14 DAY TRIAL // Spore was, no doubt about it, affected by the controversy related to its DRM and to account creation. There was also a high degree of piracy affecting the game. Still the Maxis developed and Electronic Arts published game has managed to sell more than 1 million copies since it was released on September 7. This number does not include digital downloads and that of Collector's Editions sold.
The number might seem small when compared to the console released The Force Unleashed, which shipped more than 1.5 million games since its launch date, but most analysts do not take into account the fact that the Star Wars game was launched on all possible gaming platforms except the PC while Spore was only available on the PC in its complete form, with Nintendo DS and iPhone games being largely tie ins that do not incorporate the entire gaming experience.
Lucy Bradshaw, who is an executive producer on the game, says that “We're humbled by how quickly the community has taken to the creativity tools in Spore. It's amazing to see the sheer imagination represented in the hundreds of thousands of creatures, vehicles and buildings that have been uploaded around the clock since launch”.
The sales reported until now would mean that Spore made around 50 million dollars for Electronic Arts, which is already a nice sum.
It's almost inevitable that Spore will get some sort of versions for the consoles. In some ways, the PC game is more of a technology demonstration which shows what the game can do and I expect that all the stages, from Cell to Creature, Tribal, Civilization and Space, will be expanded upon in the future by the Maxis team working under the banner of Electronic Arts. The game might not get the same amount of PC expansions that The Sims received, but all the stages have potential to become interesting, casual and well selling console games. We'll just have to wait and see what Will Wright and his team come up with.