Wondering why spore isnt in E3 This year? IGN has the answer straight from Maxis VP of Marketing Patrick Buechner. The interview has some insights of where Spore is at the moment and what kind of feedback they have been getting while testing Spore internally.

IGN: So you guys are going to Leipzig instead of E3 this year. Why did you pass on E3 and pick Germany instead?

Patrick Buechner: E3 is a great event especially when you're unveiling a new game or have some other big news to share. EA obviously has a lot of big games at the show already. Spore has shown well at E3 in the past. It won Best of Show and Best Original Game. Whenever you're going into one of these big events, game developers have to weigh the positive benefits of media and industry coverage to the cost of taking the team down to the show, creating a special demo, and having producers offline for a while so we, in the case of Spore, have already been to E3 and we felt that we should keep the team focused on development. As well we already have this commitment to go to the Games Convention in Leipzig which is Europe's biggest videogame event and that's at the end of August and we didn't want to have multiple events to work towards. The press will be able to play the game at the show behind closed doors.

via IGN