Gamers misusing Spore video-game to create 'sporn'
25 Jun 2008, 1535 Hrs

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Melbourne, June 25 (ANI): While video-games enabling users to make their own creatures are meant to provide creativity factor, there are troublemakers who use these devices to create entertainment of a different kind- making sexually-explicit animations.

Spore Creature Creator, a small preview game from the upcoming blockbuster Spore, has been misused for creating, what one may call adult-themed animations, dubbed "sporn" - short for "Spore porn".

Developed by the creator of 'The Sims', Will Wright, this game allows users to create their own creatures with various body parts, colours, shapes and sizes.

However, some gamers modified the Spore Creature Creator game to produce sporn instead of creating fantasy giants.

Initially a joke, when Tim Edwards, PC Gamer UK deputy editor posted an image of what he called the "world's first Spore penis" on the magazine's website, this erupted as a bombardment of porn stuff after PC Gamer US editor-in-chief Kristen Salvatore responded the next day by creating a creature resembling two giant breasts, named "Boobalicious".

This led the Spore publisher Electronic Arts to immediately flag their user accounts for violating the company's terms of service, which specify "strong vulgar language, crude or explicit sexual references" may not be used on the company's websites.

However, it wasn't even 48 hours since the game was officially released that other users even posted more explicit "sporn" animations to video-sharing website YouTube.

While the original sexually-explicit clips have long been scraped off YouTube, there are still a large number of "sporn" animations on other sites.

Lucy Bradshaw, Spore executive producer said that it was possible for the users to block "sporn" from appearing in their game.

"Whether its modeling clay, dolls or crayons, a small number of people can be counted on to use it for something vulgar. Spore is a great creative tool with parental controls that allow users to flag objectionable content and keep it out of their game," News.com.au quoted her, as saying.

The full version of Spore is due for worldwide release in early September. (ANI)