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Popular Science picks at the brain behind Spore, Will Wright
In a massive eight page interview, game industry legend Will Wright talks about everything from the sociology of online gaming, his aspirations growing up and perhaps most importantly, his upcoming title, Spore.While the whole interview demands a read from those interested in anything Wright related, combing through it reveals a few tidbits regarding the looming project. Wright is still aiming for a Fall, 2007 release and while he doesn't go into the specifics of other consoles (Spore is, after all, a PC title), he does mention how the game is agnostic enough to go from the PC, to the Wii and even a cell phone. While it's nothing terribly new to us, he does go more in-depth as to the argument for each platform.The majority of the article revolves around Spore and the incredibly complex nature of its design. So grab a drink, relax and wrap your head around one of this year's biggest titles.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]
Wright lets dev team talk Spore
Given the conference's acronym, it only seems fit that Will Wright's ambitious Spore have a presentation at this year's Design, Innovate, Create and Entertain (D.I.C.E.) Summit. However, in an atypical move for the Sims mastermind, Wright asked four members of his development team to do most of the talking. Ocean Quigley, Chaim Gingold, Jenna Chalmers and Alex Hutchinson discussed their roles in the development cycle and explained the hardship of trying to make the game not only work, but work efficiently and with as simple amount of input possible from the player: Quigley focused on the challenges of letting players create their own species and objects while avoiding any potential problems associated with said freedom. Gingold discussed making object editors simple and powerful, expressing his mantra that "if [the game testers] don't notice that it sucks, then it must be good." Chalmers' presentation outlined all their ideas for the space travel missions, and how she hopes the final game will be able to create new, entertaining missions on the fly. Though she noted that many ideas will not make it to publication, one mission that gave us a chuckle was having to drop a T. Rex onto an unsuspecting planet. Hutchinson's speech covered his role as the overall gameplay designer, and lauds Spore for its ability to splice genres. Wright's example of "an interstellar war between the Care Bears and the Klingons" keeps us intrigued on the title, so long in development already. However, even though Wright has a great track record with delivering on promised goods, we can't help but worry Spore won't live up to the enormous hype that follows it around. We'll find out later this year when Spore spawns on the PC and, eventually, every platform known to the human race.See Also: Joystiq Video: Wired Spore Event, featuring Will Wright and Robin Williams
DS Daily: How about EA?
It's no secret we're ten sorts of excited about the coming of Sim City DS, but despite the unabashed fun of city building, we know a whole lot of folks who aren't terribly excited about EA pledging to increase development for Nintendo. It's a tradeoff, it seems -- we want games like Spore and Sim City, but everyone loves to hate EA. Does it balance? Is it worth slogging through a bevy of less beloved EA games to get the gems that crop up? How do you feel about EA and Nintendo setting up as best good friends?
EA pledges to be Nintendo's #2, Spore DS confirmed
Speaking during a financial results follow-up conference call, EA CEO Larry Probst discussed the publisher's plans to increase support for Wii and DS. "Clearly Nintendo will always be number one on the Wii and Nintendo DS, but we think we have a realistic goal of being number two," speculated Probst, who added that EA's goal was to own 15-20% of the Nintendo platforms' market share.Currently, EA has 15 SKUs in development for Wii and DS, including the now 'officially' confirmed version of Spore for DS; as if Will's word wasn't good enough. No doubt most of these games will be the usual fare of EA annuals, but there are "several" original IPs in the mix.EA's devotion to Nintendo should not be mistaken for the publisher taking sides, as Probst was careful to note, "It appears as though as both Microsoft and Nintendo are positioned to gain some share, but we think Sony will continue to be strong... We will be provocatively supporting all of them." Provocatively, eh?
Eno to generate Spore soundtrack
That's Brian Eno, mind you, not Japanese musician and bonkers Enemy Zero designer, Kenji Eno. For those still scratching their noggins for reasons other than unexpected flea infestation, Brian Eno is recognized for his unusual, sometimes "unclassifiable" ambient music. The artist, professor and thinker (it says here on his website) has confirmed his invovement with upcoming everything sim, Spore. In a very interesting WMMNA article detailing one of Eno's recent lectures, it is noted that Will Wright and co. "wanted sound that is just as procedural as the game itself," preferring to avoid any looping tunes that change with each level. Eno is already working on a program called "The Shuffer," which will use sampled bits and pieces to craft Spore's soundtrack, without ever creating "the same composition twice within a lifetime." Meanwhile, in an alternate universe, Kenji Eno actually does get the job -- too bad the other Spore is a survival-horror game set in an underwater laboratory. [Via Eurogamer]
Wired News: 2006 vaporware awards
Wired News racks up its annual list of the top 10 vaporware products -- items that have been promised but haven't shipped -- with almost half of them being long-delayed games. Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl, Gran Turismo 4 Mobile, and Spore earn spots nine, seven, and four, while Duke Nukem Forever clocks in at number one. Again. Duke's nearly 10-year development time have earned it six mentions in the nine-year history of the list, including this year.We've lost track of DNF and are holding our interest until its launch, but we did want Spore. Which games have you missed this year?
Will Wright, Stephen Colbert, and N'Gai Croal
Legendary game designer Will Wright visited The Colbert Report last night. Surrounded by a nativity scene and lacking his standard comfort mustache, Wright and Stephen Colbert philosophized on why anyone would want to, as Colbert put it, "go into another world to live a life that is just as mundane." About four minutes into the interview, the discussion transitions into Spore, which Wright describes as a "spreadsheet for God." This brings up a debate on Evolution versus Intelligent Design, which should not come as a surprise for anyone familiar with the show. Wright notes that it is a hybrid between the two theories, though "the designers aren't necessarily that intelligent." The evolution aspect, Wright explains, comes with the online world where your creations are pitted against everyone else's -- it's like "competing gods on the playing field of the world," they conclude. Watch near the end where Wright almost gets Colbert to break character by "confessing" he is almost fluent in Sim-lish, the language of The Sims. Newsweek's N'Gai Croal, who described the designer as polymathic (that means he's edumucated), followed Wright to the set to get some behind-the-scenes perspective of the interview and reveals some insight into Wright's gaming habits, like that he doesn't like MMOs because of the "rote treadmill" of leveling characters. Spore, according to Wright, is on track for a release the second half of 2007 and is currently in Pre-Alpha Five phase, which means five months until alpha phase, which means there are some lucky EA employees playing the full version of Spore right now. The full Colbert Report interview is embedded after the break.
Joystiq interviews Spore's Chaim Gingold and Chris Hecker
On the first day of the Montreal International Game Summit, Chaim Gingold and Chris Hecker presented a keynote on the topic of "advanced prototyping," specifically as to how it pertains to Spore, the game that currently occupies their time over at EA/Maxis. The same talk, given at the 2006 Game Developers Conference, was rated higher than any other presentation, including Will Wright's, their boss's. Before the keynote, Joystiq had a chance to chat with both Chaim and Chris, and discuss their impetus for joining Maxis, the evolution of Spore, and the relationship between Maxis and EA.You're both at Maxis now. How did each of you get there?CHRIS HECKER: We both started full-time the same day, actually.CHAIM GINGOLD: Yeah. I was at Georgia Tech doing a masters program in integration design and technology, and there was a required internship over the summer. My advisor asked me "where are you going to work?" And I was like "I don't know." She was like "Didn't you have an interest in working with games?" and I was like "It would be fun to work with Will Wright, not that that would ever happen. That would be totally crazy." And then one day I got an e-mail from him, saying "We're looking for interns." And then an hour later I got an email back saying "You got it." And so I got the internship, and at the time there were like four or five people working on Spore. That sort of really small team, and I spent the summer working on that. Everyone was crunching on TSO [The Sims Online], and when I got done they asked me back, so I came back.When was that?CG: I've been there four, five years now.CH: So, I was working in indie games for, like, eight years, and my wife was basically paying the mortgage. She kinda had the high-powered, executive job. And then, we had a baby, and she decided: "Well, I'm quitting. It's your turn to actually work." And I was like "Uh-oh! I guess I'm going to have to make some money." Indie games don't pay that well.
The New Yorker on Will Wright (in 10,000 words or less)
Will Wright is the ultimate spokesperson for gaming. The same way Bill Gates made being a nerd not only acceptable, but desirable, Wright embodies everything that can be great about video games. Writers find in him a sort of mad scientist, with an impish grin and a clever streak running through him a mile long (he's done the calculations to determine how many stars have received radio broadcasts of The Dukes of Hazzard). He's the "god of God games," an innovator, a risk-taker, a rainmaker. He's a "genius," with the backstory and the charisma to make it palatable to the masses. And that's who his story is being told to.Rarely do we see the sort of long thoughtful hagiography in the enthusiast press that we often find about Wright in the mainstream press. A recent New York Times Magazine piece revered him as "the most famous and most critically acclaimed designer in the young medium's history." This week's The New Yorker dedicates an incredible 10,000 words to the "game master," covering everything from the history of Electronic Arts to panspermia to his affinity for dueling robots (seriously) to the negative impressions of video games that Wright himself, as a personality, does so much to disassemble. How much can you really criticize a game whose primary influence is the convergence of Drake's equation and The Powers of Ten?And that's why every time Wright is put on a pedestal -- as a creator, as an artist, and as a genius -- it advances the acceptance and appreciation of video games far more rapidly than the industry's ballooning profits ever have. [Thanks, Andrew]
Custom Second Life figures
Wired News mentions that a new company, Fabjectory, will turn a Second Life avatar into a seven-inch, real-world figure. Once your desk is littered with figures, we can only imagine that you'd perform a puppet show, doing voices for each character. Yes, that's what we imagine.Prices are about $100 for most figures to $200 for complicated jobs with lots of appendages or other extra work. Fabjectory creates an computer model of the avatar, then uses a 3D prototyping machine to produce the real-world figure.While unconfirmed, Spore may offer a way to order plastic versions of your creatures directly through the game. (As part of its marketing, EA has sent real-world versions of creatures reporters created.)We welcome these third- and first-party figures. We just know our World of Warcraft, Second Life, Spore, and Everquest characters will be friends.See also: Our one of a kind Spore figurineSee also: Spore figurines at E3
Sunday NY Times says Spore is special
Steven Johnson, Colbert Report guest and author of Everything Bad is Good for You, wrote a thoughtful piece on Will Wright's Spore in yesterday's widely read New York Times Magazine entitled, "The Long Zoom." Like any writeup of Wright's simeverything, Johnson's includes equal parts hagiography, history, and hype, imbuing Wright's unreleased masterpiece with transcendental potential.Johnson's title refers to Spore's ability to zoom from the microscopic level all the way out to the galactic level, recalling the Eames' influential Powers of Ten (video embedded above). Wright's collaborative presentation with musician Brian Eno on "generative art," arranged by the long-term thinkers at the Long Now Foundation, also suggested a more cerebral sophistication than we're used to seeing, and reading about, in video games. If you think the hype for Gears of War may be hard to live up to, consider Spore, a game that is beginning to more resemble a panacea for all the gaming industry's myriad ills than a clever expansion of the Sim- series.[A faux pas, and a personal pet peeve: Charles and Ray Eames were not, in fact, "brothers" as Johnson writes, but an enormously successful husband-and-wife design team, responsible for everything from the aforementioned Powers of Ten film, to their famous molded plywood Eames Lounge Chair.]See also: Spore figurines!
Joystiq interview: Jenova Chen
Xinghan (Jenova) Chen has big dreams. A recent graduate of the University of Southern California's School of Cinema & Television, Chen focused his master's thesis on changing how game designers look at difficulty and redefine the concept of Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment. With two award-winning independent games (flOw and Cloud) under his belt as well as contributions to a multitude of other games, Chen's resume reads like an old professional in the gaming field. We had a chance to speak with Chen to talk about his thesis, its (mis)interpretations, and his current work with Maxis. Why did you choose this project as your Master's Thesis? The Master's Thesis has to have some contribution to the field that you want to be a master. For me, I have created so many games in the past I feel just creating another game is not contributing anything. I'm more interesting in coming up with another solution in better game design that can be used by other game designers to attract more gamers. For other industries, any kind of interactive design, the theories in this project are helpful.
Wii-DS link-play confirmed for Spore, plus new Wii info in latest NGamer
GoNintendo.com spreads word that NGamer, a new UK publication, has confirmed Spore for Wii -- of course, Will Wright essentially did the same back in May. According to an article in the new issue, Spore for Wii is scheduled for release in Spring 2007 and will feature some level of data sharing functionality with the DS version, "so you can deform your species on the fly."NGamer also reports that the Wii sensor bar is now "50% smaller ... a little bigger than a couple of pencils glued together" and tosses in a few tidbits about the Wiimote, including its 30–60 hour battery life (with AAs) and ability to store a small amount of data, roughly 6KB, internally. One sour detail reveals that Virtual Console's DRM will prevent gamers from playing their downloaded titles on a friend's Wii.
VG Cats' Spore creatures brought to life
Will Wright, Inc. have a giant man-crush on VG Cats. It all started after the webcomic made a strip about the worst-case scenarios of Spore's creature-making system, entitled "Wright to Life." The folks at Maxis caught wind of the comic and revised the comic, replacing every hand-drawn creature with accurate depictions made in-game.If that was not awesome enough, Maxis this week sent VG Cats author Scott Ramsoomair Spore figurines identical to his creations. You can view pictures (compliments of Scott's mom) here. How's that for customer service?See Also:Our one of a kind Spore figurineValve lets fan tour studio, play Portal[Thanks, Sam and Kyle!]
Wiimote, sensor bar, and Spore info oh my!
Supposedly, this N Gamer magazine had much more info than we previously reported on. A large supply of information from the magazine apart from what we've reported has apparently been confirmed to be true over at Go Nintendo. This information deals with the Wiimote, sensor bar, and Will Wright's Spore respectively.The Wiimote is to take 2 AA batteries and turn them into 60 hours of gameplay. Should the player be using the sensor bar, however, then the time is cut in half to 30 hours. Either way, that's incredible. Also, the 6kb of internal memory confirmed to be included in the Wiimote is going to be used to "personalize your remote," which we assume is code for "store profile settings." As for the sensor bar, the magazine states that the previous version that was seen at E3 has been made smaller. The magazine compares the size to that of a "couple of pencils glued together." The magazine also confirms that Will Wright's foray into playing God through his game Spore is going to be possible on the Wii. Apparently, the Wii version will interact with the DS version by allowing the player to transmit data from one to the other seamlessly. This will allow players to "deform species on the fly." They also speak some on the use of SD cards, reiterating that they will be used to house Virtual Console titles. The problem is that you may not play them on another Wii. They refer to this as "Digital Rights Management."
DS is "interesting" for Spore
IGN has an interview with SimPapa Will Wright about his plans for Spore, the universe-creation sim scheduled for PC next year. While Wright says that right now, they're focused on creating Spore for the PC, he would like to see it become a full-fledged power franchise, and he points right at the DS as a possibility.Wright, who recently pointed to the lack of a mouse for consoles as a problem for simulation games, said, "the DS is also very interesting to us, as its control scheme could be very manageable for the game." While the stylus is no mouse, it can certainly provide similar functionality and perhaps even more precision in some cases. Sadly, Wright's comments on Spore beyond the PC make any possible plans sound very long range ....[Thanks, vidGuy!]
PS3, too, can lose player's souls to Spore
Spore, the hotly anticipated title from Sims creator Will Wright, has been announced to arrive on every system possible (speaking in terms of next-gen, of course). Some things will be tweaked -- sized down for handhelds, altered methods of controlling the pointer for consoles (unless you want a mouse add-on), et cetera. What's the catch? This is crazy, that's a lot of Spore. There's got to be a catch.Yeah. Out of context interpretation. There was no denial in these rumors as EA is indeed looking into console versions, but they did not say that all consoles are indeed getting some Spore action. You can check out the supposed interview that the quotes were taken out of context at SPOnG. Our good friends at IGN followed through with a call to an EA representative who partially debunked the interview. But it would be good news, right? Having Spore on all systems may spawn a sense of friendship between competing consoles. Or incite actual planetary wars, which is also way cool.
Will Wright releases Spores onto the 360
Supposedly speaking to SPOnG, Will Wright revealed the possibility of a console release of the game that people just won't shut up about, Spore. More specifically, he indicated the possibility of a 360 release (and Wii and PS3, blah, blah)."We're looking at all the platforms for Spore, because we're thinking about Spore as a franchise, not as a PC game. We're going to do the PC game first, but really, what we're trying to launch is an entire franchise that will be all across platforms."It wouldn't be a huge stretch to believe that EA wants to spread one of the most hyped games in recent memory as far as possible. Perhaps we'll be ordering our own custom critters from Xbox Live Marketplace?
Another Spore model; get your own "for a fee" [update 1]
Randall wasn't the only Joystiq special correspondent to get his virtual Spore creation brought kicking and screaming into physical space. C.K. received his figurine and managed to throw 65 images onto his Flickr account. He writes:"I designed a Spore creature while I was at E3, and the nice people at EA were kind enough to make it into a little 3-D figurine like the ones they had sitting around their booth and ship it to me. It has two heads, one bird-like and the other more like a moose, with large fighting arms."Three readers also tipped us off to three separate works discussing the future availability of mail-order Spore creatures. Clayton sent in a link to a Discover Magazine article that reveals, "In Spore, a player can animate any creature imaginable; for a fee, it can be made into a three-dimensional reality." For a fee, eh? Darius pointed us to Next Generation, who speculate "it is likely that a model-making service (which will probably require payment) will be available when the game appears." So don't be jealous. If the stars align just so, we'll all have our very own Spore figurines come Q2 2007.Matt noted the following paragraph while readingThe Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More by Wired Magazine's Chris Anderson: "Will Wright, the legendary video-game designer, is putting the finishing touches on his next game, Spore. In it, you'll be able to evolve your own creature, imbuing it with traits and characteristics of your own design. If you like your work, you'll be able to upload your creation to the Spore servers. And then, for about $20, you can have it 3D printed onto a real action figure – colors, texture, and all. Each one is unique and will show up at your front door in a week or two." This is the first time we're seeing a price ... and $20 sounds reasonable to us. Does that include shipping, guys?[Thanks for the links, Clayton and Darius ... and Matt!][update 1: Added the bits from The Long Tail. Thanks, Matt!]
Our one of a kind Spore figurine
Some Joystiq readers will no doubt be jealous when we remind them of how Joystiq special correspondent Randall Bennett got to play Spore behind closed doors at E3. And again when he got to see Robin Williams crack jokes while making his own creature at that Wired party.Well, our jealousy was rekindled when, after some months, Randall's friendly neighborhood UPS guy rang his bell to deliver a Spore figurine identical to the character he had designed at E3. They should definitely have a service so consumers can order their own custom figurine. More pics after the break.
