Every December, Wired News hands out “accolades (and raspberries) to the most-prized products that were promised but never delivered”. They call these products Vaporware. This year, Spore comes in second place:

The Vaporware jury report states:

By now, we’ve seen dozens of previews, screenshots and working demos of Spore, the latest game dreamed up by Sims creator Will Wright. But we haven’t seen the game yet, and according to publisher Electronic Arts, we shouldn’t expect to see its release until April 2008 at the earliest. We now know enough about the massive-multiplayer “god game” to get us salivating wildly. Players invent species, build ecosystems, grow civilizations and assemble vast armies of designer fauna to compete with one another in outer space, all accompanied by a generative electronic soundtrack by Brian Eno. Sounds dreamy, but so far, Spore is nothing but an epic tease. Reader Telanis points out, “Even the ancient Greek gods didn’t take this long to create a universe.” 

Lets hope Spore will not take as long as appear as this year’s (and already many times) winner Duke Nukem Forever:

A commenter on our 2000 Vaporware awards joked that Van Halen would reunite with David Lee Roth and release a new album before Duke Nukem Forever hits the shelves. Ironically, the re-formed band plans to head into the studio in just a few months.

See the complete Vapoware line-up at Wired.