The first official expansion for Spore? Galactic Adventures is listed on Gamestop and Amazon as a new Electronic Arts title coming on March 17, 2009. Spore Galactic Adventures shows a price of $29.99 which is at par with the price of an expansion pack. There’s no further information and no box art available. Guess we’ll have to wait for the press release!

One of the latest GU comics features Rod Humble (Sims 3) and Will Wright (Spore) discussing how to improve upon Sims 3. You can view the comic here. Hey, I don’t write ‘em, I just report ‘em!

Hey Spore people in the house! I’d like to wish you all happy holidays, and if you don’t celebrate them then I hope you at least have the time off work! Best wishes and happy gaming.

As the holidays grow closer games continue to fly off the shelves, both in stores and virtually. Here’s some interesting data snipped from Kotaku.

NPD Sales Charts December 7-13

1. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
2. Spore
3. Call Of Duty: World At War
4. Left 4 Dead
5. Fallout 3
6. The Sims 2 Deluxe
7. The Sims 2 Apartment Life
8. Bejeweled Twist
9. World of Warcraft Battle Chest
10. The Sims 2 Mansion and Garden Stuff

Steam Charts As Of December 23

1. Left 4 Dead
2. Stalker
3. GTA IV
4. Call of Duty: World at War
5. Fallout 3
6. Counter-Strike Source
7. The Orange Box
8. Team Fortress 2
9. Football Manager 2009
10. Counter-Strike

Direct2Drive Charts As Of December 23

1. Call of Duty: World at War
2. Fallout 3
3. GTA IV
4. Rome Total War
5. Mount & Blade
6. Civilization IV
7. Red Alert 3
8. Spore
9. Medieval Total War II
10. Rise of the Argonauts

Edge brings us their Top 25 Game Industry Heroes, and there are some interesting folks listed in there. Mike Morhaime who won an Emmy for World of Warcraft, Ocean Quigley for outstanding art direction in Spore, and of course, 23 others!

Just in time for the holidays, it was announced that Spore™ and Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack are available now via Steam. Actually it’s a pretty good way to shop if you’re stuck in a snow storm! Unless you internet is down. In which case you aren’t reading this anyway. Get Steamed, they’ve got a whole new lineup of games available for purchase by digital download!

Spore Sculptor is now live, and for $49 you can get your favourite creature turned into a figurine. Here’s more from Maxis:

Have a favorite Spore creature?  Get a Spore sculpture created!  

Bring your favorite Spore creature into the real world with Spore Sculptor, and own a one-of-a-kind collectible figurine of your creation. Find out how at www.sporesculptor.com!  You can see examples here.

The latest Spore Community Spotlight is with Gryphon57, the winner of the Spore Holiday Contest. Congrats to the fellow Canuck on her big win and overall Spore design popularity!

MAXIS ANNOUNCES THE “SPORE HOLIDAY CONTEST 2008″ WINNER

More Than 50 Million Creations Made Since September Launch

Maxis is pleased to announce the winning creation in the Spore Holiday Contest 2008! Created by Spore fan Gryphon57, “And to All a Good Night”, is a winter-y neighborhood vignette with brightly-lit, snow-covered houses, tall fir trees and a sled – all of which were made in the Spore “Building Creator.” With more than 5,000 entries, three runner-up creations were also chosen, including “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa,” “Christmas Morning at the Claus” and “December 26th.” Check out the runner-up creations at www.spore.com.

These holiday creations make up just some of the now more than 50 million Spore spaceships, vehicles, creatures, ships and buildings that have been created and uploaded on Sporepedia. Since the release of Spore in September, gamers and creative folks alike have been drawn to the game’s easy-to-use customization tools that allow players to create, play and share with their friends.

“Fifty million creations made is an incredible milestone that we couldn’t have achieved without our fans and community,” said Lucy Bradshaw, executive producer of Spore. “It’s so great to see hard core fans and casual players embracing the game’s easy-to-use tools to re-create some of the most nostalgic holiday scenes of the season. Fans have shown such tremendous imagination and creativity – we can’t wait to see the next 50 million!”

Interested in creating your own creature or holiday scene? Download a free version of the Spore Creature Creator at the newly-designed www.spore.com. Happy creating!

Just received the following news bit from Maxis:

In recognition of player feedback regarding DRM and SecuROM on Spore, Maxis is offering a standalone download so that users can now “de-authorize” a computer if they would like to make that authorization available for another machine.

Machines can be de-authorized or re-authorized at any time. The total number of machines on which Spore can be authorized concurrently will continue to be five. To de-authorize a PC, download and launch Spore_deauth.zip and run the Spore De-Authentication Tool.exe file.

You can de-authorize at any time, even without uninstalling Spore, and free up that machine authorization. If you re-launch Spore on the same machine, the game will attempt to re-authorize. If you have not reached the machine limitation, the game will authorize and the machine will be re-authorized using up one of the five available machines.

Thanks everyone for your feedback, we hope you find this tool useful.

http://www.spore.com/patch/deauthorization