One of the most eagerly anticipated games of the year, Spore has already been elevated to a state of cultural prominence both inside and outside the gaming world. What then, is Maxis’ secret?

The answer is quite simple. EA could have simply let Will Wright and the guys at Maxis do their thing then, when the first master of the game popped through their letter box, lunged straight into a off-the-shelf marketing campaign with lots of big budget advertising. Instead, Spore has become a game driven by a heavily consumer and marketing orientated philosophy, not just in its promotion but also in its design from the ground-up.

In a recent interview with the SeattlePI, Will Wright spoke of the new approach he and his team took to the title. “The Sims felt like we tripped into it," said Wright. "We weren't thinking of The Sims as a brand. We were thinking of it as an offbeat computer game. With Spore, we had the confidence that the players would always exceed our expectations if we gave them more creative control. From day one, we've been thinking about Spore as a brand."

This approach may appear like executive pressure from EA, obviously dreaming about all the dollars and cents to be extracted from the merchandising of this “brand”. In fact, it is nothing short of a revolution in game design philosophy. Gone are the days when a developer could create a game, post it off to the publisher and be done with it. Titles continue to develop long past their release dates as bugs are patched and content is added. In the same way, brands are not static either, they are living entities that fluctuate in meaning, communicate and ideally engage with consumers. By putting this notion at the forefront of development Maxis can ensure that they never lose sight of the constant dialogue their product is having with consumers.

 Will Wright is famed for open ended games but Spore is a different beast entirely. Maxis have been keen to play on the ambiguity surrounding the game, capturing both the attention and the imagination of the mainstream media. This clever PR game which has taken emphasis away from gameplay in favour of its evolutionary ethos has also been present in the relativly limited amount of advertising that Maxis has engaged in.

Maxis has also been able to take advantage of the opportunities offered by virality of the internet and Web 2.0. Through the Spore YouTube Channel and Sporepedia Maxis has used two key cultural anchor points (YouTube and Wikipedia), giving consumer something they can easily relate to and kick starting the prospective Spore community long before the game launches.

The Spore Creature Creator also marks a further step forward in videogame promotion. Rather than simply creating a throw-away demo to let prospective consumers trial the product the Creature Creator allows them to invest in part of the final product. Whether the free or $10 version, it increaseds the perceived value of the trial and integrates the whole experience of trailing, purchasing and playing the game. As episodic and digital distrubtion become more viable this method of purchasing a full game in a number of stages could become more commonplace.

Hopefully the near certain success of Spore will make developers take a closer look and think twice about their marketing strategy. While some may argue that good games will sell themselves and that Spore is no exception the fact remains that by treating game marketing and development as one and the same process and not two disparate business functions is the only way to truly maximise the potential of a title in an ever more cluttered and noisy business environment.