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Will Wright and Spore Profiled in Popular Science

Posted by Zonk on from the if-you-could-release-this-year-it'd-be-tremendous-will dept.

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."

5 of 28 comments (clear)

  1. Thunderous disappointment by jandrese · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    --

    I read the internet for the articles.
    1. Re:Thunderous disappointment by stratjakt · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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 $$.

      --
      I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
    2. Re:Thunderous disappointment by Chris+Burke · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

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      The enemies of Democracy are
  2. Black & White from Peter Molyneux, not Will Wr by LKM · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  3. Excessive hype. by MaWeiTao · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.