Changing The World With Videogames

Will Wright gave the keynote address at the Texas SXSW event, showing off Spore to a packed crowd and offering up hopes that 'Toys' will change the world. His hope is that offerings like Spore might force kids to rethink their understandings of nature. Likewise, non-linear storytelling via 'branching' gaming is what he sees as the future of the medium. He cites the movie Groundhog Day as an example, a movie which told the same story over and over again but never did it the same way twice. "'I think if we can teach the computer to listen to the story that players are telling,' Wright said, a game could detect patterns of what the player wants, and adjust music, lighting, and other immersive elements to reflect the story that a player wants to play. He thinks this modeling would best be accomplished by networks that constantly mine and refine player information." Alice, of the Wonderland blog, helpfully provides extensive notes, and Kotaku has a video of the demo the attendees saw.

Comments

Why is the article titled "changing the world?"

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Why is the article titled "Changing The World With Videogames"? It sounds more like "Tuning Videogames to Provide People with a Better Way of Ignoring the World"

Hey, wait a minute...

[Sunburnt]

For example, Wright wants his upcoming simulation game, Spore, to help kids think more about how their actions today can have a long-term effect on the world. With the evolution game, kids can learn about global warming, he said, by pumping carbon dioxide into the virtual atmosphere and then watching the planet burn up in minutes.

Wasn't SimEarth supposed to accomplish this back in 1990?

In other news, Will Wright is anticipating a flourishing of urban planning with the release of SimCity 5, a solution to the problem of childhood obesity with SimFat's release, and a growth of grandiose sales pitches with SimSoftwareDesigner.