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News of Spore Delay Miscommunication

Posted by Zonk on from the hah-they're-just-jerking-our-chains-now dept.

Ars Technica's Opposable Thumbs blog reports that the much-anticipated title Spore has been pushed back yet again from its tentative release in 2008. That's right: it's now delayed until 2009. Just to remind you, Spore was announced at GDC 2005. They have some commentary on the delay: "When you see a live demo, it's pretty much the same demo everyone sees. It may look like the whole thing is off the cuff, but in reality you're seeing a carefully scripted show. It's possible giant chunks of the game are missing, and the illusion of the title being near completion is mostly smoke and mirrors. With a game this open-ended, it's possible the development team is running into a slew of unforeseen problems." Update: 06/21 07:24 GMT by Z : Unfortunately, there's been some miscommunication here. The previous announcement of Spore's delay already included the possibility of the game not shipping until 2009. EA's fiscal year ends in March, with fiscal 2009 running from the end of this next year into the beginning of the year after. Next Generation clarifies the issue.

5 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. Obv. by Dragon+of+the+Pants · · Score: 3, Insightful

    [Obligatory comparison to Duke Nukem Forever]

  2. We're such suckers... by CaseM · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't mean just about this game, specifically, but how many times are we shown a pre-rendered video or told a "target" release date for the sole purpose of keeping our interest piqued for a game that hasn't even a remote chance of getting out on time (i.e. Spore) or never looking like that (the PS3 pre-renders a couple of E3's ago)...and we never learn.

  3. quoting Shigery Miyamoto... by CockroachMan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever."

    1. Re:quoting Shigery Miyamoto... by Loke+the+Dog · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And sometimes a delayed game is bad and outdated.

  4. Re:Will Wright... by timster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'll tell you what would hurt more than abandoning it -- working on it for another year and then releasing a bad game. Now, I'm a big fan of Will Wright's previous games, and I'm sure hoping that Spore will be great, but lots of great game designers have made really bad games in the past.

    Remember Daikatana? It's possible to delay a bad game again and again, and still end up releasing a bad game. If EA can't make Spore into a good game, it would still be better to cancel it.

    --
    I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.