Not that you should believe everything you believe, but www.gamesindustry.biz just posted an article full of quotes by Jeff Brown from EA.

I know Jeff, he’s a good guy and a master at public communication. He also makes some very clear comments (if he was quoted properly) about EA’s mindset about Take Two.

“Take-Two is just not a strategic priority for EA.”

“We think [Take Two's studios are] really great teams, that they’re creative people, and we would very much like to give them a home and access to our publishing capability, but we just don’t need it.”

Sounds like EA is moving on to “other opportunities”, especially with his comment about all the new IP in development.

Still, developing new successful IP is much harder than simply buying currently successful IP.

Also, there’s still the question of how EA is going to quickly grow revenues another billion or two billion dollars. (Maxis & Spore to the rescue?)

If the Take Two deal does fall through, there should be some interesting acquisition news in the next month or two.

Everyone knows that EA always has multiple irons in the fire right?

Maxis just released more information about Spore.

Check out the FAQ at : Spore FAQ

Fansite Kit at: Spore Fansite Kit

I just finished up 3 days of talking to a random sample of kids (8 to 14 yrs old) from the Los Angeles area about how math is used in developing video games.

One of the cool parts about doing this sort of work is that I get to find out from the kids which machines they have and they games they are most anticipating.

What I found:

1. Seems like an even split between kids claiming to have Xbox360 machines vs Wii machines at home. It was extremely rare to find someone claiming to have a PS3 at home.

2. Most the boys had all heard of Halo and knew that Halo 3 was coming out soon, with the older boys showing the most excitement about it.

3. As a group, the boys also were very much waiting for Smash Brothers Brawl as well. The younger aged boys in the group there held as much interest in Smash Bros as the older ones did for Halo. They also seemed to have more certainty that they would actually be allowed to play Smash Brothers Brawl (as opposed to the uncertainty that their parents would allow them to play Halo).

4. There was confusion about which platforms are needed for which games. The confusion was painfully clear with one student saying he would buy a Wii just to play Halo3. Anyone else see an opportunity here?

5. The girls that attended the event were barely interested in Halo 3 at all, but had a fair amount of interest in Mario Galaxy. None of them had ever heard of Spore.

6. One of the adults helping organize the event mentioned having a PS3 at home that would likely soon be turned into a media server because it wasn’t being used for gaming. Another mentioned that they might buy the PS3 and use it as a “Blue Ray player that just happens to also play games”.

Draw conclusions as you will, but there’s nothing like interacting with hundreds of kids to find out what is on their mind about gaming.

I’m a huge fan of Spore and had the good fortune of seeing one of the earliest prototypes of it while visiting Maxis during the development of C&C:Generals. Yep, Spore has been in development for a long time, but I give huge kudo’s to Will Wright for keeping his vision alive and developing the product in the right way (i.e. keeping the team small until it was ready to grow).

Like most fans of the game, I’m keen to see anything new that the team releases and have been secretly plotting the growth of my own “Spore Society”.

For those of you just catching up, Gamespy put up an article with the latest at the end of August. Inside of the article is a set of videos, with the latest being a great trailer released on Sept 5, 2007 showing the breadth of game play.

Check it out here: GameSpy Spore Article

It’s great to see how the game looks and plays. Fingers crossed that soon we’ll get to learn more about sharing our races/societies/planets with other players. Wouldn’t it be great if that could be done in real time….?