Like every other person I know who’s enjoyed a computer game at some point in their life, I’m anxiously awaiting next year’s release of Will Wright’s Spore. If you’re not one of those people, Spore is like a mash-up of every Sim* game before it: you go from a microscopic organism, to a land creature, to a city/civilization, to a space invader. What’s most ambitious about it, though, is not the theme or gameplay, it’s the content sharing mechanism.
There is no true multi-player in spore, like you see in a game like Sid Meier’s Civilization, but rather content sharing, more like Wright’s magnum opus, The Sims. Of course, in The Sims (and recent versions of Wright’s original best-seller, SimCity), custom content is received on a “pull” basis, meaning you have to seek it out and get it yourself. In Spore, content from other players will be pushed to you. In fact, as opposed to most games that are loaded with art and 3D models from the publisher, most of the content you see in Spore will be coming from other players. How this works is with a massive database of player content, hosted by Electronic Arts (Spore’s owner, and Wright’s current keeper), which will receive any content you create, and send you any content created by others. Of course, I haven’t seen the specifics on how this will prevent the otherwise inevitable outcome of every singe critter I come across being shaped like a giant cock or poorly proportioned and top-heavy naked lady, but I’m sure they have a plan.
It would seem the reason behind this revolution is Wright’s observations in The Sims and SimCity, where it became apparent that you could harm a franchise with too much complexity, and what people really want is limitless flexibility through modding and user created content. Will Wright himself even implied that SimCity has basically been taken as far as it can go without being so complicated that it’s not longer really fun, or even a game. Which is why I was so surprised to hear last week’s announcement of a definite upcoming SimCity 5 and The Sims 3.
My assumption from Wright’s interviews up to this point had been that we’ll basically see a dissolution of the separate old Maxis franchises, and Spore would take on The Sims’ famous expansion pack route to allow “SporeSims” and “SporeCity” add-ons (increasing focus in their respective game areas). In retrospect, it’s foolish to think that EA would allow such prolific franchises to be put at risk (The Sims 2 still dominates the top 10 best selling games list, holding 2-3 title positions at pretty much any given time), but the idea still may be sound.
EA took a lot of heat when Jack Thompson spoke out against The Sims 2 as “worse than hot coffee” and a “pedophile’s paradise,” because modders could theoretically swap out the default barbie & ken skins with more nipply ones. Ultimately nothing really came out of the accusations, since people pretty much stopped taking Thompson seriously, EA had actually done a lot to prevent that sort of thing (like a “censorship” blur whenever a sim disrobes), and as far as I know nobody has actually ever released any nude skins for the child models as he accused. But even groundless accusations are probably bad for business, so it would seem logical to apply whatever anti-dick filtering they’ll be using on spore content to The Sims, as well.
It makes a lot of sense, actually. Instead of going to an unaffiliated site for user-created content, EA could force users to swap hairdos within the game itself. All they’d need to do is call it a feature and give it some snappy name like “Integrated One-Click Hairdo Swapping (IOCHS),” and your girlfriend and grandma alike will appreciate how much easier they’ve made things. Or maybe they’ll even take the Second Life approach, and make separated adult and teen communities, since guys who want to see some sim titties probably make up a small but significant portion of sales.
Only time will tell if this sort of content distribution is a good or bad thing for its users. If it can find a way to create a seamless experience, without stifling my ability to hack away (like a certain technology that starts with “D” and rhymes with “Midgetal Rights Management”), then it could be pretty awesome. Imagine playing SimCity, and seeing buildings pop up that you’ve never seen before. Then again, imagine hideously designed or overtly phallic (as if most high-rises aren’t already phallic enough) buildings pop up that you never wanted to see in the first place. In The Sims, it might be handled better with some sort of shopping mall where I can buy new clothes in-game.
Of course, with EA’s recent track record with invasion of privacy, I can only see this sort of thing as all too tempting to them. Why, isn’t that new SimCity building a Burger King, complete with recent promotional billboard?
