Both Spore and LittleBigPlanet are games that ride the "user generated content" train that seems to be so popular these days. Despite the fact that LittleBigPlanet benefited from its appealing central characters and PS3 exclusivity (which always guarantees press and fan attention), Maxis is confident that it still rules the user created content roost, and that LBP hasn't stolen its hype.

"We've had plenty of noise on our day," claims senior producer Morgan Roarty, "I was already at Maxis for a couple of years working on Spore before I heard about LittleBigPlanet so I don't know if they were inspired by us.

"They don't have anything near our numbers of things created. I don't think their base editors are as easily accessible as our editors, I think we really have that on them."

Roarty made sure to note that there was "no ill will" between Maxis and Media Molecule, but he still seems very keen on telling us that Spore is better than LBP, citing that around 200,000-250,000 creatures, buildings and vehicles are created every day in Spore. He did concede that Media Molecule has one edge with the fact that whole new levels can be created, giving you more to do with the content, but that Spore will soon one-up LBP in that regard with its Adventures expansion.

Personally, I never really considered the two games similar enough to be viewed as competition and don't know why Maxis is drawing comparisons. Besides, Spore will never be as cute at LittleBigPlanet, and that's the main thing.