Spore could spur growth for EA

Spore lets people play god, tinker with a digital primordial soup and birth civilizations that conquer galaxies.

It also may produce a similar big bang for Electronic Arts Inc.

Spore -- one of the most-talked-about video games in years, from the man behind the blockbuster Sims franchise -- is set to launch Sunday. The computer game's sales will help determine whether the world's largest video game company will emerge from its restructuring efforts on solid footing. Once the undisputed giant of the industry, EA's dominance has slipped in recent years as its products became regarded as formulaic.

Spore is anything but. Unlike most games, it's not a sequel, a copycat of another popular title or based on a Hollywood movie. Spore represents a new era for EA, one that the Redwood City, Calif., company hopes will usher in a second golden age.

Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter estimates that EA needs to sell at least 1.6 million copies of Spore to recoup the $50 million it cost to make it.

"It's probably our biggest and most important release this year," said Frank Gibeau, president of EA's Games Label.

Six years in the making, Spore sprang from the quirky mind of Will Wright, a game developer who created SimCity and the Sims. That franchise has developed a passionate following and sold more than 100 million copies since its launch in 2000. Both titles defined a genre, known as sandbox games, in which players can create their own cities, homes and families.

In the early years, the Sims' breakout success was not evident.

"A lot of people couldn't understand what it was about," said Jesse Divnich, an analyst with Electronic Entertainment Design and Research Inc. in San Diego. "There were no goals. There wasn't competition. People didn't know what to make of it. It wasn't until word-of-mouth got out that it took off."

EA hopes the same will be true of Spore. Like the Sims, the game defies conventional descriptions.

"That's its greatest challenge," said Geoff Keighley, editor of GameSlice, a industry news website. "You can't describe it in 15 words on a box to someone walking into Wal-Mart."

To introduce players to the concept, EA in June released its Spore Creature Creator, a software program that lets players design their own critters and upload them to the Web for others to see. The creatures can then be used to populate the actual game.