Posts with tag: will-wright

Remember how Spore creator Will Wright said that his alien evolution sim would help stimulate interest in science? Well a bunch of real scientists have just given the game a failing grade. The magazine Science (published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science) has posted up an extensive article on the game on its web site where it states, ",...the problem isn't just that Spore dumbs down the science or gets a few things wrong--it's meant to be a game, after all--but rather, it gets most of biology badly, needlessly, and often bizarrely wrong." The article goes into quite a lot of detail of what's wrong with Spore, both as a game and as the way it protrays real science.

Not only do these scientists feel that Spore is a disservice to the things it's supposed to champion, some were upset that they were interviewed for a documentary about the game that was included as a DVD in the Spore Galactic Edition (and also shown on the National Geographic Channel). According to the article, "They said they had been led to believe that the interviews were for a straight documentary about 'developmental evolutionary' science rather than a video promoting a computer game."

How much more DRM in games discussion can you have for one week? Apparently at least one more time. This time the opinion comes from Will Wright, the creator of EA's Spore that really brought this debate to a head last month. Wright has kept silent about his views on the subject but Kotaku got him to chat about this as he was accepting an award for Spore during the Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Awards ceremony Wednesday night

Wright admits he should have paid more attention to EA's DRM plans for the game, saying, " It was a corporate decision to go with DRM on Spore." On the subject of DRM being used to combat PC games piracy, Wright states, "I think it's an interim solution to an interim problem." Wright apparently sees the future of PC gaming akin to what EA is doing with the upcoming shooter Battlefield Heroes, saying, "I think we're in this uncomfortable spot in going from what's primarily a brink and motor shrink-wrapped product to what eventually will become more of an online monetization model."

As we reported earlier today, Electronic Arts' Spore has remained at or near the top of the retail best seller charts for PC games since its release in early September. However, it's use of a DRM set-up caused a massive backlash against the game, which EA tried to respond to.

Today, EA's CEO John Riccitiello said that the DRM controversy was generated by a tiny amount of the game's users. News.com reports that Riccitiello, speaking at the Media & Money Conference in New York City, said that while he himself is not a fan of DRM, he implied that at the moment there's no better way to keep Spore and other PC games away from PC software pirates. "We chose a particularly aggressive form of DRM, which 99.8 percent of consumers would never notice, but that two-tenths of one percent got incredibly focused and formed an online PR cabal," he claimed. "We can eliminate piracy by essentially blocking the online service from the pirate. That's the future of DRM. The present of DRM isn't quite there yet."

Riccitiello also said he saw Spore's user created creatures and structures as the future of games, saying, ""Spore is probably the industry's first big step in that direction, and I would encourage you to look out for The Sims 3, which comes out this spring and which is another big step in that direction."

Game Politics has been doing an excellent job covering which game developers and game industry executives have been contributing money to the various US Presidential campaigns. It shouldn't come as a shock that most of them are Democrats who have given money to that political party's nominee Barack Obama.

So far nine game industry members including Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello, Take Two Interactive chairman Strauss Zelnick, Rockstar Games co-founder Sam Houser and Sony Online CEO John Smedley have all given money to Obama's campaign. Only three gaming reps have given money to the Republican candidate John McCain; Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, 38 Studios founder Curt Schilling and, in what might be a surprise to some, Maxis founder Will Wright.

The excitement over the release of Will Wright's Spore has died down somewhat but his most famous and popular game creation, The Sims, is only a few months away from launching an all new version that is almost a sure bet for success. The Sims 3 is due out on February 20, 2009 and today Electronic Arts released new screenshots from the highly anticipated title.

While Wright himself has had little to do with The Sims franchise since the release of the original version several years ago, The Sims 3 looks like it will open up the world of those strange sounding sims folks. Instead of just living in a home, The Sims 3 will allow people to explore an entire neighborhood. Players will be able to custom design their own Sims like never before in the new game and even give them different personality traits. As you can see the new screenshots show off the more detailed visuals that The Sims 3 will have. Again we expect this title to stay atop of the best selling PC games list for a while after its release.

It's natural for Hollywood producers to try to make a movie out of a game franchise that has sold tens of millions of copies. But let's face it; the mere idea of a film based on Will Wright's The Sims doesn't seem to scream "box office". However producer John Davis is trying to do just that and in an interview with Collider he gives his ideas on a story idea for the film.

See if you can follow this because we are having trouble figuring this out ourselves:

The Sims, as you know, you can control your imaginary world, right? And our movie, a young man, a 16 year old kid of a 14 year old kid and his friend get their hands on this thing called the Sims Infinity Pack, right, which kind of this very strange video game store which was there just for that moment, and seemingly wasn't all that. But what they realize is that they can scan their world in, because this is the most life like, real Sims game ever. And as they are playing this they are all of a sudden realizing is what they are playing on the game is having an effect on the real world. So in effect, through the game, they are able to control their world. It's wish fulfillment, and obviously it turns against them.

Oh, it gets better folks..check out more from Davis after the jump:

Now that you have done all that there is to do around your home planet, you have one last task in Spore. To explore to the farthest reaches of the galaxy! Navigating is no easy task, however. On your journey you will have to utilize all the advice we have given you. But Earth and the center of the galaxy won't discover themselves. So be a little like Francis Drake, and set out as a pioneer for the future of your civilization.

Now that you've plundered, processed, and parleyed, there's only two more things for you to do. The biggest one, the one that makes your empire run smoothly, makes people happier with you, and is just a general all-around bag of fun, is terraforming and colonization. In the setting of Spore, you are an intrepid new pioneer who fills ecologies with life, making everywhere a better place to live. In a sense, much like how John Smith helped to found and lead the colony at Jamestown, you are helping to found your own colonies in the fertile lands of your own creation!

So you don't want to conquer or buy out your enemies? Well have we got a proposition for you. Diplomacy is right up your alley if things such as outright takeovers put a bad taste in your mouth. Even if you do want to do some nice bombing runs, though, the art of diplomacy in Spore is one that will definitely need to be learned. So whether you are the next Dr. Henry Kissinger or the next Julius Caesar, these are the things that you have to know.

It's been one of the biggest, if not the biggest, issues about the game since its release over a week ago but it looks like Electronic Arts is going to do at least one thing to change the DRM set-up for Spore. The Will Wright created alien evolution sim has been slammed by people who feel the game's DRM is draconian and reduces the game from being a purchase to being just a rental.

One of the reasons behind such thinking is that currently one retail copy of Spore can only be installed on three PCs. MTV Multiplayer, however, did get word that this might be changing. According to a EA pr rep currently youg cannot deauthorize a PC install for Spore once it is installed. " But there is a patch coming for that," insists the PR rep which is said to be coming in the near future. However this isn't the end as EA has yet to respond to why it has chosen to only allow one Spore account to be attached to one install of the game itself.