/sadPanda :(

Damnit, looks like they want to milk the sims for a bit longer. Spore would probably take alot of sales away from those filthy expansion packs.

A console release seems a very logical step, seeing this game has been and is going to be in development for a while, and PC sales alone won't justify that kind of investment.

On top of that i can see how they can have trouble getting the full game running on a PC that's considered "average"; they might want to wait for dualcore and quadcore processing to become more mainstream.

Can't say i'm very disappointed about the delay though. This is one of those games that needs to be released when it's done, no sooner. Unless it turns into the next Duke Nukem.

Sporedukem Forever!

@Spilt_Milk:
More like Sporedukem Forever: Ghost

I think this is the first time I've ever seen Sisyphus referenced in a video game blog. Kudos on that :)

I'm worried about this Spore slip. I know that it will be compared to Duke Nukem Forever, but what I'm more worried about is that it will become Daikatana part 2. Long development time, huge promises, and flat gameplay.

The longer this game goes unpublished the greater the hype will become. Greater hype leads to higher expectations, and most times expectation outweighs the game.

Fuck you, everyone involved with pushing this thing back.

I was excited for this game until
this post, to be perfectly honest.

Spore is fast becoming a cockteasing
Lucy holding the football out for
Charlie Brown to kick.

But he never gets to kick it because
she's holding it further and further away.
And there is the sneaking suspicion
that it may disappear entirely.

Even though this game isn't out yet,
like a bad pop song it's getting
killed by overplay.

Games are increasingly becoming that
friend who you're supposed to meet for
lunch but who's always late.

I'm one of those 'I can wait till it's done' guys, I don't want them to ship an unfinished product... but it looked finished last year. I would've been happy with what they at E3 last year. But they still needed an extra three years? THREE?

I can't help but feel it's going to look a little dated by then.

As long as game is perfect in everyway when it comes out, I wont be mad. After the ammount of times it has been pushed back, it better be.

No! This game had better be the most awe-inspiring ever made.

Not surprised at all. What I've seen in reality compared with what I've heard in idealistic, long-winded speeches left a yawning chasm of blackness that I knew was going to be filled with an indefinitely long development period.

Call me cynical, but I'm prepared to be disappointed.

pft, delayed 2 years for what will certainly be a disappointment

Are you sure 3D realms isn't making this game?

Hasn't it already been in development for seven years already? This is getting crazy.

I blame the Sims.

Damn you Siiiiiims!!!

I blame it on the guy who said the Wii was just two Gamecubes duct-taped together.

I think they're just trying to make it a game.

We've seen some amazing tech demos. But in all of the demos I've seen, I really haven't seen anything that's a GAME.

The Sims underwent a whole lot of iteration before we got what we got. It took them a while to get the baseline GAMEPLAY down. Spore's looking very much like the same thing. It's really spiffy, but it needs.. something. Goals? External motivation? whatever.

If the sims were just 'little computer people' all over again (go look it up, youngun) it would have tanked.

@ReginaldTheSeventySecond:

I could only reason that delaying games will hurt EA's bottom line, period. It's not a case of they want to hawk those expansion packs, it's a case of they'll have to.

I think that EA is letting it slip says a lot, though, about the faith they have in the project. Seriously, how many other EA games have you EVER heard of going more than 6 months late? I think Godfather was 4 months late? Other than that?

I do think probably, though, that it was a mistake for WW to show off the game at such an early stage, but that's probably pretty obvious at this point.

My vote goes on over-haul.

I knew it. They finally realized that a game with such potential has a terrible drawback. It will become incredibly repetitive and tiresome soon after you have the ability to space travel!

Damn it.

Delayed? Indefinitely? Those two words together in a sentence, in that order, referring to the development status of Spore? :(

Yeah, I think they're looking for a game in there. It's trying to be so many things - arcade game, life simulator, civilisation builder, space explorer... there are games that focus on just one of those aspects that take up all your time.

To have a game where so many things are going on... well, that's tricky to manage player space. Once you have reached space and beyond, what motivation is there to go all the way back to pool stage and do it all over again?

How strange =/. I've seen the 2 30minute or so long videos. They both look like fully fleshed out games. In fact in the second one the game even received a pretty big increase in graphics. Those videos must be at least a year or so old now. What are the extra years needed for? Perhaps they decided that they simply couldn't achieve what they wanted with todays technology?

Bah! Fuck you, Will Wright, and the Sim you rode in on! Give us Spore already!

man this sucks... this is one of my most anticipated games. Hopefully they will flesh out the game more, because I was getting worried that each "phase" was gonna be shallow since it concentrated on such a wide period of time.

This is actually good. It means that a fundamental flaw with the "enjoyability" of this game has been uncovered, and Will Wright has the clout to push it back long enough to make sure it gets fixed.

If you want a five minute flash-in-the-pan, that's fine, but it isn't going to be a "great" game. Will Wright is willing to prolong the birthing process long enough to make sure his ideas get presented in a successful manner.

Personally I don't care about "Spore" specifically. All _I_ care about is good games. If Spore is a winner when it comes out, I'm willing to wait as long as that takes.

They are trying things that no one, to my knowledge, has really attempted to do before. I hope they take their time and find a way to deliver what Will Wright showed in his half hour long presentation. Most of you don't seem to appreciate the complexity of what is being attempted with this game.

@Coherent:
Promote this man.

I feel the same way. Sure, I'm a bit disappointed now. And when I think about it, I'd rather be a little dissapointed today about indefinite release dates than endure massive disappointment when I get a cruddy end product (if they are in fact doing as you figure they are).

This game is a bit of a gamble on Wright's reputation as a guy who knows very well what he's doing.
Let's hope it doesn't end up a flop.

what the fuck? It looks so well done, already... What could POSSIBLY be holding up an entire fucking year AGAIN?

it's been in projects for a year+ now, that means it's going to be a 3 year game? What the fuck?

Very sad to hear about the delay.
Also, my most anticipated game..for like a year already. Guess Ill have to make it 2 more at least :(
I actually hope it quiets down and hype dies down a bit simply so it can be like a birthday surprise party when it finally drops.

This is what happens when the creator bashed the Wii...karma's a bitch..hmm

Getting rid of Brian might solve all our problems *ponders*.
The game already looked finished, I wanted to invade other people's galaxies *pout*

This is what happens when developers announce a delay and threads become filled with people saying "I can wait till it's over, I don't want an incomplete product." Release the damn game! And if you aren't able to do that in a reasonable time then don't talk about it!

I guarantee this is a publicity stunt.

100 bucks says they release it tomorrow.

IMO Spore won't be the next Duke Nukem Forever, it will be the next Fable -- a game that is delayed and delayed and delayed and when it ships its a pretty decent game and sells well enough, but is far less of a revolution in gaming than people were expecting based on the years of hype and initial descriptions.

On top of that, they've decided to make the game exclusive to the Phantom.

@modifiedbears: Most of you don't seem to appreciate the complexity of what is being attempted with this game.

Yes we do. We also know the difference between "attempted" and "accomplished."

Some people's comments on this make me wonder if they understand how long it takes to make a game. A lot of games are in the works for several years without being made public, basically to avoid the "Duke Nukem Forever" stigma.

This isn't really *new* news, anyhow, EA had mentioned a month or two back that Spore wouldn't probably hit this fiscal year, which is the 08 fiscal year, so it only makes sense that they're now saying 09 fiscal year. Keep in mind if the game was released as early as April 1st, 2008 it would fall under the 2009 fiscal year. Spore could theoretically come out in less than a year, but not in time for Holidays 07.

My vote also goes to overhaul...

I've watched all the videos. I've been pretty underwhelmed. Whenever I watch game videos (or really any kind of promo video), I always try to think about the implications of what I'm seeing to the larger work. Whenever I've seen Spore videos, I've kind of gotten the feeling that that's really all there is to it. I've never gotten the feeling that there's this massive underlying world growing around you, or that you really even have much control over everything.

I could be wrong, of course, but this is one of those games that I've actually gotten less excited about the more I've seen of it... and something can't be right for that to happen.

if they release it soon, I promise I'll buy the console version when it comes out afterwards... please...

@Slyght: EA had mentioned a month or two back that Spore wouldn't probably hit this fiscal year, which is the 08 fiscal year, so it only makes sense that they're now saying 09 fiscal year. Keep in mind if the game was released as early as April 1st, 2008 it would fall under the 2009 fiscal year.

If the game were in a state that it might be released in less than a year, they would not permit the phrase "delayed indefinitely" to be uttered by anyone in an official capacity. They would set a date and re-delay if necessary.

This announcement most likely means Q2 '09 or beyond.

@Coherent:
@badasscat:

I agree. I have a feeling that, while the game looks complete, and fully fleshed out it doesn't mean that it is a good, enjoyable game.

Take for instance COD3. Here was a game with alot of promise, we saw great graphics, heard the Developer Diaries on the rich multiplayer component and in the end the whole game just didn't feel "right". It was an ok game, but something just didn't work.

I would suspect that the same has happened with Spore. It's a nice concept, interesting, but is there something cruical missing that makes it fun? Is it just next generation tamagotchi?

Jeesh man.

Hopefully it doesn't get pushed back further.

This is stupid. One more thing to add to the list of over 50 things I hate about EA. The game seemed to be nearly done. I mean, what went wrong? Please someone get some hard info. This just doesn't make sense. The game was met with a roar. Why would you push back a game guaranteed to sell big?

@protozoider: The game seemed to be nearly done.

"Seemed" is the operative. Those videos seemed to show a complete game, but the difference between what he was saying was happening -- "this is all done procedurally," "this is procedural too," "this over here will be completely dynamic," etc. -- and what was actually happening could have been very, very different.

At the time, he probably thought the engineers could bridge the gap between the two in a matter of months, and they came back and said "Uhh, not going to happen, hombre," and now they're scrambling.

They can't release it half-assed after the promises that have been made. It would be a laughing stock. Let's just hope they can eventually come close to something resembling the grand ideal put forth in the demo's.

Microsoft bought the game for $50,000,000

mann... its crazy considering i saw gameplay footage like 4 years ago that looked pretty functional and complete.

This...isn't a story at all.

We *already* knew Spore was getting delayed till next year and possibly *late* next year. That falls into fiscal 2009. Which starts in April 2008.

There is no news in this at all that we didn't already know. Period. Game Informer is perfectly capable of being wrong, and EA can't stop them from printing things like that. Seeing how *EA* themselves are not announcing it as being delayed indefinitely, all we've got is that Game Informer bit. Is there a scan of it so we can see the phrase in context?

I honestly just wish they would just make it already. XD

It would be pretty exciting to be