Will Wright @ GDC
Here's another tidbit out of GDC 2010. Will Wright, the guy behind Sim City, The Sime, Spore, and other titles, gave an impromptu lecture on the last day. An article summing up the session had this to say:
The relationship between players and game makers was perhaps the largest theme in Wright's session, and he fed back some of the findings from his previous games. "Players are inherently narcissistic--we'd see that players would spend hours creating themselves in The Sims," he said. He joked numerous times that he was essentially a drug dealer, as the end result of his work was to stimulate players' "hormones, endorphins, and neurotransmitters."
So basically, we're all self-absorbed junkies. Gee thanks, Will.
The relationship between players and game makers was perhaps the largest theme in Wright's session, and he fed back some of the findings from his previous games. "Players are inherently narcissistic--we'd see that players would spend hours creating themselves in The Sims," he said. He joked numerous times that he was essentially a drug dealer, as the end result of his work was to stimulate players' "hormones, endorphins, and neurotransmitters."
So basically, we're all self-absorbed junkies. Gee thanks, Will.
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Comments
Spore's no The Sims but it did fine.
Does not follow.
However, despite the "low" sales number, the amount of players on Spore is around the same comepared to The Sims. The big dividing line is how much fan content there is. With The Sims, you have all these fan sites offering custom content. What Wright did with Spore was pretty much consolidate it onto the Maxis servers so that creative players don't have to search and spam custom content websites. In that sense, the casual viewer to Simulation games may very well assume that Spore failed due to the lack of fan sites out there.
That said, the game's online componants are starting to fail. I just recently got out of a crippling connection bug that is spreading throughout the Spore userbase like a virus. It prevented me from getting about 4 months worth of created content.
Are you saying there's a direct confirmed correlation between piracy and poor sales? That's probably a place we shouldn't go, but that's also an intense thing to assume.
I think it depends on the type of piracy. There is the "I wonder what that game's like" piracy, where you try it out and if you like it you buy it. But if you pirate it specifically because of the DRM being restrictive, that sounds more like "boycott piracy", and then yes, it seems to me that would mean less sales since these people wanted to buy the game but changed their mind because of a decision they disliked, and opted for pirating it instead.
Which is what happened. I was at the front lines of the whole argument, but I was on the side of buying the product.
The thing is, this DRM thing is more or less moot now in the Spore community since Maxis released a deauthorization program that weakens/cancels most if not all of the DRM restrictions.
And ever since then, players have been upset they need the CD to start the game.
Note that I said "poor sales" not "lost sales." I'm sure there is some number of people who would have paid for a game were it not available to pirate. But something like, say, Modern Warfare, or The Sims, are probably pirated in huge numbers -- probably larger amounts of piracy than most games -- but they definitely don't have "poor sales."
I think it's more "you can't please everyone". Whatever you decide, some people (not always the same) are going to hate it with a passion, and be extremely vocal about it.
EDIT: Jake > True. Games have more chance to get pirated if they're famous, and they have more chance to be famous if they're successful.
I (apparently mistakenly) just read somewhere in an article online that the game didn't sell well, and that extremely restrictive DRM was to blame, or perhaps partially to blame.
It was an offhand comment saying I felt bad for him working so long on something that didn't work out more so than the piracy aspect. I didn't expect it to turn into a major debate over the ethics of piracy or the effectiveness of DRM and attract the ire of game developers.
Calling his fans "narcissistic" is the only thing that seems negative to me. I'm not necessarily saying he's wrong about it, I just think that it may have been a mistake to actually mention it because it might offend some people.
As for my opinion, I understand the similarity between any potentially addictive activity. The narcissistic comment is a bit rude, but understandable since, as Patters said, it can be a form of deepening immersion. My problem isn't so much with Will Wright's comments themselves as much as how the anti-gaming types are going to use them.
The restrictive DRM played a major role in the underperforming of the game (sold okay, but far less than expected). When it was announced, the internet became angry with people who had been looking forward to the game for years. They then raided places like Amazon, providing 1/2 stars, and very negative reviews, citing DRM as the reason (on amazon.co.uk, 407 1 star reviews!).The thing is, this wasn't down to quality for the most part. The expansion pack got four stars average afterall, and i have no doubt this is largely due to the internet having moved on.
People then saw these ratings and thought "oh, so the game's rubbish then?" and didn't bother with it. Piracy was also higher than usual due to the DRM (people thought something along the lines of: "why pay for a restricted invasive version, when you could have the unrestricted version for free?").
The irony is that the DRM was broken, and the game uploaded to the net a few days before the games official release date.
Yes, we are. Or at least me.
1- I avoid Online Anything. If I play an online something, I will play it a ton, so gets boring quickly.
2- I prefer games which do end.
3- When I play a somesort of arcade game and I have something to do, I use an alarm clock and a set time to remain me I have to still do stuff.
Just recently I was playing Facebook stuff like Farmville, because it's let me do another stuff apart of game. And one of the things I love of Telltale is the fact, by been episodic, I can play the same game by 5 months and still have life ^^!
If wasn't because I know I get addicted easily, I will not have that rules. In fact, a friend was surprised to discover I can be really inmersed in a game if I like.
My undergrad thesis was on this, believe it or not.
They aren't going to take it very well. If anything, they will lump it into the folder that suggests video games are dangerous. Any person obsessed with them is mentally unstable and blah blah blah...
The narcissistic comment is more or less true, in my opinion, but it isn't so much int he whole "recreate yourself in the Sims" thing so much as it an escapism thing. These are the traits I like about myself, these games feed those traits I like about myself, therefore, this game was made for me.
Yeah the game that shipped was definitely different than the game concept Will Wright exploded into people's brains at GDC 3 years ago.
From what I remember seeing and reading, he wanted the game to be more science oriented but felt that kind of gameplay would turn off a lot of players who didn't know what they were getting into. As a result, he trimmed back a lot of the science theory.
You wouldn't think that was the case if you go into the game post-Galactic Adventures, since the Spore community is very much about creating content that is enjoyable on one level or another. Which makes Wright's retirement from Maxis make more sense. I mean, heh, the players are doing his job for him.
He should look up a game called "Creatures". Complicated science won't turn off as many people as he thinks.
But I'm sure he Will Wright his wrongs. (hiyooo)
It wasn't just the scientific side (or lack of) that upset players, but the fact that other stages in the game were cancelled, most likely due to complexity. Apparently Spore was supposed to contain an "aqua" stage (between cell and creature, I believe) and the whole thing ended up being discarded. And that disappointed people.