Will Wright, PS3, Keynotes at GDC

Gamespot has the word that the Game Developer's Conference has added two more keynotes to the slate of events. Sims developer Will Wright will be speaking, talking next-gen game design on Thursday. On Wednesday we have a keynote from Sony's Phil Harrison, where he'll address developer's questions about the PS3. That sounds nice.

Comments

Will Wright / SNES Nostalgia

[bleaknik]

Am I the only one who was excited about this article just by the site of the name "Will Write". I remember the days of my youth that I wasted (enjoyed) reading the most awesome video game manual *evar*--Sim City for the SNES.

Ahh. The Good ol' days...

Re:Will Wright / SNES Nostalgia

[Quaoar]

That poofy green hair and ugly brown suit still haunts my nightmares...

Don't forget the Revolution

[WillAffleckUW]

or at least, with Nintendo's Satoru Iwata, we should expect to here about something other than Nintendogs: Roaming Wild and Animal Crossing: The Path To World Domination.

Personally, I always enjoy Will Wright. Something about the name just inspires confidence and trust. Yeah, Will, that's a good name ...

Re:Wonder

[WillAffleckUW]

nah, Will has Free Will turned off when he's at work.

He only turns on Free Will when he's not working.

Spore?

[trigonalmayhem]

I do hope Wil gives some new info (and maybe even a release date?) for Spore. I'm so looking forward to it.

Will Wright, you're a sellout.

[FusionDragon2099]

Will, I remember back in the late eighties/early nineties you made some of the most indepth yet open-ended games ever. I remember Simearth had various options to modify the conditions on a planet, and you could choose to use as many or as little as you wanted. Most of the games Maxis made then weren't blockbusters, but they were good games.

Today? The bulk of your work in the last five years has been a virtual dollhouse that has a new expansion pack released for it every six months. The only non-"The Sims" games Maxis has put out in recent history are a few Simcity sequels, and they were notoriously buggy. The quality of your software has gone down, and I fear that the Maxis I knew is dead, replaced by some hollow shell.

Part of the blame falls on EA for taking away your creative control, but remember that it was the Maxis's choice to be bought out. You had a say in the choice. Will Wright, you are a sellout.

Re:Will Wright, you're a sellout.

[Xerxus]

Have you checked out Spore? It is one of the most anticipated/innovative game that will come out in the future made by Will Wright.

Re:Will Wright, you're a sellout.

[dr.badass]

Will, I remember back in the late eighties/early nineties you made some of the most indepth yet open-ended games ever....Today? The bulk of your work in the last five years has been a virtual dollhouse...

That "virtual dollhouse" happens to be one of the most in depth yet open-ended games ever. The fact that it's also extremely popular and profitable doesn't make it any less of a brilliant game, as some people seem to think.

As for the quality of the software being in decline, that's an engineering problem that plagues virtually all mainstream game development. I don't think it has anything to do with loss of creative control or Maxis being sold to EA.

Wright has spoken before about how if you look at the size of the team on each of his games and project that growth rate into the future, by 2010 it would take hundreds of thousands of people to produce the average game. While it may not reach such heights, the point is that games today are expected to be much, much, bigger and more complex than "back in the day". I suspect this same line of thought influenced the heavy use of procedural generation in his next game, Spore.

Re:Will Wright, you're a sellout.

[PhoenixOne]

He is if your definition of a sellout is somebody who has made a product that sells to a mainstream audience. I'm not a big fan of virtual dollhouses myself but The Sims was an amazing bit of game design.

As far as making in-depth, open-ended games, his future product, Spore (see the other post answering you), makes SimEarth look like a cute little Flash game. I'll also bet he would of had a hard time convincing anybody to back such a huge project if he hadn't "sold out" and made such a popular game for the masses.

So, in short, don't be such a Will Hater. The man never forgot his roots. :)

Re:Will Wright, you're a sellout.

[d.corri]

"At that point, it was clear from the business point of view that I didn't really think we can survive on our own," Wright said. But part of that decision meant laying off about 40 percent of his roughly 240 employees. "That was by far the hardest part, knowing that we were going to let go of so many people," Wright said. "But the reality was that we would have had to let go of everybody had we not done the acquisition. It was just a matter of time." And so it was announced in June 1997 that Maxis would be acquired by Electronic Arts in a $125 million deal, Will Wright personally banking an estimated $15m in stocks.

http://www.will-wright.com/willshistory10.php

Re:Will Wright, you're a sellout.

[shoptroll]

Here's to hoping that Spore sets him free from EA. I have no clue how they could release the tri-monthly expansion. Heck, Sims 2 seems to have slowed down on EP-itis.

Re:Will Wright, you're a sellout.

[Zangief]

I want to play Spore before I start to throw around praises for it.

Re:Will Wright, you're a sellout.

[mad.frog]

Yeah, it does look cool.

Too bad it's gonna be published by EA, as that will prevent me from playing it: I've taken the pledge to avoid their products.

Will Wright..

[Chimera512]

i'll give you my frist born child for a remake of sim copter. my faveorite game of all time. I'm the CEO of McDonnell Douglas.

Re:Will Wright..

[PhoenixOne]

How old is this child? Makes a big difference on their resell value.

Re:Game idea

[mikael]

That was an old BASIC game - the evil green slime kept advancing downwards from the top of the screen - by moving your spaceshovelship sideways and shooting, you could remove a whole column of slime. The game was over if one unit of slime touched your ship. Then your ship corroded and the game was over.

You mean EA's Spore?

[tepples]

I'm so looking forward to [an EA title].

I thought that the current groupthink was "EA bad".

Re:You mean EA's Spore?

[Flendon]

I thought that the current groupthink was "EA bad".
It is, but the groupthink of "Will Wright is awsome" is a stronger emotion. The fact that Spore is from WW is enough for us to mentally blank the fact that EA has its fingers in the pie.

Re:You mean EA's Spore?

[DrEldarion]

Yeah, and the current groupthink is also "MPAA bad", but that didn't stop everyone from seeing Episode 3...

This, my dear lad, is called not sticking to one's convictions. Or, more concisely, hypocrisy.

Unless there's an official release month

[tepples]

Have you checked out Spore? It is one of the most anticipated/innovative game that will come out in the future

Have you checked out Duke Nukem Forever? It is one of the most anticipated/innovative game that will come out in the future...

Re:Game idea

[Bagels]

All right. That wouldn't make a great fucking game.

Seriously, though. If you're despairing of the industry that much, go pick up a DS and a few games that don't carry an EA logo (say, Meteos, or Mario Kart DS, or Pheonix Wright, or Trauma Center). You'll cheer right back up in no time, I promise.

ObPA

[oGMo]

I believe Penny Arcade put it best.