Wright rocks out with the mainstream media
Will Wright has had a very busy month thanks to his upcoming game, Spore. Everyone that saw the gameplay video from GDC '05 knew that the real highlight of this May's E3 would be Wright's presentation. Although his presentation at E3 didn't reveal too much that we didn't already know about Spore, the slightly more mainstream appeal of E3 has resulted in some well deserved coverage from the mainstream media. The positive endorsement by Robin "Sniper" Williams can't have hurt either.
The two most notable examples of MSM picking up this story are featured in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) and the BBC. The Beeb covered Spore and Wright from an angle of user generated content, comparing it to current and past titles that have popularized the concept (e.g. Second Life, The Sims and the popularity of mods like Counter-Strike). The quirky video interview with Wright that runs alongside the article also gives a good idea of how much Wright values user generated content (i.e. a lot).
The WSJ picked up the story from a more general "profile of Wright" viewpoint, although it was displayed very prominently. If you picked up last Saturday's edition of the paper it's possibly the first article you would have seen, it being on the front page and all. One of the world's most recognizable and respected business publications profiling a game developer on the front page: they've finally wised up!
Read - BBC video interview with Wright
Read - Wall Street Journal Spore article
