Interview with Will Wright

[Michael]

Sims creator Will Wright, whose new life-spawning game Spore comes out this month, talks about what's wrong with Grand Theft Auto, the dearth of women in gaming, and the value of his empire.
Interview (http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/128/the-simemperor.html?page=0%2C0)

Will Wright is a bit of a legend in the field of computer gaming - being the inspiration and creator of the two largest and most successful computer game franchises in history - first there was SimCity, then The Sims. Sales of famous games like Duke Nuke'm, Grand Theft or Quake pale in comparison to the products produced by Will Wright (that measure sales in the millions).

One thing you can be sure of is that Spore is going to be huge - it make take a few years (Wright's games often are slow to take off due to being dismissed by game magazines, but in they end, the tend to outsell all other games added together).

Anyone find the idea of Spore interesting? Based on Wright's previous creations, I'll be sure to buy this game.

[partofme]

I think it looks pretty cool but I never really end up devoting enough time to games to make them worth buying.

[dilettante]

Thanks for finding this; I'll definately read the whole article when I have the time.

However, having played both, I doubt that Spore will ever achieve the jaw-dropping popularity attained by The Sims franchise, though I suspect it will do quite well when measured by less extreme standards. It's a fascinating and well designed game with a unique concept, and it's fun to play (though it gets slightly repetative at times), but after a while one realizes that it manages to be broad and diverse only by being shallow. The Sims is much deeper and (at least in The Sims 2) has managed to broaden itself overtime via expansion packs that can significantly expand the available options and playstyles.

Having watched my wife play both games, I can also attest that Spore has elements that are close enough to RTS play to turn off people who don't enjoy that genre.

The Sims 3 comes out relatively soon (2009?). I'm betting that it, rather than Spore, will be the next true block-buster for Wright.

[Michael]

Thanks for finding this; I'll definately read the whole article when I have the time.

However, having played both, I doubt that Spore will ever achieve the jaw-dropping popularity attained by The Sims franchise, though I suspect it will do quite well when measured by less extreme standards. It's a fascinating and well designed game with a unique concept, and it's fun to play (though it gets slightly repetative at times), but after a while one realizes that it manages to be broad and diverse only by being shallow. The Sims is much deeper and (at least in The Sims 2) has managed to broaden itself overtime via expansion packs that can significantly expand the available options and playstyles.

Having watched my wife play both games, I can also attest that Spore has elements that are close enough to RTS play to turn off people who don't enjoy that genre.

The Sims 3 comes out relatively soon (2009?). I'm betting that it, rather than Spore, will be the next true block-buster for Wright.
Well, if Spore has any element of RTS beyond SimCity or Sims 'pause' style, I will avoid it like the plague - that's a game killer. That would be quite unlike Will Wright to introduce such a radical feature that really only appeals to the 'first-person-shooter' (adrenalin-rush type games that Wright's games are categorically not).

All I have to say is that both SimCity and The Sims were panned by all reviewers prior to release and were predicted to be failures - before both games went on to become (one then the other) the all-time largest selling computer game (they are #1 and #2 now).

So negative reviews or people saying 'Spore' won't succeed don't convince me. Wright has a solid track record and this product fits exactly in the same niche as his last two big success stories.

To be honest, I didn't think much of this 'Spore' game idea when I first heard about it a couple years ago. But the more I read about it, the more interesting it becomes. Indeed, it kinda reminds me of Civ (Sid Meier's game) in the overall concept.

[dilettante]

Well, if Spore has any element of RTS beyond SimCity or Sims 'pause' style, I will avoid it like the plague - that's a game killer. That would be quite unlike Will Wright to introduce such a radical feature that really only appeals to the 'first-person-shooter' (adrenalin-rush type games that Wright's games are categorically not).

All I have to say is that both SimCity and The Sims were panned by all reviewers prior to release and were predicted to be failures - before both games went on to become (one then the other) the all-time largest selling computer game (they are #1 and #2 now).

So negative reviews or people saying 'Spore' won't succeed don't convince me. Wright has a solid track record and this product fits exactly in the same niche as his last two big success stories.

To be honest, I didn't think much of this 'Spore' game idea when I first heard about it a couple years ago. But the more I read about it, the more interesting it becomes. Indeed, it kinda reminds me of Civ (Sid Meier's game) in the overall concept.

The game has 5 stages: cell, creature, tribe, civilization and space.

In both cell and creature you control a single critter, steering it around as it finds/hunts food and avoids predators and discovers additional body parts that you can integrates into the next generation.

In the creature stage you can either exterminate other species via combat (in which the game kind of resembles a very low-key first person shooter), or befriend via a surprisingly shallow simon-says like game (which is nice for those who don't like violence or are interested in a purely pacifistic race, but gets old really fast.)

In the tribal and civilization stages the game most resembles a low-key RTS (though you can pause at any time and still issue orders to your little people/vehicles). You collect resources, build new buildings/cities, engaged in some very limited diplomacy, and either destroy or convert the other tribes/civilizations. In the tribes stage conversion relies on the same simon-says style of play, while destruction requires you to equip your beings with axes, torches or slings and send them off to war. In the civilization stage you control vehicles that either fire weapons to destroy your enemy or fire "propaganda" to convert your enemy. Depsite the name, the civilization stage is (IMO) precious little like the game by Sid Mier. There's no technology tree to climb and your building options are limited to housing, entertainment, factories, and defensive turrets.

The Space stage is far and away the deepest of the five and the only one that really involves unique gameplay. You can colonize other worlds, terraform them in any number of ways and import other plants and animals. In fact (and this is kinda cool) if you don't establish a balanced ecosystem of plants, herbivores and carnivores, the atmosphere will eventually degrade back to its pre-terraformed state. You control a single space-craft throughout, though you still decide what gets built at each colonly (though only from the same options as in the civilization stage). You can upgrade your ship, trade commodities with other races, take on missions from different planets, explore the galaxy and destroy aliens. The combat is similar to how it was in the creature stage (vaguely reminisent of a first-person shooter). While you can move through each of the other stages in a few hours (tops), there is much, much more to do in this one and it technically doesn't end.

Anyway, I'd say that with the possibile exception of the space-stage, the game play in Spore has lots of variety, but each variety is done with more depth in some other game. Spore speciality is combing them and linking them together.

Where Spore really excels over anything I've seen before is in customization. The interface set up for building and "evolving" your creature is extremely well done and quite impressive. If you want, you can customize your creature, their cloths, all their buildings, their vehicles and their spaceships, in each case pulling from a substantial library of parts that can be combined in nigh infinite ways. People who played the Sims primarily for the joy of creating a digital dopple-ganger or of building the perfect house will love this.

Anyway, that's my sum up, if you're interested.