As a marketing exercise to boost interest in its forthcoming game Spore, Electronic Arts’ release of Creature Creator has been something of a masterstroke.
The software allows users to create all manner of strange creatures and objects that can be placed in the surreal world Spore develops, from single-cell creatures to masters of the universe.
The $10 retail version has been top of the PC charts since its release and more than 2m copies of a free version have been downloaded.
Will Wright, creator of Spore and previously The Sims, expressed surprise at the response in his presentation at EA’s press conference at E3 today.
EA’s inimitable in-house genius said his idea for the release was to help populate the Sporepedia database of creatures that players could tap for use in the game when it is launched on September 7. Users can upload their creations for anyone to add to their version of the game.
While he expected around 100,000 creatures to be uploaded by launch, based on his experience with the similar Sims character creator, that figure was reached 22 hours after the software was released on June 17. More than 85,000 videos have been uploaded to YouTube of the creatures moving around.
Famous names including Sir Richard Branson, Carlos Santana, Brian Eno and David Lynch have created their own Spore creatures and put them on display.
Right now 1.75m species have been uploaded to Sporepedia and Wright noted that the milestone had been passed where the figure exceeded the 1.6m known species on Earth.
He said it had taken 18 days to do this compared to God doing something similar in seven days, which, by some madcap calculation, made Spore fans 38 per cent God, he said.
That is the idea of the game after all – you can play God and oversee the creation of a planet. Wright has also been working with National Geographic on a documentary where scientists use the game to demonstrate evolutionary biology.
For all its ingenuity and initial buzz, Spore still has a long way to go to surpass The Sims, which sold its 100-millionth copy in April.
Wright said he was hearing the same kind of stories as when The Sims first came out – of husbands bringing the Creature Creator software home and wives, who had never played games before, becoming hooked.
“I think that bodes well for the accessibility of Spore,” he said.
And for sales as well Will, don’t forget the sales now.
