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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."
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.
The enemies of Democracy are
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.