Will Spore be a platform for new games?

There has been rampant speculation on what is next for Spore (by the way folks, the game hasn't even launched yet). The Spore Creature Creator has been out long enough to give people a sense of the great things to come apparently. The latest rumor-filled and partially confirmed media frenzy revolved around Spore becoming an MMO. Well it appears that there may be some truth to the fact that Spore may be involved with an RPG or MMO, but it may be as a licensed platform.

According to a Kotaku's article this morning, the framework holding Spore together may be a perfect platform for making other games (or letting others license the technology). This is confirmed by EA's President of EA Games Frank Gibeau who says:

"What's so beautiful about Spore is that it's extremely malleable," he said. "You could add RPG or action, you could take it to different platforms, like (Web-page) flash games, the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360, Nintendo's Wii."

Many people are excited about Spore, I may be more excited to see what people spawn out of Spore. Could the next MMO use Spore as a proof-of-concept engine, or could it really be used to create a full blown MMO? Does this sounds familiar? Did the Unreal engine start as a game or an engine, and what came first the virtual chicken or the pixel? I'm a gamer not a game developer so maybe I'm not firing on all cylinders but I would bet that using the Spore engine to create game characters and mobs would be cheaper and faster than other traditional means.

For more insight on Spore, check out the review in Rocky Mountain News.