Fans and gamers alike on the Darkspore.com forums are somewhat upset that Steam is not releasing DarkSpore at 12:01AM Pacific Time. Based on current countdown on the Steam website, the game is not scheduled to be released to owners until 12:00PM/noon Eastern Time (9:00AM Pacific)
Past users of Steam have accused Steam having a track record of delaying the game unnecessarily while the game hits store shelves ahead of people who are able to download the game from the service.
Maxis has confirmed they have no say in the release time with Steam and asked us to confer with EA Marketing on the release on Steam.com
