: Hero is an avatar-focused, adventure-based game set in “a beautiful new world”.

Second Spore game to hit Nintendo DS after Spore Creatures will be Spore: Hero Arena. Nothing’s been officially announced yet on what it’ll be about, but the name suggests a Wii title tie-in.

Spore: Creature Keeper is a standalone PC title targeted at a younger audience. It’s described as being “like a mini-Sims” game, where players nurture a newly born creature that has “Sims motives like energy and bladder.”

Maxis is also developing the core game’s first expansion pack titled Spore: Galactic Adventures, formerly known as Adventure Creator. The expansion’s targeting a “deeper variety of gameplay” based around Spore’s space stage, and the overwhelming majority of its new content will be created by the Spore community using new editing tools that’ll allow players to customise their own planets and create their own adventures to share with other gamers. A bit like LittleBigPlanet then.

Free Spore download - franchise 65 million pieces of user-created content shared online

The Spore franchise is evolving! With more than 65 million pieces of user-created content shared online, fans from around the globe have gravitated to the game’s powerful creativity-centered experience and massively single-player content sharing site.
This year, the award-winning Spore franchise continues to evolve as Maxis, an Electronic Arts studio announces four new titles, each designed to deliver a unique experience to a specific audience; Spore Galactic Adventures, Spore Creature Keeper*, Spore Hero* and Spore Hero Arena*. This roster offers unique gameplay for space hunters, creature creators and action adventurers, proving that Spore has something for everyone – gamers, kids and Nintendo fans alike.

“Last year was a very exciting year for Maxis with the release of Spore. We were overwhelmed by the massive response to the game from the millions of people that created, shared and played in the Spore universe,” said General Manager of Maxis, Lucy Bradshaw. “This year we’re going to experiment with new experiences that extend the powerful creativity tools of Spore to all-new audiences. With the universe as our backdrop, the only limit in the Spore universe is your own imagination.”

The next big bang for Spore on PC comes this spring with the deeply immersive and customizable expansion pack, Spore Galactic Adventures. Spore Galactic Adventures adds a tremendous amount of variety and depth to the original “space game” in Spore, allowing players to beam down to planets, play mission-based adventures and even create their own customized adventures for the first time. Each adventure has a unique reward to upgrade a space creature with special accessories – from an Energy Blade and Stunning Charm to a Jump Jet and more. Players can fight their way to victory as a Warrior, dance with new friends as a Bard, and much more. With an almost unlimited number of user created adventures, there’s more to play than ever before. The “adventure creator” in Spore Galactic Adventures gives gamers the tools to make their own missions and share them with friends via www.spore.com.

Younger Spore fans will have a blast with the Spore Creature Keeper, a stand-alone PC game that has players nurturing, training and playing with their own personally-created creature. With lots of toys, clothes and gizmos to play with, players can pamper their pets to perfection! With Spore Creature Keeper, fans can play with their creation alone or have a play-date online for endless creature fun. Spore Creature Keeper brings all the fun of creature creation to a new level by adding nurturing, teaching and social components to the experience.

Spore will make its highly-anticipated debut on the Nintendo Wii with Spore Hero, an all-new adventure game focusing on creativity and evolution that was built from the ground up for the unique controls for Wii. Spore Hero takes players on an exciting adventure through a beautiful, colorful world. Spore Hero Arena for Nintendo DS builds on the success of 2008’s hit Spore™ Creatures and allows players to create fully-3D Spore creatures and take them into battle with an array of other creatures across the galaxy. Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena offer two all-new Spore experiences available exclusively for Nintendo platforms this fall.

To learn more about Spore, to download a free trial of the Spore Creature Creator, or to visit the more than 65 million player-created creations to date, please visit www.spore.com.

SPORE contest winner announced

More Than 50 Million Creations Made Since September Launch

Maxis is pleased to announce the winning creation in the Spore Holiday Contest 2008! Created by Spore fan Gryphon57, “And to All a Good Night” (pictured above), is a winter-y neighborhood vignette with brightly-lit, snow-covered houses, tall fir trees and a sled – all of which were made in the Spore “Building Creator.” With more than 5,000 entries, three runner-up creations were also chosen, including “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa,” “Christmas Morning at the Claus" and “December 26th.” Check out the runner-up creations below and in the Sporepedia at www.spore.com.

These holiday creations make up just some of the now more than 50 million Spore spaceships, vehicles, creatures, ships and buildings that have been created and uploaded on Sporepedia. Since the release of Spore in September, gamers and creative folks alike have been drawn to the game’s easy-to-use customization tools that allow players to create, play and share with their friends.

"Fifty million creations made is an incredible milestone that we couldn’t have achieved without our fans and community," said Lucy Bradshaw, executive producer of Spore. "It’s so great to see hard core fans and casual players embracing the game’s easy-to-use tools to re-create some of the most nostalgic holiday scenes of the season. Fans have shown such tremendous imagination and creativity – we can't wait to see the next 50 million!"

Interested in creating your own creature or holiday scene? Download a free version of the Spore Creature Creator at the newly-designed www.spore.com. Happy creating!

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SPORE contest - win a meeting with Will Wright

Grand Prize Winner To Receive A VIP Trip For Two To Spike TV's Video Game Awards And Meet Legendary Game Designer Will Wright.

Users To Submit Entries at VGA.Spike.com Through December 2nd



At this year’s VGAs, video game visionary Will Wright will receive the first ever Gamer God award as a testament to his contributions to the electronic gaming medium, from the simulation genre creating SimCity™ and its subsequent sequels, to the more than 100 million unit selling The Sims™ franchise, to his latest masterpiece, Spore™, which garnered the The Producers Guild of America 2007 Vanguard Award, a Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award and a Popular Science Best of What’s New Award.

To help celebrate Wright’s latest achievement, Spike and EA are teaming up to celebrate the creativity of Spore with “The Wright Stuff SPORE UGC” contest. The grand prize is a VIP trip for two to this year’s VGAs and some one-on-one time with the legend himself, Will Wright.

“Since launch, Spore players have created nearly 50 million of the most unique and creative creatures, vehicles and buildings the gaming community has ever seen,” said Spore Designer, Will Wright. “The Spore VGA contest takes creativity to a whole new level, allowing budding filmmakers and novices alike to unleash their imaginations in search for the best 60 second Spore film short. I can’t wait to see what they’ll come up with!”

Using in-game tools in Spore, or the Spore Creature Creator (trial edition and complete), Spore players can upload their most creative and entertaining 60 second movie to http://www.spike.com/group/spore/landingpage through December 2nd. A panel of judges, including Spore creator Will Wright, will then select the best video, to be revealed on December 4th. The winner and a guest will receive round trip airfare, 2 nights’ hotel stay, and ground transportation for the 2008 Spike Video Game Awards on Sunday, December 14th in Culver City, California.

For official rules please, visit http://www.spike.com/group/spore/rules.

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Spore Patch 3 to download with 24 FREE Creature Limbs!

As a big thank you to Spore fans and to celebrate the release of Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack, which ships to retailers today, gamers who download and install Patch 3 will be rewarded with 24 brand spanking-new and exclusive exoskeleton limbs for the Creature Creator!

To get the patch, launch the EA Download Manager to download and install it. If you didn't install the EADM when you installed Spore, you can get it from: http://files.ea.com/downloads/eacore/eadm-installer.exe

Additional Patch Features:

• Fix for esc key not bringing up Options in Galaxy Game Entry
• Fix for creator backgrounds appearing on small sporepedia cards
• Update to help keep achievements on the server in sync with achievements in the game

This patch is available for both PC and Mac.

To check out what Spore is all about, log on to: www.spore.com

*Greenguy (seen above) was made using limbs available in this patch! Other parts seen here are available in the Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack!

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