• SimCity - Q&A with Will Wright n Ocean Ocean Quigley
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[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOSNdmSvhaU[/media] Ocean has best beard.
The Sims is becoming more like SimCity, while SimCity is becoming more like The Sims.
I thought Will Wright left maxis after they raped his vision for Spore?
I just realized I spelled Ocean twice. Derp
[QUOTE=KorJax;39678410]I thought Will Wright left maxis after they raped his vision for Spore?[/QUOTE] I thought when he started his own company EA was an investor, or possible silent partner.
[QUOTE=KorJax;39678410]I thought Will Wright left maxis after they raped his vision for Spore?[/QUOTE] From watching the video, I think it's obvious he's no longer with Maxis. I get the impression that they sent him a copy and paid him to speak about it on video.
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]After building his reputation as one of the most important game designers in the world, Wright left Maxis in 2009. His first post-EA venture was the Stupid Fun Club[/QUOTE] [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Wright_%28game_designer%29[/url]
[QUOTE=KorJax;39678410]I thought Will Wright left maxis after they raped his vision for Spore?[/QUOTE]What happened?
How about why is the version with all the content £65. Oh wait EA.
[QUOTE=artDecor;39683274]What happened?[/QUOTE] Basically spore was Will Wrights dream game/magnum opus that was a complex and dynamic simulation of evolving a creature from a "spore" into sea life and eventually onto land, into civilization, and finally into space, with each section of the game pretty much being a game in of itself (and all of this was working as of GDC 2005 when he first showed it off and the thousands of worlds there were in the galaxy), to the point where it built up this massive hype train as the most perfect sandbox sim game you could ever make ..and EA came in and pretty much turned it into an extremely simplified casual sim game, complete with a really cartoon art style (well, it wasn't realistic before, but more or less stylized... the final release of the game was straight up cartoony in visual style and animations though). It wasn't very good overall and didn't catch on with anybody, seeing as the hardcore market didn't want to touch it with a 10 foot pole.
[QUOTE=KorJax;39684930]Basically spore was Will Wrights dream game/magnum opus that was a complex and dynamic simulation of evolving a creature from a "spore" into sea life and eventually onto land, into civilization, and finally into space, with each section of the game pretty much being a game in of itself (and all of this was working as of GDC 2005 when he first showed it off and the thousands of worlds there were in the galaxy), to the point where it built up this massive hype train as the most perfect sandbox sim game you could ever make ..and EA came in and pretty much turned it into an extremely simplified casual sim game, complete with a really cartoon art style (well, it wasn't realistic before, but more or less stylized... the final release of the game was straight up cartoony in visual style and animations though). It wasn't very good overall and didn't catch on with anybody, seeing as the hardcore market didn't want to touch it with a 10 foot pole.[/QUOTE] Everyone has this idea that EA came in and changed everything, yet they have no evidence for it. You guys are making out Will Wright to be the victim, when he was actually the one who dumbed it down: [url]http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/09/07/will-wright-reacts-to-crtical-spore-reviews/[/url] [quote]"I'd say that's quite accurate," Wright told me. "We were very focused, if anything, on making a game for more casual players. "Spore" has more depth than, let's say, "The Sims" did. But we looked at the Metacritic scores for "Sims 2", which was around 90, and something like "Half-Life", which was 97, and we decided -- quite a while back -- that we would rather have the Metacritic and sales of "Sims 2" than the Metacritic and sales of "Half-Life."[/quote] EA isn't the bad guy here. Stop jumping to this conclusion every single time a game you like turns out to be not what you expected. Can we now stop worshiping the ground Will Wright walks on? We just need to face the facts: The Hardcore Gaming community is small and insignificant next to the casual market. That's why you see so many large companies dumbing down their games and making them more accessible, while inde devs are creating for the hardcore community that THEY came from. The Inde devs don't care about money as much, because they don't have huge overhead like the big companies. I'm not saying big game companies are bad because of this, it's just a fact of business. Once you grow so big, you can no longer survive off of a small market.
Fair enough. But you have to admit it's hard to believe someone like Will Wright going from his GDC 2005 presentation of spore into the release version of Spore and thinking that is a pretty good goal to shoot for. Especailly since, every single designer out there that I know of deep down wants to just make a really good game versus one that sells well. You can't honestly say that EA had no part in "convincing" will wright to turn spore into what it was on release. I also distinctly remember reading several articles around a year or so post-launch that mention how EA brought up how this was something that should be done. Guess you can take that with a grain of salt because I don't exactly save these things around, but still. And the ironic thing was that Spore had no real casual market appeal as a game concept. It's the kind of game that likely would have caught on for casual gamers (much like "minecraft" has) if it was interesting enough for the core market to go viral with it, but not the type of game that would have sold brilliantly with a casual market, no matter how "casual" they made it. The fact that they decided to pretty much not go the route of HL2 and trying to make a game that is pretty much considered a classic (ironic too because HL2 was a massive financial success among many markets as well), shows incredible amounts of incompetitance to the point where I'm extremely doubtful that Will Wright and the crew at maxis just actively decided to make a less engaging, more "casual" game that would "score lower" just to try and get a bite into a "market" that honestly has no surface level interest with a game like spore. And the sales support that. Spore was a massive flop. Yet if they went with the "HL2" approach and actually made the game they showed off in 2005, it would have caught like wildfire and likely penetrated the casual market simply from its viral nature and subject matter. They created a foundation for a truely hardcore, deep god simulation game, and instead of making that concept the best it could be they actively chose to stunt it just to try and appeal to some market that would have had zero interest in it at all unless their friends and those friends of those friends were all playing it (hint: they weren't, because they threw out a good chunk of the sim/core market appeal so there was no "anchor" point for sales to start going viral with).
I remember reading a few years back that there was one of the guys on his team that fought for the more cartoony style. I vaguely remember reading that they'd have the concept art and whatnot all drawn up, and this guy would put giant cartoon eyes on the creatures, and was gunning for that aesthetic.
"I've never felt guilty watching a film" Bullshit.
[QUOTE=KorJax;39685962]Words about markets[/QUOTE] It's funny you mention markets. In the months leading up to the game coming out (and you could argue since the '05 GDC video), the game was definitely presented as an "evolution simulator" of sorts. Obviously the final product is nothing like that, but to those who'd appreciate such a game would be disappointed by how far it is from the theory of evolution. While those who'd be offended by a game focused on evolution would pass on this regardless of how it is. I remember reading an article shortly after the game came out where people compared Spore to how a game actually about evolution would work. The gist of it was that the game is completely unrealistic, and is actually more akin to a intelligent design (since you're creating the creatures how YOU want them to be vs how evolution would logically dictate for their survival).
[QUOTE=artDecor;39678391]The Sims is becoming more like SimCity, while SimCity is becoming more like The Sims.[/QUOTE] A merge between SimCity and The Sims? That would actually be an ideal city god game. I mean think about it, being able to build your own city and even design your own neighborhoods and live the life of a specific Sim in your city, murdering others with your sadistic mind and whatnot.
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