When do the servers shut down? I'm worrying if EA decides that the servers aren't worth supporting, and we can't post creations or use the website and forums. Will that happen? Ever? Just wondering.

And you think that's going to happen?

Yeah, maybe, with the recession and all, but chances are, with the recession, people are buying games, and things to turn their homes into an entertainment center, so EA is going to do just fine. But when the game becomes obsolete, someone's gotta run the Spore servers. If if noone wants to, bye-bye!

I think they'll shut spore down when the world implodes in the year 919,588,571. Just saying.

They'll keep supporting it for a while. Some guestimations:

If they stop making patches/part packs/expansion packs (unlikely): 5 years tops
If they plan on making more patches/part packs/expansion packs: 10 years tops
If they decide to make a Spore 2 (assuming release date is 10 years from now): 11 years tops.

When Spore stops making them money.

DragonEye4 wrote:When Spore stops making them money.

40 to 42 years, minimum.

Yeah, you're probably right there. But maybe profits from other games will keep it running.

Probably not. Profit from those games would either go into a sequel/addon/expansion/paying employees/paying bills/etc instead of helping out an entirely diffrent game.

Yeah, good point, but still, wouldn't someone volunteer to take over the servers?

You may have noticed that the servers already have ads to help with funding them.

Yes, the sales of the game & EPs (including any future EPs) will decline, and will eventually reach the point where they're not providing enough revenue to keep the site running. However by the time that point is reached, EA will probably have increased the amount and/or the effectiveness of the advertising on the site, so that the revenue from advertising covers the server costs.

unless they decide to quit doing stuff with spore, they may not shut them down. but who knows. they haven't announced anything new for 2010 yet....just maybe Spore Creature Keeper (another ripoff that is supposed to come out late this year)

One word.... Sims

Look how long they have been around.

Seriously, by the time that is even an issue, something bigger and better will pop out of the wood works and you probably won't even care anymore.

If the Spore servers are ever shut down in the distant future, you can still trade creations via the .pngs.

I think the answer might be on how long it took maxis to release sims 2, spore will probably take either the same time or not get any sequel at all