Yesterday saw Will Wright give a keynote ostensibly called 'The Future of Game Design'. The creator of the Sims took the opportunity to address two of the topics that went heavily into the background work on his current title: Spore. Mr Wright was attempting to make the point that lots of research in the pre-production phase of the project is one of the best ways of knowing what it is you're setting out to do. Folks at
Kotaku,
The Game Chair, and
Game Girl Advance have some notes from the talk. Read on for my own brief impressions from the event.
The key idea I took away from the event is the level of intelligence Wright possesses. I always knew he was *smart*, but the man went almost a full hour, racing from topic to topic, at a speed that was almost breathtaking to behold. I initially started taking notes but the man just moves so dang fast, I eventually gave up and enjoyed the experience. He went from
the Fermi Paradox, to
Drake's Equation, to
Panspermia to
the Rare Earth theory in a series of four slides, only pausing very briefly to explain what he was talking about. Rather than confusing the audience, lots of the elements he brought up were totally understandable just within the context of his talk. He really hit his stride after the thirty minute mark, and actually managed to talk even faster than he'd started off. It was sort of like watching a manic college prof teach an entire semester-long class in an hour.
He did talk about Spore a good deal in there, detailing how all of the Astrobiology and research were distilled down into usable ideas for game environments and creatures. This was a talk, though, less about games and more about the joy of learning. Will Wright's gift as a speaker is to make his audience excited about something they may never have considered before, simply by the sheer amount of enthusiasm he exudes. I heard some shifting in chairs towards the end of the talk, but despite the highly technical nature of the presentation the Civic Auditorium was still packed when the event ended. Like the Battlestar event, Wright's talk only peripherally talked about games, but it managed to be all the more valuable (I think) to the audience as a result.
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The man's a genius. Lets see you come up with some of the things that he has. He's done more for the videogame industry than pretty much anyone out there and he continues to innovate. Now personally I don't care for the Sims, but SimCity was always awesome and I just can't wait for Spore.
I agree he is a genius, and I appreciate the fact that Wil Wright articles have replaced PS3 delay articles, but perhaps, maybe /. could avoid putting up everything he says?
The man's a genius. Lets see you come up with some of the things that he has. He's done more for the videogame industry than pretty much anyone out there and he continues to innovate. Now personally I don't care for the Sims, but SimCity was always awesome and I just can't wait for Spore.
Oh, I can't wait for Spore either, and I agree that Will Wright is one of the greatest game developers of all time. There are only a few that I would put ahead of him, even. Lord British, John Carmack, Sid Meier, and David Crane come to mind. My point is that most people here haven't even heard of Will Wright, but now we have 15 slashdot articles on him that all say the same damn thing.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
Obligatory link:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/05/27
It's like sex, except I'm having it!
Right, so 'ostensibly' is roughly equivalent to 'apparently,' and it hardly seems likely that you mean to get across your own ignorance of the title of his speech.
Perhaps the word you're looking for is ostentatiously?
-knewter
No video or audio yet? I loved his speech last year. I'm very interested in hearing about his thoughts on Rare Earth, especially how he related it to Spore in his speech. Does anyone know of a link to a full write-out or video or other media?
Demented But Determined.
Let's see, Will Wright created some of the best games ever made for the pc, while joss whendon made a shitty show no one watched that turned into a shitty movie no one saw.
will Spore come out for Nintendo Revolution?!!??!!11~`!one!exclamation1questionmark //.>
For a second there, I thought you were talking about science. You know, testable theories... never mind.
Maybe he should talk less and get his game finished. Spore's been getting hyped for quite awhile now, with multiple talks and demonstrations. Although a neat idea, it's not as revolutionary as people think. The central wow factor in the magnitudes of scale, zooming out from the very small (spore) to the very big (galaxy), is very old news and comes from an original short by Charles and Ray Eames called "The Power of 10" (it may precede them, but that's as far as I have traced it back), and a similar short plays or has played at the Smithsonian in Washington at the Air & Space Museum). The other wow factor, the procedurally generated mechanics of the critters, is impressive, but other than that it's nothing more than a Civ/Sim game with multiple levels of zoom. So, although interesting, chill folks. Sliced bread reigns supreme. My speculation is that the above makes for good demonstrations, but lousy game play, and that's what is taking time to figure out, as well as the very nebulous MMOG elements mentioned in one of the demonstrations.
How could you forget Shigero Myiamoto?
If you look at the history of videogames you will see that most genres (with exceptions like FPS and RTS) were created (or popularized) by games that Shigero Myiamoto created. I'm not going to claim that Myiamoto is the "greatest designer of all time" (or anything like that) but no list of great or important developers should lack his name.
You can find some very interesting videos of will wright talks on google videos. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-553408056 8776365031
WW talk at SDForum.
I must say I didn't like him at first but man... the guy is smart and funny, he knows what he's talking about you got to give him that.
But hey, there are so many game developers out there with failed games (although some of these games are brilliant but never got the right marketing), so is it smartness or just plain luck that he's considered to be one of the game gods?
...what matters is what you like, not what you are like...
How could you forget Shigero Myiamoto?
I don't know! Another great Japanese developer that I forgot to mention was Yu Suzuki, the creator of Hang-On, Virtua Fighter, and Shenmue.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
Im with you on this, fuck Wil Wright.
Google Video has a video of Spore's gameplay demonstration.
Hey, we all take these 'revolutionary game' ideas with a bit of salt, since we've been let down so many times in the past, but... still, that was a pretty damn awesome demo. Sooner or later, someone is bound to actually come up with a brilliant game.
Hell is being intelligent in a world full of idiots.
Let's see, Will Wright created some of the best games ever made for the pc
Hmmm games like...
SimAnt - a game my friend once won (that is to say, he conquored the other ant colony) by leaving it running. Unattended.
SimEarth - a game where 9 times in 10, nothing happens.
The Sims - A game about going to the bathroom!
Don't get me wrong - Wright talks a good game. Sim City was fun. And the Sims has made a shitpot full of money. Wright gets points for being smart, and has created stuff a whole lot of people have bought, but none of his games rank in my top oh... 20.
Made A tv show? The man is responsible for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" Movie and Tv Series
a good, geeky, series in the beginning and at the wrap-up, I won't talk about the "popular" days.
"Angel"
no comment since I'm not a Junior High School girl in love with David Boreanaz
and He also Co-Wrote on "Toy Story"!
Before you go and call something Shitty you might also want to consider what else the "Fox Network" has managed to kill off
If you haven't heard of Will Wright, you don't need to be reading games articles on Slashdot.
That's like reading the IT section and having never heard of that old Internet thingy.
Most people may not know who Wright is, but I can guarantee you that the vast majority of Slashdot's readers know of his games.
Ideas straight out of Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near. I completely agree with the argument that not seeing the evidence might just be that we don't know what to look for, but then you have to deal with the idea that if other civilizations exist at a completely higher level of tech than we are, why haven't we noticed them? Why haven't the effects of such a society been seen?
I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
"Will Wright Talks Research, Astrobiology"
This is news?
I'm sure when Will's hungry we'll be subjected to:
"Will Wright Talks bagels, cumquats"
Or when at a stripper club:
"Will Wright Talks Boobs! Buttocks!"
Or when drunk:
"Will Wright Talks Blarforg Splabbappo!"
I can't wait Slashdot - don't let me down.
...is not so much to learn about his games, or even his ideas about what make a great game. It is to learn that *anything* can be used to inspire/guide game design. Too often developers set out to make a game and just look at the competition to figure out what (not) to do. That leads to this kind of thinking: "well, game 'X' let you do backflips, so we'll let you do TWO backflips!!" followed by many pats on the back for being 'revolutionary'.
Even if you don't like Will Wright's games (he has a fascination with sandboxes), his design philosophy is what should impress you when you hear him. I think it's the same kind of approach that led to games like Pikmin, or Katamari Damacy, or Brain Age. The way he can bring two totally unrelated things together is amazing. One example off the top of my head was when he explained how he used a model for the evolution of various animals as the basis for handling the desires for the characters in The Sims.
I...I'm attacking the darkness!
For a genius, he sure had a poor showing in getting last place in the mental arithmetic competition that Nintendo used as a demo at the show...
he's my predictions on the gameplay:
kill 100 things
evolve
kill 100 things
evolve
kill 100 things
evolve
sounds like EVO on the SNES. This would make a great MMO.
as much as he talked.. I wasn't convinced it all lead to a fun game. Everything he went over with the game made it seem like what the player does doesn't really matter.
It looks like you can create any half assed creature and it will survive long enough to build cities; that it doesn't really matter how you build your creature.
You can custom design buildings where the design has nothing to do with what it does - add a mushroom looking thing here for what?
The game looks interesting and I suppose will be fun for some novel interfaces and ideas... sort of like one of those pin art toys impression... but like that toy, you'll get bored of it quickly. It doesn't really look like a game any more than a graphics package looks like a game.