Spore Revolution

Discover Magazine Interview

Will Wright is featured in of the articles of the August 2006 edition of Discover Magazine which you can purchase at news stands today.  The article can also be found on-line at the Discover website, entitled The Discover Interview: Will Wright. It was written by Alan Burdick.  You will need to subscribe to the magazine in order to read the complete article. It consists of a Q&A interview with Will Wright.

Part 1

Part 2

• Through your games, you come across as a guy who's trying to decipher the natural world bit by bit, through computer simulations.
• What were you doing at age 10 that steered you toward game design?
• Spore takes its cue from astrobiology, both in its spatial sweep--from microbiology to galaxies--and in its interplanetary spread of life.  What turned you on to the subject?

Part 3

• So Spore is an existential game?
• I'm told you collect artifacts from the Russian space program.
• Would you ever go up in space?

Part 4

• Do you play computer games besides the ones you design?
• What makes a game compelling to you?
• So games are fun because they allow us to play with time?
• You've collected and analyzed thousands of hours of data gathered from people who play The Sims online.  To what extent is playing The Sims a behavioral experiment?

Part 5

• You've modeled planetary dynamics, ant colonies, even the way players play your games.  What's left?
• You're doing this for fun? That's what you do on the weekend?
• In Wikipedia, Spore is described as a "teleological evolution" game.  Do you think the game will bring natural selection to the masses?
• If you could rebuild Earth in any way--add or subtract any creature or process, for instance--what would you do?

Rumour: Spore not to be Released til June 2007

I got wind of this from two different sources.  One was in the article published on July 21st 2006 by BusinessWeek, Spore Lives Up to the Hype.  I quote here:

"Even so, it is clearly going to take Maxis at least a year to stitch all the elements into a coherent whole."

The second source that says it will push the date to June is actually some company info that was leaked. Here's a page from an equity research report that says that Spore will be released on June 1st 2007, and will be selling for $49.99.

SPOREpedia Website Under Construction

A Sporepedia website has started appearing at Sporepedia.com!  It doesn't appear to be owned by Electronic Arts, so the big question is how much will EA pay to purchase the domain name from the owner?  Either that, or a contractor is working on the site at the moment and will sign it over to them when he's done the initial stuff. There is not much up right now, mainly just place holding text and a cute design, but it looks like it will have the following sections:

• Album
• Versus
• Forum
• Wiki Articles

There are already 2 wikis out there, quite a few albums, and too many forums.  But I wonder, what could Versus be?

EA Betting Big on Spore

I found an article on MSNBC.com entitled EA betting big on quirky Spore, published on July 11th 2006 by Rachel Rosmarin.  How big are they betting? $20-$30 million! It also seems they put a lot of pressure on Wright for coming up with an innovative game which will lead them out of the current market slump. Will Wright is so EA's cash cow.. lol  Also mentioned in this article are scantily-clad women, oh my! Here is my favorite paragraph from the article:

"In his trademark large-lensed spectacles and faded black denim, Wright didn't look like a man whose hit title, The Sims, has already reaped more than $1 billion for EA. He took the stage, thanked his marketing-specialist hosts, told them he used to think of them as aliens but now values the way they entice gamers to bring his creations home with them. Then he left."

That is such a classic!!  How often do you get to say your boss is an alien and get away with it?

Spore in Business Week

BusinessWeek just released a Spore article on July 20th 2006 containing a few tidbits that I had not read about before.  The article is entitled Spore Lives Up to the Hype, where the author Steve Boxer tried the game out hands on.  This is what I learned:

• Tidal pool stage where you are a sporish bacteria is nothing more than a glorified tutorial.
• You actually collect DNA from other species to get new body parts by stealing their eggs.
• You restart as a baby everytime you upgrade your creature.
• Possibility of having a 3D model created out of your creature.
• "It is likely that a model-making service (which will probably require payment) will be available when the game appears."