It was one of the weirdest things about this month's release of Spore. Electronic Arts' manual for the game said you could have multiple accounts for the alien evolution sim but in reality there was just one such account available for each install of the game. Naturally, folks didn't like that. Now EA's producer of the game Lucy Bradshaw has announced that they have indeed caved in and made multiple accounts available for each copy.

Bradshaw states in a post on the official Spore message boards, "We are going to add the ability to have multiple Spore Screen Names for any one Spore Online Account. Here's how this will work: for each copy of Spore that you have purchased, you will be able to have one Spore Online Account, just as it is now. However, we will be adding the ability to have five Spore Screen Names for that account. When you launch Spore, you will be able to log in with any of those Screen Names."

People who already have the game can go to the Spore web site and add new screen names associated with their online account now so there's apparently no need for a patch. These screen names will have separate entries in the online Sporepedia and each will have their own achievements, buddy lists and other features. We wonder why it took an online protest to put in a feature that quite frankly should have been there from the start, but at least it's there now.

Gallery: Spore