Celebrities get their chance to make 'Spore' creatures

This 'Spore' creature, created by comic book legend Stan Lee, is one of dozens made by 'creative celebrities,' in a promotion the video game publisher announced Tuesday.

(Credit: Electronic Arts)

It seems everyone is getting in on the Spore fun these days.

In less than a week, Electronic Arts' hotly anticipated evolution game will launch, most likely to large initial sales and significant excitement.

But since June, fans of the game--which was first announced and has been the talk of the video games industry since 2005--have been able to play with the Spore Creature Creator, a free, downloadable editor, that allows anyone to craft their own creature and upload it to what is known as Sporepedia, a vast, sharable, database of millions of other people's creations.

And on Tuesday, EA said that it had lured dozens of "creative celebrities" into making creatures, each of which is now viewable online in a bit of a fan-voting popularity contest.

This creature--and a couple of little versions of itself--is the most viewed of the dozens created in the promotion. It was made by online TV show personality Philip DeFranco.

(Credit: Electronic Arts)

Among the well-known and maybe not quite so well-known among the group recruited by EA are Spider Man and X-Men co-creator Stan Lee; "I Kissed a Girl" pop star Katy Perry; Carlos Santana; baseball pitcher Curt Schilling; actor Elijah Wood; Digg founder Kevin Rose; TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington; Spore creator Will Wright himself; video game blog Kotaku editor Brian Crecente; film director David Lynch; Virgin Group mogul Richard Branson; celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse; Laughing Squid photographer and blogger Scott Beale; Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, and many others.

In each case, fans can see the celebrity's creation, how many times others have looked at it (on YouTube, where they can rate it), and how many people have "liked" it.

It seems that the various celebrities and their Spore creatures are sorted by the number of times people have viewed them, and it's not clear whether they were presented in this order or whether they self-sort by the number of times they've been looked at.

Another popular creature is this one, by video game blog Kotaku editor Brian Crecente.

(Credit: Electronic Arts)

Either way, the most "liked," and viewed, creature is known as DeFranco, by Philip DeFranco, the host of the online hit, the Philip DeFranco Show. As of when I looked at it, it had gotten 134,961 views and 112,922 "likes."

It's hard to tell why that would be the case. His creature is very well conceived, to be sure, a refined red beast with a large mouth and intimidating horns.

But others on the list made very nice creatures as well. And certainly, you would think that someone like Stan Lee would get a ton of views, just because of who he is. Yet, Lee's creature, a tall, upright, drink of water with four arms and four legs got about a 10th the number of views as DeFranco's.

Rock star Carlos Santana got in on the act, as well, with this creature, called Batuka.

(Credit: Electronic Arts)

And those at the bottom of the list--whether because people just weren't interested in their creations or perhaps because the interface for this project is a little bit unwieldy--got just hundreds of views.

Regardless, it's nice to see the participation by some of these very well-known and respected people. Some of them clearly put thought into their creations, and the results are often rather impressive. In each case--except for a few who didn't manage to finish their creations--they've presented a YouTube video of their work so that you can see not only what it looks like but also how it moves, and in many cases, what smaller versions of it look like.

Within days, the full game will be out and millions of new people will be exposed to Spore. Already, the game's ad campaign has gotten under way, with billboards on buildings, signs in bus stops, and even a full takeover of a Boston subway station.

And once the game actually launches? Let's just say it's impossible to know how far Spore-mania will go. But I'm betting it will be extreme.

[08Rabbit]

Phil D. has a ton of views becuase he has a huge online following.
Almost if not 200k youtube subscribers.

[lacykemp]

Spore is pretty freakin' fun. It's totally a different way to play online. Especially for those of us who may not be so artistic. It's a fun toy for sure.

[Laurel_Anne_Hill]

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal about the new videogame Spore aroused my interest although I?m not into gaming. I?m an author of science fiction and fantasy. Creating virtual life forms is cool. In fact, the custom software in my brain has played its own version of ?Creature Creator? for years. Program revisions update automatically. No instructions required.

To see the creatures from my illustrated parable (all created without Spore), please use the link below to visit my slide show.

http://s301.photobucket.com/albums/nn45/Laurel_Anne_Hill/HEROES%20ARISE/?action=view&current=8d94e398.pbr

Regardless, Spore sounds like a lot of fun. I may have to try it and risk getting hooked.

Laurel Anne Hill

[huttarl]

Isn't it ironic that a "hotly anticipated *evolution* game" has to have a "creature *creator*"?
Maybe it should be billed as a "hotly anticipated creation game (with some natural selection thrown in)".

Remember (repeat after me, class): evolution is a mindless, purposeless, undirected process. And it's capable of developing complex life forms ingeniously adapted to their environment.

But when we try to repeat the process and develop new life forms, we use intelligent design (by *creative* celebrities) because we can't actually get undirected processes to produce anything interesting.

[michaelspivey]

One of the problems introduced with the exciting new game Spore is that players are uploading tens of thousands of new creatures, vehicles and buildings every 10 minutes. How to sort it all out? Yet, www.SearchSpore.com is the solution by showing you the most exciting Spore characters and objects. It's a community based on making Spore more fun!