Spore's crazy creature population: 100 million

The Spore Creature Creator.

(Credit: Spore/Electronic Arts)

With all this hysteria about the pig sniffles, you'd think that an announcement about 100 million strange little organisms would be cause for alarm. That's not the case, however, when we're talking about the oddball life forms that players grow and control as part of video game Spore. The game created by industry legend Will Wright announced Monday that 100 million creatures have been created, far outrunning the number of species on Earth.

The game publisher, Electronic Arts, started counting last June. That's when it first released its Spore Creature Creator, several months ahead of the full Spore game itself.

There's more Spore on the way. Electronic Arts' Maxis studio is releasing the Spore Galactic Adventures expansion pack for PC and Mac players, Spore Hero for the Wii, and Spore Hero Arena for the Nintendo DS. The player who created the 100 millionth Spore creature now has a chance to win a copy of Spore Galactic Adventures as well as a souped-up PC graphics card.

Last month, Will Wright announced his departure from Electronic Arts. Wright, who soared to the heights of video game fame with Sim City and The Sims, has said that his new project is an "electronic think tank" that goes by the interesting name of Stupid Fun Club.

[Sam Papelbon]

i wonder if that includes the ones shaped like reproductive organs

[Renegade Knight]

Oh, the irony. It would be 200,000,000 if they didn't screw you over with DRM. My family never finished the game. We have one install remaining and it's running on exactly 1 computer which requires "tech support". Tech support these days means. "We can't figure it out, so why don't you reformat".

So, One install, One doomed installation, and no interest. I'd sell it but DRM prevents even that satisfaction.

[Hunnter2k3]

You can easily request more installations through their site.

But the fact that you have went through 2 (or 4) already makes me wonder what the hell you are doing with your computer...

[SwissJay]

I've been doing "Tech Support" without formating for, oh, 15 years now. It is, however, VERY time consuming because all the odd little trojans and such have to be tracked down and removed by hand (BartPE helps a lot)!! It only takes seconds with Internet Explorer on a porn/warez site to get infected, but hours to clean!!!

So if one HAS to visit these sites, at least use Firefox with noscript and adblock!

[pentest]

100 million creatures that have no real differences. The DRM debacle aside, this game will go down as one of the biggest lost opportunities. They dumbed it down past the point of farce.

[Hunnter2k3]

They did indeed, which saddens me greatly.
The whole system Will showed about a year before it came out, it looked so amazing.

But still, a lot of effort has went into making the game a community, even if for most people, it is invisible.

Also saddened that there was no underwater society path.
Who knows, maybe in a future expansion...

I still play it to sell loads of spice and conquer all the stars. Might take me a few years, but i'll get there eventually.
I recently decided to go into the center for some fun. Nuked some Grox cities, got trapped, etc.
Really looking forward to the Galactic Adventure expansion, this will really make things more interesting.

[myles taylor]

Why not the iPod Touch and iPhone? Aren't you able to install it and create creatures on there? Or did it completely flop on those devices?

[`WarpKat]

Eh...can any of these reproduce to create hybrid mutants that resort to cannibalism in the womb like sharks?

[netspectre101]

A dubious accomplishment, at best.

[Kimsh]

Nice, at least there is one place where the number of species is increasing. Alas poor earth.

[fokkwp]

"100 million creatures have been created, far outrunning the number of species on Earth."

You might want to read some 7th grade ecology. Estimates of total number of species do go beyond 100 million, according to some reckonings. And they become extinct at about 25,000 species per year, give or take 20 or 30 thousand. But they will soon be disappearing far more rapidly than that. The pre-human rate of extinction was about 2 to 5 species per year.

[renGek]

If by organism they mean the evil root kits installed on your pc then yes I concur.
You know there is a reason will wright left EA and "to pursue other interest" is a public way of saying "god I hate those people, they shafted my ideas and turned what could have been a great game into some dumb scheme to make a few extra dollars that backfired"