Will Wright and Spore Profiled in Popular Science

Via Joystiq, an enthusiastic interview in Popular Science with Will Wright. He talks about his much anticipated PC title Spore (still slated to ship later this year), the educational qualities of games, socializing via games, and the future of gaming. One of his closing comments: "Getting people more connected to the real world through gaming. Because I think we all live in our own little bubbles, we have our own little lives and there's this whole world out there of things happening that we're kind of dimly aware of. We might pick up the paper or watch the news. And it's a complex world. A lot of very strange twisted dynamics, interesting things, very important things that are going to shape the future that our children live in. And that if you could just get everybody to be a little bit more aware of the world around them, and how it works, and have that feedback in to the course the world is taking, gaming could be an incredibly powerful mechanism for steering the system."

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Thunderous disappointment

[jandrese]

Man, when Spore comes out and turns out to have boring sucky gameplay (see: Black and White), all of this hype is going to be embarrassing.

Ok, I have no idea if the gameplay is going to be good or not, but certainly it can't be as good as all of the hype it has been getting. I was as excited as anyone at the demo he gave at E3, but until we have something resembling a beta to play around with I'm going to file this under "pre-release over hyping" and get on with my life. It will have a nice cozy location between Daikatana and the Segway.

Re:Thunderous disappointment

[DarenN]

Maybe, maybe not, but I'll buy it anyway! In fact, I have it pre-ordered. I suspect you will to. B&W was a bit boring, but I liked it because it was different and entertaining (and you could throw your worshippers into the sea if they got stroppy :) ). This looks like it might be entertaining, and it's definitely different!

Re:Thunderous disappointment

[stratjakt]

You're right. Hype kills the experience. Black and White was not a bad game, but it was nowhere near the hype, and it hurt the experience. I put Doom 3 in that pile too. Lots of hype, for a paint-by-numbers FPS with shiny graphics.

But, the hype sells lots of copies, and makes bank, which is what is important to the publishers - whether or not you feel the game lives up to it is irrelevant, so long as you buy it.

The movie industry has long functioned this way (and is having a harder time doing so now). They knew they could put out whatever shit they wanted, so long as it was hyped as this years summer blockbuster, complete with tie-ins with mcdonalds, huge advertising campaign, paid for "reviews" in mainstream media, and all that, and make their money back opening night - before people realize it's a piece of shit. All this internet instant communication stuff throws a monkey wrench in there.

Point is, you'll buy spore, and whether you like it or not, they'll have your $$.

Re:Thunderous disappointment

[Teddy Beartuzzi]

Point is, you'll buy spore, and whether you like it or not, they'll have your $$.

Not everyone. *cough* extended 'trial' period by downloading from unauthorized sources *cough*

Re:Thunderous disappointment

[Dr. Eggman]

Actually, there was talk of releasing the creature editor as a demo before the game comes out. I wonder what happened to that notion? If they are going to do so, previous articles make it sound like it is doable soon. Most interviews I've read lately are about the viechle editor, the city building phase, fleshing out space phase, but very little about the creature editor or that stage, leading me to believe that portion of the game is pretty much done. Really, I think the editor is the coolest part of the game. I use to love modeling, and I always spend a ton of time creating a character in games, so I'd rather like to think the editors are going to be more important/fun than the actual gameplay. Kind of like City of Heroes, you could spend all kinds of time with their fantastic editor, but does anyone really think the actual gameplay was all that special? I remember the small uproar CoH caused when the redacted their offer to play with the Hero editor as a demo, without buying the game. If Spore is even that good, I'd say it's worth it.

But the Segway? I don't remember that being excessivly hyped. Sure, the inventor was trying to get everyone to believe it would revolutionize transportation, but isn't hype two parts? One part marketing, One part gullibility. Not sure I know anyone who thought the Segway was a cool as it was touted to be.

Re:Thunderous disappointment

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing ever lives up to the hype. (including sex.)
rejecting a game only because of the hype is just as stupid as preordering a game just because of the hype.

Re:Thunderous disappointment

[Chris Burke]

It's all about managing your expectations. There's nothing worse than feeling jipped because what you got was merely good, not omg-ponies great. It's bad when you convince yourself that your life is going to change because of something, and then your hopes are dashed when you merely experience quality entertainment.

From what I've seen of the creature editor, it looks like an enjoyable mini-game all to itself (kinda like CoH). I expect that to be really good, and I think there's a good chance it will meet or even exceed my expectations. From what I've seen of the gameplay modes, it looks like fairly standard run-around-and-kill followed by basic RTS. I'm expecting that to be fairly blase, with most of the fun coming from taking my custom-build creature out for a romp more than the joy of the gameplay mode itself. In this case, if it does end up having original elements or fun well-designed gameplay, that's just a bonus.

The deal with the Segway, or as it was known then "IT", was that nobody knew what the hell it was. The company hyped it to holy hell, and certainly the media played along creating all the buzz they could ever want for "IT", which was going to "revolutionize transportation", though exactly how was unknown. There's only so much the media can do in that situation, but believe me they tried. If "Spore" was a codename for a game by the amazing Will Wright that was going to "revolutionize sitting on your ass in front of your computer" but otherwise nothing was known about it, there would probably still be lots of media hype, but it would be tough for us on the receiving end of that hype to get our hopes up. On the other hand, there certainly can still be those who are convincing themselves that Spore will be like a personal jetpack, but what is actually delivered is a high-tech scooter.

Re:Thunderous disappointment

[Anonymous Coward]

Black and White was not a bad game,

Actually, when it came out, it was a terrible game for the simple reason that it was unfinished and simply full of bugs and design errors. Fully patched, it was ok but by then I was sick of the sight of the blasted thing and in fact ditched PC gaming forever after that; I was tired of paying to be a playtester.

Re:Thunderous disappointment

[BlackEmperor]

Hype may generate lots of short term sales but it severely harms your ability to create a successful franchise game. For instance I bought B&W on the hype, was very disappointed with it and will never buy a sequel or even anything by Peter Molyneux, unless I'm certain it's outstanding.

On the other hand games which really surprised me in some way, I tend to buy the sequels and other games from the same developers.

Re:Thunderous disappointment

[FirienFirien]

Black and White was - at the time - tremendous on its detail, its novel fractal zoom, its massive interaction and interactivity, and so on. It turned "sucky" because gameplay is gameplay - the number of milestones, while welldesigned and challenging, became too much of a series of targets. I think I got to the fourth level, and then something something something went back found savefile was corrupted. It was too much of a grunt to plough through the milestones again - while I knew I hadn't got to the good milestones, the hand gestures, the powerful spells, this that and the other, I had already enjoyed the detail level and the amount of grunt wasn't appealing. When I reinstalled again a couple of years later, I got bogged down early because I knew I had to go through those first three levels all over again, or find someone with suitable savefiles and just hope their playstyle wasn't so different from my own that I'd spend half the time trying to work out what the hell that creature had been told. However, the main selling point - the revolutionary interface - simply wasn't what the players were looking for.

It's the same with Fable - the game mechanics were novel, different, intuitive, well worked up. What most people missed was that if you blasted through it, you'd be done in ten days. Pow. Gone. Boring.

While we can only guess how Spore can be, it looks like the emphasis is on the creativity; I don't know how they'll find the balance between detail and game speed, how to keep fast players unhindered while not penalising people who want to play around with the experimentation. That didn't work well in B it went overboard in Fable. Third (...Nth) time lucky? Who knows. I personally hope they'll make the game emphasise creativity - once you're done you have all the tools available, you don't have to spend as much time working up each species. The emphasis that they have on creativity (being George Lucas rather than being Luke Skywalker, I think was one of the quotes) points in that direction; the hype has indeed been on the creativity and the systems that enable that creativity. Perhaps that'll leave the gameplay lacking, which means that it'll fall rapidly into the "boring sucky" bucket. Hopefully they'll put enough emphasis on the creativity that that's most of what matters.

Re:Thunderous disappointment

[Chazmyrr]

Black and White was not a bad game, but it was nowhere near the hype, and it hurt the experience.

No, Black and White really was a bad game. The creature was about the only thing that didn't completely suck and there were some real problems with the creature.

The biggest problem with the creature was that to encourage or discourage some types of behavior you had to reward or punish the creature while he was thinking about doing it, but before he actually did it, with no way of reading the creature's thoughts. An example of this is that if you punish a creature after he poos someplace you don't want him to poo, he doesn't learn not to poo there, he learns not to poo at all.

Another problem was that the value system was severely skewed. My creature spent all his time healing injured villagers, planting trees, watering crops, carrying things to the village stores, and playing with the villagers. When he got hungry, he'd go eat some fish, and then return to helping the villagers. He ended up pure evil because eating meat outweighed all his other actions. Meanwhile my deity got all his miracle power from sacrificing babies, but ended up pure good because he always cast good miracles. Go figure.

It was a really interesting proof of concept but a really horrible game.

Re:Thunderous disappointment

[ifrag]

Not everyone. *cough* extended 'trial' period by downloading from unauthorized sources *cough*

That brings up an interesting point though, because AFAIK Spore will have that psuedo-online engine to take lifeforms & planets from other user's sandbox. If the game actually does support true 'solo' play (as in no tube to the internets) then I suppose that would work. My guess is a game on this scale will attract the attention of groups who have worked things like the emulated steam engine for HL2.

Re:Thunderous disappointment

[GospelHead821]

I think I might have enjoyed Black and White a great deal more if the controls hadn't been so poor. The motion to throw something seems so intuitive with a mouse, but that flick-of-the-wrist motion is really hard with a trackball. I consider that a severe weakness Black and White. It had a fascinating control mechanism that assumed you had a particular controller. At one point, I was supposed to lob fireballs at my enemy's village and I tried for three or four minutes before the game let me move on (with the enemy village still intact.) That was the first and last time I played Black and White. I'm just glad that I bought it off the bargain rack.

Re:Thunderous disappointment

[donscarletti]

It could be reasonably assumed that more people use Linux than a trackball. So, logically there is more reason to expect a game to make effort to support Linux than support a trackball. Especially since Linux wouldn't require Molyneux to totally rethink his control scheme that he seemed to have obsessed over. Very few games do support either because most games can go well in the market without those in fringe technical situations.

actually

[Anonymous Coward]

gaming could be an incredibly powerful mechanism for steering the system

Actually, gaming is just another opiate, another bubble we can wrap ourselves in. Just like every other medium. We all appreciate the thought, though.

I'll buy Spore...

[Anonymous Coward]

...when Will Wright makes a Sim Copter that doesn't crash all the time.

Connecting to the real world through gaming

[Lazerf4rt]

Wright is a brilliant guy and I can't wait for Spore. But I would point out one way in which he seems to have conflicting passions when it comes to making games. On one hand, he says he likes the idea of games that connect people more to the world, by showing them all these different things around them. On the other, he says he likes the idea of games which adapt themselves to the player. When you think of it, the first thing brings people "out of their bubble" and the second thing creates a new kind of "bubble".

After reading the article, I think I disagree with his notion that games which adapt themselves to the player will be very common in the future. Mainly because it's just not an idea that excites me, whatever that's worth. Plus, technically, it's hard to implement that kind of AI without fucking it up, and just ending up with a game that does random things. It's like how ten years ago, the industry thought MMORPG's were going to be big business in the future. All these developers tried making them, and fucked it up because it's a technical and logistical nightmare. (You could even say Sims Online is included on that list, but I don't know, I've never played it.) Now what? We've got WoW and a few peripheral MMOs played by losers (no offense).

Finally, there's a different way games can connect us to the real world, and it's what every old-school video game was based on: simple hand-eye co-ordination. Every game from Pong to Super Mario Bros was based on developing this skill. Now that games are so complex and cerebral, the importance of hand-eye co-ordination is diminished. But it still remains a tremendous way to "connect to reality". Look at Guitar Hero. It's essentially about hand-eye co-ordination (OK, ear too). Those are still my favorite games: ones where you develop a real motor skill. It's one of the reasons I worry for the Wii: The Wiimote doesn't seem precise enough to create games where your level of success meaningfully improves with practice.

Re:Connecting to the real world through gaming

[WillAffleckUW]

Will has announced already that he'll be developing Spore for the Wii as well as a mini Spore for the Nintendo DS.

My son and I have talked to him about this at times - I'm the person who came up with all the energy sources - wind, solar, hydro, etc - for the later SimCity versions ...

Re:Connecting to the real world through gaming

[Anonymous Coward]

Is a MMORPG loser greater or less than the dude who argues what makes a good game on slashdot? :)

Re:Connecting to the real world through gaming

[Anonymous Coward]

We've got WoW and a few peripheral MMOs played by losers (no offense).

Most people, when trying not to offend, choose a word a bit more diplomatic than "loser" when describing the people they're trying not to offend.

(How apropos that "apology" is the captcha that /. requested for this post.)

Re:Connecting to the real world through gaming

[Anonymous Coward]

FPS games are mostly hand eye coordination. Some of the more tactical/team based shooters require hand eye coordination and thought.

Re:Connecting to the real world through gaming

[Lazerf4rt]

They're equal. And for the record, I didn't argue what makes a "good" game.

Black & White from Peter Molyneux, not Will Wr

[LKM]

Just so nobody gets confused: Peter Molyneux made Black & White, not Will Wright.

Will Wright brought us such generally non-sucky games as The Sims and Sim City.

Excessive hype.

[MaWeiTao]

The hype for this game is getting to be so ridiculous that I don't see how the game won't do anything but disappoint. It's being made to seem like the second coming. It certainly looks compelling, but I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be a glorfied RTS with unit customization.

The marketing team sure is working overtime to promote this one. Rest assured the game will sell strongly within the first few weeks of release on media attention alone.

Trashing the Hype

[OSXCPA2]

For those who are convinced that there's too much hype to the new Will Wright game 'Spore'... what else can you possibly expect, given the mans' track record?

Combine what he's done previously with the team he put together and the type of game he's making - unless he hid in a basement and told no one, including EA, what he was doing, his project would be 'overhyped'.

This does not mean the game will suck. It means it will suck to whomever decides that due to the huge hype, if it isn't the 'best bang since the big one', it sucks. In other words, the idiots.

Frankly, the man made exactly one bad game - SimHealth - IMHO, and that was under contract to a NFP to try and educate people about health care, so I'll give him a pass on the game and an honorable mention for public service.

If the game is only as good as the features shown in the demos, it is still worth the $49.95.

Re:Black & White from Peter Molyneux, not Will

[montyzooooma]

Thanks for that - I couldn't understand why a huge B&W discussion erupted over a Will Wright game. Not that I don't think Spore will fail to live up to expectations How can it? The guts of it is an alien dress up doll, just like the Sims was a traditional doll house. I don't play with dolls. Except for my Ric Flair ACTION FIGURE...

Re:Black & White from Peter Molyneux, not Will

[jandrese]

Yeah, I feel kind of bad for putting another computer game in that list now. I just wanted an example of something that was hyped to the moon and was ultimately disappointing when it came out.