Spore

2009 was a rough year for the game industry as a whole and very rough for the PC game industry, at least in terms of sales of game titles at brick and mortar stores in the US. Industrygamers.com reports that according to the NPD Group, sales of PC games at the retail level totaled only $538 million last year. That's a whopping 23 percent drop from 2008. By comparison, console game sales "only" went down eight percent in 2009. Of course these numbers do not include any sales of games via digital download services which are taking a bigger piece of the sales pie every year.

As expected, The Sims 3 was named the number one best selling PC game in retail stores in 2009, followed by World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. The full list is below.

1. The Sims 3 - Electronic Arts
2. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - Blizzard
3. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts
4. World of Warcraft: Battle Chest - Blizzard
5. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Infinity Ward/Activision
6. World of Warcraft - Blizzard
7. The Sims 3: World Adventures - Electronic Arts
8. Spore - Electronic Arts
9. Dragon Age: Origins - BioWare/EA
10. Empire: Total War - The Creative Assembly/Sega

Earlier this week we reported that the free giveaways of downloadable content for Electronic Arts games had begun via buying Dr Pepper products. Now EA has revealed exactly what you will be getting when you get those free codes. For example, owners of Spore will be able to download 12 exclusive cyborg creature parts for the alien evolution sim.

If you get the upcoming RPG Mass Effect 2, you can download two helmets and a visor from your Dr Pepper DLC code. Battlefield Heroes players can have their choice of four unique character outfits while Battlefield Bad Company 2 users can get four kit upgrades that let the player control a Special Activities soldier with a unique camouflage and modified weapon. More DLC offers will be announced later.

Back in June we reported that Electronic Arts was planning to team up with soft drink maker Dr Pepper to offer up free codes for downloadable content for EA games. Now our sister site Joystiq is reporting that the promotion has finally started with a free DLC code in every Dr Pepper drink.

The list of games that's involved in the promotion includes Spore, The Sims 3, Battlefield Heroes and the upcoming titles Mass Effect 2 and Battlefield Bad Company 2. You plug in your code at the Dr Pepper web site (after you buy your drink of course) and then you can select from a list of content, supported games and platforms which you can download for free.The promotion ends at the end of the year.

Direct2Drive's final day in their 24 Days of Christmas promotion has started and from now until 1 pm Eastern time on Christmas Day you can purchase and download EA's alien evolution sim game Spore for just $19.95, a 50 percent decrease from its normal price on the service.

In addition to Spore, Direct2Drive has put a number of LucasArts published games on sale "for a limited time" for 50 percent off their normal prices. The games on the list include Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Loom, Star Wars: Republic Commando, Star Wars Galaxies, Lucidity, The Dig, The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition and others.

The Sims and Spore creator Will Wright shocked many in the game industry earlier this year when he decided to leave his long time development team at Electronic Arts to start an all new company with the terrific name Stupid Fun Club. VentureBeat chatted with Wright this week to get an update on what he's been up to and what he has planned for his new company.

Wright says that Stupid Fun Club has three projects in the works right now including one that might be released in the next year. However not all of the projects involve video or PC games. Wright states, "One of them is toy related. The others aren't. We are looking at a lot of different industries. There's the web. Toys. We're not restricted to one type of entertainment. We're kind of looking for ideas that cross a lot of different boundaries." However games are not far from his mind with Wright saying, "We are taking the games industry into other areas. We are expanding what we call the 'play industry.' Games are limited in some ways. Play can be applied to so many different kinds of experiences."

The latest game-to-movie deal is one that perhaps is not much of a surprise. Variety is reporting that EA's alien evolution sim Spore will be turned into a CGI feature film by Twentieth Century Fox. The movie itself will be created by Blue Sky Studios who created the popular Ice Age series of films. Indeed the director of the first Ice Age movie, Chris Wedge, is scheduled to direct the Spore film.

The script is being written by Greg Erb and Jason Oremland, who also wrote the script for the upcoming Disney 2D animated movie The Princess and the Frog. EA Maxis VP Lucy Bradshaw will be an executive director of the Spore movie. However there doesn't appear to be a similar credit for Spore's creator Will Wright, who left EA shortly after Spore shipped to stores last fall.

If you still haven't tried out Spore yet and don't feel like downloading the free version of the Spore Creature Creator, Electronic Arts has something planned for you. They are supposed to launch a Flash-based version of the creator in a 2D format on the spore2d.com web site. We say "supposed to" because at the moment the site doesn't appear to be working yet.

Once the site is operational, EA said you can use it to make any kind of creature you want or import any creature to the web from the Sporepedia site and even play with them in the Spore Creature Trainer mini-game. You can show off your 2D creature via email or your favorite social networking site as well.

Update: The spore2d.com site appears to be working now.

News of even more mass layoffs are hitting the game industry today. Electronic Arts has announced that it has cut back its work force at its EA Maxis studio in Emeryville, California, home to its Sims and Spore game brands. This news comes even as EA announced earlier this month that The Sims 3 has sold 3.7 million copies since its launch last June.

EA would not give any specifics on how many people are being laid off at their Maxis studios, saying only, "EA has taken action to reduce the workforce at Maxis as we focus the business and focus Maxis." Maxis' founder Will Wright left EA earlier this year to form a new company called Stupid Fun Club. EA's next major PC game from their Maxis studio is the expansion pack The Sims 3 World Adventures. Earlier this year EA said it was planning to lay off about 1,100 people from its total work force.

Last month's release of Spore Galactic Adventures was an attempt by the team at EA's Maxis studio to expand the amount of content in the original game by allowing folks to create their own space missions (as opposed to the main game which concentrates on making custom alien life forms and units).

Apparently the new feature in the expansion has proven to be popular. According to a new press release from EA, over 100,000 new adventures have been added to the Sporepedia since the expansion's release in mid-June. That number includes 10 new adventures created by the writers of the Robot Chicken TV show on Adult Swim. As you can see from the above screenshot, their new missions are certainly . . . different.

[Via email press release]

This patch updates Spore and Spore Galactic Adventures to v1.05. Includes numerous bug fixes and gameplay enhancements. A full list of changes is listed after the jump.

Download Spore v1.05 Patch (147 MB)
Check out all Spore downloads
Check out all Spore Galactic Adventures downloads

This patch updates Spore to v1.04. It addresses a number of gameplay issues and includes game enhancements. Additionally, there's a patch for the Spore Creature Creator, bringing it to v2.01. The Creature Creator demo can be downloaded here. Continue reading after the jump for a list of changes.

Download Spore v1.04 Patch (84 MB)
Download Spore Creature Creator v2.01 Patch (173 MB)
Download the Spore Creature Creator Demo (205 MB)
Check out all Spore downloads

After the last few weeks with only one or two new releases, this week has a bunch of PC game titles being released to stores. In addition we get the latest downloadable expansion to last year's big RPG release.

Overlord II: Developer Triumph Studios and publisher Codemasters put this sequel to the unusual action-strategy-RPF game to stores. As with the 2007 original you are playing the "bad guy" in a fantasy universe controlling his Minions to destroy and maim the members of a Roman Empire-like land. You can download a playable demo of the game right here at Big Download.

Believe it or not, it's still technically spring outside but in about a week that will change and the longest day of the year will spell the official start of the summer season. For some reason, the games industry in general and PC games in particular tends to be on the slow side in terms of new game releases to stores.

To be frank, it looks like history is repeating itself again as the game industry is prepping once again for the fall/holiday seasons to release a ton of major titles. However, there are a few PC games that are planning for a summer release and Big Download has picked them in order of their scheduled release date. Keep in mind that, as always, release dates for game titles can and do change so this list might not turn out to be accurate in terms of ship dates.

Click on the image above to read more of Big Download's top 10 most anticipated PC games of summer 2009

It was revealed a few days ago that the creators of Robot Chicken, an animated television show on Comedy Central's Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, would collaborate with the Spore: Galactic Adventures team to create some custom missions that players can enjoy for free. This documentary video reveals a bit about that creative process and highlights some of the missions that the Robot Chicken crew came up with. Spore: Galactic Adventures is scheduled to release on June 23rd. Visit the Spore WTF web site to learn more about the Robot Chicken missions.

Download HD Spore: Galactic Adventures Robot Chicken Video (63 MB)
Check out all Spore: Galactic Adventures downloads

A few days ago word leaked out that there was some kind of collaboration going one between the Spore development team and the team for Robot Chicken, the pop culture themed animation TV show on Adult Swim. Today publisher Electronic Arts finally revealed that the Robot Chicken team will be creating free downloadable scenarios for the upcoming Spore Galactic Adventures expansion pack.

The expansion, which will allow Spore players to travel to planets and experience new adventures, will come with its own mission editor. The writing team at Robot Chicken (including the show's co-creator Seth Green) are apparently creating adventures for the expansion that include stuff like "planetary rest stops, man cannons, and banana monkey wars." You can also expect "exploding poo, angry yetis, ruler yielding librarians" and more. Well, that seems fun. Spore Galactic Adventures is due for release on June 23.

Update: The Spore WTF web site has been updated with lots of screenshots and YouTube videos from the Robot Chicken team working on their Spore Galactic Adventures missions.

[Via Joystiq]