Maxis has words that both Free and Retail version of the Spore Creature Editor will be released in June. Here is the official announcement with more details:

Redwood City, CA - April 25, 2008 ? Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) and Maxis today announced that a free downloadable demo, and complete retail version of the Spore? Creature Creator will be available starting June 17, 2008. The Spore Creature Creator gives Spore fans, and those who are creatively curious, the first hands-on opportunity to design their own species and share it with their friends. All creatures designed with the Spore Creature Creator can be imported into the full retail version of Spore for PC and Mac when it launches on September 5, 2008 in Europe and September 7, 2008 in North America.

?We are thrilled to finally be putting the creative tools of Spore into the hands of players around the world,? said Will Wright, chief designer, Maxis. ?The amazing creations players design this summer will help populate the game universe we all enter when Spore ships this September, so in a sense, the Spore Creature Creator is the birth of Spore.?

The free demo version of the Spore Creature Creator will be available worldwide via download from www.spore.com. The demo lets players shape, paint and play with an unlimited number of creatures, using 25 percent of the creature-making parts from Spore. Gamers can then share these creations with their friends, including seamless uploads to YouTube. The demo will also be included in the The SimCity? Box, which ships on June 23.

A complete retail version of the Spore Creature Creator will also be available in North America for $9.99 and most European territories for ?9.99, which gives players access to all the creature-making parts in the game.

Spore, the highly anticipated game from the creators of The Sims?, gives players their own personal universe in a box. Create and evolve life, establish tribes, build civilizations, sculpt entire worlds and explore a universe created by other gamers. Spore gives players a wealth of creative tools to customize nearly every aspect of their universe: creatures, vehicles, buildings, and even UFOs. Players can then seamlessly share their creations with the world or explore infinite new galaxies created by other gamers.

Consumers can visit www.spore.com to sign up for the Spore newsletter or check out all-new screenshots and video of the game. Members of the media can visit EA?s press site at www.info.ea.com for information about all of EA?s games.

Spore Creature Creator retail version is not available in all territories.