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Family Album: Electronic Arts
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gaming_news/Getting_to_know_the_EA_Empire'; When you go to Electronic Arts' web site for the first time, you are treated to a list of countries where the video game behemoth has presence. To some people, it's a sign of impending world domination -- to us, it's a giant global family. Curious to see what all Electronic Arts has under its umbrella bumbershoot? Check out our handy guide to learn everything about the company. From Madden to macabre, The Sims to The Simpsons, we've got you covered. It's time to get educated. (Also: Check out the Take Two Family Album)
Spend a virtual evening with Will Wright
Do you love Will Wright? Like, really love Will Wright? Do you love Will Wright so much that you could listen to him talk for a half hour about things that are only tangentially video game related? It's for the special fan like you that we present "An Evening With Will Wright," a talk held at an off-site bar during last month's Game Developers Conference in San Fransisco.We were there, so here are some simple instructions if you want the full virtual experience: get yourself some mini hot dogs and french fries (the victuals at the event) and some free booze. You'll probably find yourself irritated at the people talking over Will Wright and wanting nothing more than to have fists so large that you could simultaneously punch all of them in the face. Trust us, that's part of the experience too. Part 2 is right after the break.
Video: Spore on the iPhone
News about Spore coming to the iPhone is pretty exciting, sure, but seeing video of the accelerometer and touchscreen-controlled sim really has us sold. Apple finally released streaming video of their iPhone SDK presentation yesterday and, thanks to the magic of YouTube, we have an edited segment of just the Spore component tucked away after the break. iPhone as a gaming console? Like we couldn't see that one coming.
EA Mobile's Spore becomes first 3rd party iPhone game -- available September
Just in case you didn't catch the blip earlier between Steve's announcement of the iPhone SDK and the App Store, here's some fantastic news for the thumb-happy sect: Spore is coming to the iPhone. In fact, the EA Mobile title will go down as "the first 3rd party game on the iPhone." Sadly, it won't actually be available until September, but at least you've got a month to circle on your calender, right? Additionally, EA affirmed that there were "other games in early stages of development," and that it was "actively using the new iPhone SDK to develop games for the iPhone OS." Jump on past the break for the full release.
Apple shows off iPhone gaming chops
While Apple did not release any games at today's event they did begin to show what's possible with several tech demos. Apparently the SDK has only been available for the last two weeks or so, even inside Apple, which makes what they showed that much more impressive. First up, a team inside of Apple cooked up "Touch Fighter," which appears to be a kind of space-based shooter that you steer by tilting and aim by pointing. The game is 3D and uses OpenGL graphics. Next up was Travis Boatman from EA who showed an iPhone version of the eagerly-awaited game Spore (also shipping for Macs later this year). It's clearly cut down from the desktop version, but as Johnson said of the dog walking on his two hind legs: "it is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all!" Considering that EA had two weeks, this suggests the iPhone has the power to be a serious gaming platform.Finally, Ethan Einhorn from Sega showed off a build of Super Monkey Ball, naturally also using tilt controls. What's interesting there is they actually underestimated what the iPhone could do, and ended up having to bring in another artist to upscale the art from what they had anticipated. Again, the take home message: the iPhone is a real platform for game development.It's worth noting that these were all demos and there are no guarantees that any of them will be released. Nonetheless, it's an impressive showing for two-weeks with the SDK and we can only imagine what things will look like in June when firmware 2.0 is released to consumers.Update: Engadget says that EA has confirmed Spore for iPhone; release in September.
Spore, 'Touch Fighter' shown on iPhone
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/apple/Spore_on_iPhone_2'; During Apple's iPhone SDK press conference today, we got a glimpse of the device's gaming capability with two titles: an in-house project dubbed Touch Fighter and Electronic Arts' Spore.Touch Fighter is a 3D space shooter using OpenGL technology. You use the iPhone's accelerometer to steer (via moving the device around) and touch the screen to fire. Our friends at Engadget (who are liveblogging the event) also noted that an optimization screen showed it was running at an impressive 27 to 30 frames per second.EA's Travis Boatman took the stage to show off the company's first product to come out of the iPhone dev kit, Spore. Initial pictures indicate that it's the mobile version shared by other cell phones. You use the accelerometer to move your creature and, of course, there are customizing options as well. [Update: EA confirmed that Spore for iPhone should be out in September, and that they're "actively using the new iPhone SDK to develop games for the iPhone OS." John Riccitiello, CEO of Electronic Arts, said, "The animation technology in the iPhone OS enables us to build awesome games. I think iPhone consumers are going to be blown away by the games we create for this platform."]More pictures after the break.
Apple announces first iPhone SDK games, Spore included
Stoked about the little SDK that was announced today? Apparently, so was Apple, as it's already starting to announce the first games to go along with it. For starters, we've got Touch Fighter and Spore (!!!), the first of which was somehow thrown together in two weeks, the latter of which won't be available until September. Also, users can expect Super Monkey Ball, which was hailed being a notch above your average "cellphone game." For whatever it's worth, EA also affirmed that more iPhone titles were in the pipeline, and best of all, those elusive titles are already "in early stages of development." Simmer on that for a second, we'll keep updating as we get more in.
GDC08 Highlights: Spore, Street Fighter and Nintendo
The Unified Spore Theory On the more academic side of the conference, we were treated to a handful of lectures on Will Wright's Spore, including one on procedural music and user-generated content. (We didn't get a chance to write up the music lecture, which was a complex discussion on music theory and their in-house music editor based on Pure Data.) The user-generated content session (photos) provided, among other things, a glimpse at how to make a spaceship that looks like the PS3 "boomerang" controller and a GameCube. Perhaps the most fascinating talk of the conference was also given at the worst possible venue. Will Wright talked about the importance of worlds, of community ownership and of escapism and the power of science fiction. It was a mind meld of information being thrown out, which you can view yourself here. Unfortunately, the speech was at a club and it seemed like half of the attendees seemed to either not know who Will Wright was or did not care and kept talking loudly over him. Obligatory Street Fighter IV mention Yeah, we played Street Fighter IV and walked away impressed. Also check out this interview with producer Yoshi Ono. Excuse me, Wii're looking for Nintendo Nintendo's presence was a bit more subdued compared to last year -- not having the keynote speech tends to do that. There were announced dates for Wii Fit and WiiWare (May 19 and May 12, respectively). A lot of information came out about WiiWare, including titles LostWinds, Shantae and a non-Sam & Max episodic series from Telltale. (No promises on demos for any of the titles.) We also learned more about the Wii Menu from Nintendo's Takashi Aoyama, who taught us why the blue LED light glows in a certain rhythm. Aoyama also revealed a potential "Pay & Play" option for developers who want to charge for online (e.g. MMO developers). In other Nintendo news, NWF writer JC Fletcher managed to sneak into a Smash Bros Brawl tournament for conference helpers (video) and one confused gentleman left his rock and discovered a "new" Nintendo interface. Next: Sony, Sessions and Telltale
GDC08: An evening with Will Wright minus friends (video)
I applied for, and received an invitation to 'An Evening with Will Wright and Friends', held in Mezzanine, a swanky club in San Francisco's SOMA district on Thursday evening. I didn't know what exactly to expect, but I knew two things: 1) It wasn't going to be about Spore, and 2) It was Will Freaking Wright. How did I know Spore wasn't on the offering? 'Cause we're all kind of Spore'd out, aren't we?I was right about the lack of Spore, but was pleasantly surprised and gratified to hear Will speak on a variety of topics -- James Bond, cosmonauts, Gilligan's Island as the predecessor of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman comics, Godzilla, Care Bears, Lost, Walt Disney, Battlestar Galactica, Spiderman, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance -- before finally wrapping it all up with the observation that the stories that resonate with us are deconstructible; we can reduce them to components, and using those components, build our own stories. Finally, accepting questions from the audience, I asked him what advice he'd give NASA as they create their MMO. His friends never showed up, but man, Will Wright is always worth a listen. He knows his stuff so well and is such a wonderful speaker ... check out the video I shot after the break, and you'll see what I mean.
GDC08: We're at the Will Wright party
So, we've just arrived at the Will Wright party and we're literally awkwardly sitting in a corner. We're typing on our laptops while attractive people mill about and eat lots of food (mini-hot dogs and french fries) and drink. It's the same club as last night at the Sony event but this is clearly more of a video game industry crowd. (You can tell from the bigger crowds around the food table.)We're hoping that Will Wright comes out sporting a cane, then pretends to fall, does a somersault, and then kills us off one by one with an elaborate series of candy-themed traps. We'll let you know.%Gallery-16662%
GDC08: More like Cubispore
Nintendo had a playable demo of Spore Creatures at their booth, and I availed myself of the (scaled-down) miracle of (simulated) life. I don't know about the scope of the full game, having played for just a few minutes, but the initial stage of the game was easy to understand. Starting out as a small creature with just a pair of eyes and a little worm-like body, the game paired me with an identical friend. This friend walked me over to a "nest" where I could add a part -- in this case, a mouth. You use mouths to eat things! Different parts give different attributes -- how much can be eaten, what type of food the creature prefers, and such. In addition, they add to your social ability. I chose one based on the unofficial "looking hilarious" attribute. After this I was shown how to make friends. To engage another creature, you call out to it and then sort of pet it with the stylus (really). If you're social enough, they'll be your friend and can be asked to dance (in a Samba-esque minigame) and even follow you. After this, I was led into combat, which involves clicking on a "fight" icon and then scratching away at the creature.Really, more than anything, Spore Creatures reminds me of an expanded Cubivore, with friends instead of just enemies, and expanded combat based on more than just eating. This is a good thing.%Gallery-15944%
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.%Gallery-16561%
Seen@GDC: Console war continues in Spore as Wii, PS3, 360 rebuilt in-game
Just how versatile is Spore's asset creation system? Check out these images we saw at today's GDC demonstration of the game's user-generated content features. No, your eyes aren't deceiving you, those are buildings shaped like a Wii, PS3 controller, GameCube and Xbox 360, created by one Maxis staffer.Just FYI, that dude's head isn't user generated ... unless God plays Spore. Which he probably does.
Spore Creatures producer Jason Haber talks up the game
To say that Spore Creatures is a radical departure from the PC game is an incredible understatement. But, we're not complaining, because hardware limitations on the DS are a lot harder to work with than say, oh ... a PC. But that doesn't mean all hope for the game is lost, as producer Jason Haber says Spore Creatures will be worth your time.One of the things that has been most criticized about Spore Creatures is its look. Haber describes the inspiration for the look of the game as being from "the look and feel of flat Japanese rod puppets and shadow box art, and how their creators would customize scenes to bring them to life." He goes on further, adding that this "was something that we wanted our players to be able to do on the DS, allowing the game to feel completely unique while supporting an intuitive and open editing system."Haber also hinted a bit in regards to DS-to-Wii functionality, responding to the question with "for Wii features and connectivity, we have not announced anything in particular, but that is the future and who can really predict the future?" The remainder of the interview is pretty interesting, so be sure to give it a read.%Gallery-15944%
David Perry posits 70 Million player massive game
David Perry, a gent who used to be synonymous with the quirky developer Shiny Entertainment, is now best known for his work in the Massive games industry. He recently did an interview with the website videogame247, where he essentially said that World of Warcraft is still too niche for the potential MMOs represent. In fact, he could see a game someday existing that nets '70 million players'. As he puts it, "we haven't got anyone that's thinking down the Will Wright path."Perry is looking to outfits like Club Penguin or MapleStory as harbingers of the future. He posits that if World of Warcraft were to go free-to-play, it would be looking at a 25 million-strong playerbase instead of 'only' 10 million. He himself is very familiar with the free-to-play model, as several of the Acclaim online titles he's imported to the country of late are based on that paradigm. How successful do you think a free-to-play WoW would be? Will we ever get to a 70 million player game, or is that 'the crazy talk'?[Via RPS]
Will Wright: Mac users will love Spore
Well, who won't, right? If you haven't read a single gaming blog this week (you serious worker bee, you), then you may not have heard the big news: Will Wright's rumored-to-be-a-masterpiece Spore has gotten a release date. It's hitting stores (for both PC and Mac simultaneously-- now that's what I like to hear) on September 7, 2008. Which means that later this year, PC and Mac users alike will be playing God, and creating creatures that virtually evolve from amoeba form all the way up to space travel.Mac|Life got a chance to sit down with Will Wright himself, and not only did he reveal some fun news about the game, but he thinks it will especially appeal to Mac users-- they expect the creative creature creator to do great things with Mac minds. Unfortunately, the game is a Cider port, and it's being released by Aspyr (that's right, I'm breaking my informal press boycott on them to talk about Spore-- don't disappoint me, Aspyr *see update below) but Wright sounds like he's expecting quality from this release, so I guess we should, too.And just like all the other great developers out there, he's very interested to see what happens with the iPhone SDK -- Wright is apparently an iPhone owner, and would love to get Spore on there. Believe me, Will -- I'd love to play it.[Via IMG]*Update: Aspyr has contacted us to say that they are not publishing the game. And at first I was confused, because Lucy Bradshaw specifically mentions Aspyr in the interview. However, after reading it a few times, it seems that Bradshaw is actually giving reasons for why they decided not to go with Aspyr-- their native ports come out too late, and EA wanted to release Spore simultaneously on all platforms.Aspyr also notes to us that they only do native ports, not Cider ports. So I guess my informal boycott against Aspyr is still on, but we're still not guaranteed to get a good game out of this: Madden '08 was created using Transgaming's Cider, and that didn't turn out so well. Wait and see.
DS Daily: Spore, Spore, Spore (How Do You Like It)
EA recently revealed the design for the DS Spore game, Spore Creatures. To be blunt, it's ... not the whole Spore. Instead of shrinking the whole game down for the DS format, Maxis decided to make a different, smaller-scale game about the life and adventures of one evolving critter. We kind of assume they know what they're doing (they're Maxis), and we know that Will Wright is a fan of the DS, so we have reason to believe that this is a good decision.But we aren't sure. Are we getting screwed over by a half-assed Spore, or has Maxis made the right decision by designing a more portable-friendly game? Obviously we haven't all played it, but we're sure you have some kind of feelings already.%Gallery-15944%
The intersection of Spore and MMOs
Will Wright's surely-a-masterpiece Spore got a date earlier this week, and just last night the floodgates opened on press coverage of it, so we've got lots of new info to drool over in the weeks to come. But Mike, you say to me, Spore isn't an MMO-- why are you talking about it here on Massively?You're right-- it's not an MMO, but it does have MMO qualities: creatures you create in Spore will show up on others' screens and vice versa, via the game's constant online connection. You'll never play a game against someone else, but your game will live in a huge, persistent online world, and your content will become others' as well. We're talking about Spore because it will intersect a lot with the MMO industry this year-- and even more than you may think.
Europe to get Spore two days early
According to Maxis's Patrick Buechner, "Europe is the priority for Spore." After years of being shafted and having to wait while American and Japanese gamers get titles first, how does that make all of you in Euroland feel?Of course, it helps that there's a ton of PC gamers in Europe. Fortunately, for those of you planning to get the DS version known as Spore Creatures, the games are set to release on both platforms (and Macs) simultaneously.The goal for the European release is September 5th, which happens to be two days before the American one. Buechner also says that these dates are very makeable, so gamers shouldn't expect delays. We can't help but be a little bit skeptical on that issue, but we're willing to believe him for now.%Gallery-15944%
Joystiq gets their hands dirty with Spore Creatures
For many of you, yesterday's news meant that life would have to take a break on September 7th of this year. Friends will be lost and your job will likely alter to one of playing God instead of filing paperwork like you currently do. Yup, it should be a very good year.That is, until we read up on Joystiq's impressions with the DS version of Will Wright's game. First of all, it's being developed by Foundation 9 and not Maxis. Although Maxis did say they're handling "design" internally, we're not all too pleased to know that another developer is making this game and it won't be under the scrutinizing eye of Will Wright day and night.Second, this game is going to be very different from Spore on the PC. In Spore Creatures, you're abducted by aliens, along with a pal of yours, and you must go on a long quest to save your friend. You'll make other friends, evolve and fight to survive. But, the focus is clearly on collecting items and maintaining one creature, rather than all of the awesome stuff one can do in the PC game.That isn't to say that Spore: Creatures is a completely lost cause. The game will allow players to trade creatures over Wi-Fi Connect, so we're glad to see that. Also, the creature creation system sounds robust, from what Joystiq found. And, also the game will benefit from a good stylus-driven control scheme. %Gallery-15944%
