GDC08: Spore producer talks user-generated content
You would think that after years working on the game, the developers of Spore would have seen all the game has to offer. But, to hear Maxis' Caryl Shaw tell it at her GDC lecture Wednesday, the real meat of the game has yet to be created. That's because the vast majority of the creatures and structures that will inhabit the Spore universe will come from the brains of its user base.
When users get their hands on the creation tools, they may be surprised at the depth of their control. Besides fully fledged gaming consoles serving as buildings, Shaw also showed off an owl shaped spaceship, a craft that bore an eerie resemblance to Katamari Damacy's prince and ... a sentient race of Cheetoes. Really.
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But once players start sending their creations into the world, Maxis will be working to separate the wheat from the chaff and bring it to the surface, with help from the community. Players will be able to rate the quality of creations, but the company is working on other metrics to incorporate with user ratings. One such idea being kicked around is assigning a higher quality value to players who spend more time editing characters as compared to playing the game.
To help present all this data, players will have access to two different services, one web-based and one in-game that will allow them to see what friends and favorite creators have been working on, how they compare to other players via census data collected by the game. There's plenty of other bits of data available, but many of the specifics are still being ironed out.
Once you've made something you're crazy about, you'll be happy to hear that your character isn't bound to life inside your monitor. Shaw says that you'll be able to buy T-shirts, mugs and other items bearing your creature's visage. She also mentioned that the company wants to offer printed 3D models of characters, but their fragility makes shipping an obstacle.
Though there will be plenty of way for characters to migrate from your computer, there are still some limitations. For example, though sharing between PC and Macs won't be an issue, the DS version of the game won't be sending creatures to its computer brethren.
That said, we were struck as we listened to Shaw's speech that as expansive as the game has become after its time in the shop, Spore's true boundaries are all but limitless.
