Spore Secretly Spawned?

So, apparently rumor has it that the long anticipated Spore Creature Editor has been leaked through some back alley darknet developer distribution channels.

Of course, clueful game marketers have long understood that such “leaking” can prime the pump for huge first day and first week sales. The naughty kiddies of all ages get to think they’re breaking the rules and being oh so rebellious by downloading such pre-release kits; yet, they are feeding right into the savvy internet marketer’s masterful hands. Hey, anything that helps to economically rewards software developers for such insanely difficult work is fine in my book.

In any event, I’d like to suggest that we each consider buying at least one copy of the game on day one; if not for ourselves, for some young gamer in our local social network. Why would I bother to encourge you to buy Spore on or around September 7? If not just for some fun, then in order to keep supporting increasing levels of sophistication in simulation and software intelligence.

Personally, I’m also hoping for peer reviews from folks like Ben Goerztle and the Novamente team because what many anticipate as Wright’s magnum opus seems to those of us in the peanut gallery to also engage some similar challenges of AGI-like behavior and human computer interaction from a Montessori play-like perspective. Are there vast differences? Of course. However, there could well be unexpected and welcome interdisciplinary discoveries, as well. If not on the HTM side, at least on the HCI side of the equation.

06.18.08 Update

So actually, it wasn’t much of a leak, since the Creature Creator went live on spore.com on Monday. You get to create these widgety things to share your creatures. Soon, trillions of tweenies of all ages will be unleashing an entire new wave of evolutionary sporacles into spore-space. Now, one question becomes how to permit trans-inter-dimensional travel and adaptation between WOW, SL, Spore, etc. We’ll save uploading your ghost to the shell of your choice for the second semester. :-)