In case you were worried that Electronic Arts hadn't learned anything from its ongoing attempts to balkanize The Sims 2 with eight expansion packs, nine "stuff" packs, and online micropayments for meaningless shreds of content, fret no more! They have indeed learned something and they'll be putting it into practice with Spore. They've learned that you're not going to do a damn thing about it.

Speaking in an investors' conference call, [CEO John Riccitiello] said he'd be keen to "monetise, if you will, body parts, plant parts, car parts and planets as a way to generate incremental revenue on an installed base of several million active users".