Will Wright
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Will Wright honored with BAFTA Fellowship
The man behind the iron mask is Will Wright, the first of his kind to be awarded a British Academy of Film and Television Arts Fellowship (known colloquially as the 'BAFTA award'). This year's ceremony will be held on October 23rd, marking the first time the Academy has honored a figure from the games industry, despite a refusal to stretch out its acronym. (What's wrong with BAFTVGA?). Wright's fellowship "recognizes the massive impact of video games on popular culture and their huge contribution to the whole art form of the moving image," said the BAFTA mouthpiece.Will Wright is the 'Sim' genre. The decorated designer is currently on the verge of (we hope) releasing his most ambitious project to date, Spore. Much props to you, Mr. Wright -- now get back to work!
Today's most delayed-and-ambitious video: TED Spore demo
Video of Will Wright's TED Spore presentation from March has recently appeared online. Wright expands on prior Spore demos, giving an overview of the game and explaining parts of his design process. The information-packed 17-minute video keeps us interested in the total life simulation -- from origins to galactic colonization -- but reconfirms how wildly ambitious the project has been. We've been trying to play over/under on the projected ship date window of April, 2008 and March, 2009, but nobody wants "under." But whenever Spore finally arrives, we hope Wright and the other designers can deliver on the unique concept. [Thanks, Guillaume and Kevin]
Spore, uh, still delayed until fiscal year 2009 [update]
The last we heard from Will Wright's ambitious Spore, it was conspicuously absent from Electronic Arts' fiscal year 2008 plans, which put the release sometime past March 2008. The latest issue of Game Informer (via CVG), which seems to have a wealth of exclusive news lately, has also mentioned that the game has been pushed back into fiscal year 2009, which starts April 2009 2008. [update: fixed a 365-day typo]We aren't sure if the magazine writers are using the same EA fiscal report or if they have different contacts, but the wording implies this is confirmation that the Sim Everything title will be a ways off. We already knew that, but we hate hearing it again.
The Sims coming to the big screen, logic be damned!
You know what's really popular? Tax season. It seems like every year, tax fever sweeps across the nation and people just can't get enough of doing their taxes. But you know, they've never made a movie about taxes. Do you know why? Because it would be eyeball murder. Now, could somebody please pass the lesson along to 20th Century Fox? They've just picked up the movie rights to The Sims. Now, is this just a crass ploy to get up in the Matchbox 20 money that The Sims series pulls down? No, not according to Sims Studio head Rod Humble. He says it's all about the story. "The Sims has done an interactive version of an old story, which is what it's like to have infinite power and how do you deal with it," he said. "Given that that's an old story, you can imagine how easily that would translate to traditional story telling." Gross, now we've got synergy all over our keyboard. Oh, lest we forget the best part, a guy who helped write Scary Movie 3 is writing the screenplay. So, yeah, enjoy. We're going to go kiss Uwe Boll on the mouth. [Via Arrogantics]
Joystiq impressions: SimCity DS
While SimCity DS was already released for -- having been developed by -- Japanese gamers, the simulation hasn't gotten much coverage for is upcoming American release. At a recent EA event, it was apparent that the title should get the recognition it deserves soon enough, with its June release.Based approximately on SimCity 3000, SimCity DS seemed about as complicated as the most recent versions of the title. While the graphics represent a throwback to earlier SimCity games, the core gameplay is current. The title looks like it'll be a great match for portable simulation fans because of the touchscreen interface.%Gallery-3128%
Remember Spore? It's not coming in 2007 anymore, we're afraid
If the incredibly ambitious title Spore, from the creators of SimCity, SimWhatever, and SimSimulation, is slated for a 2008 release just for the PC now, when will it appear on consoles? After some earnings reports were issued, Electronic Arts went ahead and said that Spore was removed from their fiscal year calendar (it goes until March 31, 2008) and are expecting a release in late '08.Recently re-appointed CEO John Riccitiello had a few things to say about the project and its progress slash delay. We say slash because putting a slash is just plain foolishness. "Spore is a title we have enormous confidence in. I've had the chance to review the title three times in my short return to the EA, and it looks fantastic. I will also tell you that its release will be right up [to] the bubble in Q4 [of fiscal '08], if not sometime in early fiscal '09, so we don't feel comfortable in forecasting it." But why the delay? QC -- quality control. We want this game to rock, so let's give Will Wright and his team as much time as they need to make this game the best it can be.
No Spore until Q2 2008 ... no, seriously
It's worth noting that Spore isn't in the 2008 fiscal year plans for EA. This means that Spore is not expected to release until, at a minimum, April of 2008. Observant readers probably saw this coming when last month Soren Johnson, lead designer for Civ IV, joined the Spore development team, meaning that there's probably still a little way to go. We'll just make the pain of this post come to a abrupt end by saying that Spore has been in development since 2000 and only prescient aliens evolving on some other planet know when it'll actually release.
SXSW: Joystiq live at the Will Wright keynote [Update 1]
We're live in Austin, front and center for the Will Wright keynote speech, where the attendees seem a lot more excited for this one than they did for the Dan Rather speech yesterday. I guess that might change if Dan Rather was actually working on a groundbreaking new game that has almost as much buzz around it as the Apple iPhone.Will Wright is wandering around visiting with peeps, and he his arm in a sling for some reason. As we find out, we'll let you know. Maybe he's been spending too much time Spore-ing.1:56pm: They've started playing celestial new-agey Yanni-type music and showing slides of the solar system. Maybe Will Wright has decided to become the new Carl Sagan. Now the music sounds like a twangy version of the Firefly theme song. Browncoats, FTW! The slides keep pulling farther back and showing beelyuns and beelyuns of galaxies and stars.2:06pm: Will Wright is sitting right in front of us and talking with a Tucker Carlson lookalike, complete with floppy hair and bow-tie. Wright is wearing a sort of muscle-shirt combo with the sling. It's very steampunk and aggro. We snuck a look at his XPS laptop on the stage .... no screensaver.%Gallery-2103%
Spore's power struggle: freedom vs. beauty
What is a magic crayon? If you're envisioning Harold and his purple outlet of creativity, you wouldn't be far off from the intended metaphor. Chaim Gingold, design lead for Spore's editors and cell game, described the magic crayon as a toy that is simple to use and yet gives the user enough power to create something they'll appreciate. Gingold kicked off his presentation, one of the last after a marathon of lectures and roundtables at this year's Game Developers Conference, by defining a magic crayon through example. Photoshop is not a good magic crayon, for example, because it is very hard for most people to use. Neither is Super Mario Bros., since you are not changing anything in the world. Kid Pix fits the schema for a magic crayon, as does the Mii creator, which is an "absolutely beautiful, wonderful magic crayon," he said.
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
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]
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.
SimCity, as it was never meant to be
It's doubtful that when Will Wright birthed SimCity he imagined the game one day playable in the palm of the hand, using a cell phone keypad. Nevertheless, EA Mobile Games has made it happen.For $1.99, SimCity will surely attract some impulse buys, but perhaps its legacy -- as the starting block for the Sim phenomenon -- is best kept with fond memories; or at least, a better suited platform. As with Geometry Wars, we just can't imagine that mobile SimCity is any good.
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]
Will Wright makes "Digital 50" Top 5, beats out Google & YouTube founders
The Producers' Guild of America has recognized the achievements of Will Wright (The Sims), Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid), and Tetsuya Mizuguchi (Rez & Lumines), naming the three luminaries to the Guild's current list of 50 most innovative producers in the field of Digital Entertainment. Wright even landed in the number 5 position, besting big-name contributors like Google's Larry Page and Sergei Brin (#9), and YouTube's Chad Hurley and Chris Chen (#23). Kojima and Mizuguchi made the list at numbers 38 and 50 respectively.Brain Age's Dr. Ryuta Kawashima also made the list, popping up -- surprisingly -- at number 16. Anyways, a round of applause for the 'three gaming gods' and the talking head. Congrats, gentlemen.Who should the PGA elect next year?
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!]
