Stories, games, the computer and the future
I’ve blogged about Will Wright (creator of Sim City and the Sims) before, discussing his new game Spore (see One videogame to rule them all?).
Besides being a great game designer Will is, as you would expect, an insightful thinker. Here is the text of a speech Will gave recently which describes many ideas of his on story telling and the mediums of movies and games: http://www.wonderlandblog.com/wonderland/2007/03/sxsw_will_wrigh.html
It is one of most insightful discussions of the nature of storytelling in movies and games I’ve ever read. It definitely should be read by anyone who wants to better understand human behavior, particularly with respect to movie storytelling or game storytelling.
Sony struggles in the video game wars
What video game console does the job that consumers want done the best?
Microsoft’s Xbox 360 has high definition graphics, a wide variety of great games, classic controllers, a vibrant online network, and is affordable.
Nintendo’s Wii has crappy graphics, a small amount of games, an innovative motion sensing controller and games intuitively adapted for that controller, a nascent online network, and is cheap (but hard to find).
Sony Playstation 3 has high definition graphics, a small set of games, classic controllers (with motion sensing that is barely utilized by the games), a nascent network, and is super expensive because of its bundled in high definition dvd player hardly anyone yet uses.
For a few months now it has seemed like the battle for supremacy is being fought by the Xbox 360 (getting the hard core gamers) and Wii (getting some hard core gamers and a lot of new to gaming casual users), with the Playstation 3 being a great and expensive flop. However, Sony hasn’t given up the fight.
Sony has announced Home, a free software download that allows your Playstation 3 to access a virtual world. A place to meet friends, hang out, show off. Like Second Life, Sony’s Home allows people to create representations of themselves that wander around fake environments and interact. It’s unclear how much Sony will allow you to customize Home, the way Second Lifers have been customizing that world.
Sony may only be the first out of the gate with a virtual world for its video console, but it’s an impressive step to couple a virtual world to high definition TV’s. Of course, creating a virtual world that is very pretty isn’t the same as creating an environment that people want to use. Myspace is mostly text, but it actually attracts alot of human interest in a way that it will take some time (if ever) for virtual worlds to duplicate.
For more on Sony’s Home, including a video of it, click here: http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/07/playstation-home-revealed/
Tetris documentary
The BBC has a pretty exhaustive documentary on the history of tetris. It starts off with the basic story, but then gets alot into the business deals that brought the game to the world. I would have preferred less discussion of the business deals and more on the theory of the game’s design. Nonetheless, for a tetris fanatic it may prove interesting.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4662636869909322164&q=tetris
Will Wright’s Spore: One videogame to rule them all?
In early 2007 genius video game designer Will Wright (the guy behind SimCity and the Sims) is releasing his newest game, Spore. It’s for certain coming to the Xbox 360, and is being published by Electronic Arts. It allows you to play a single cell organism pac-man like game, then a multicell organism doom like game, then a tribe game, then a city scope simcity like game, then a civilization game, then an interplanetary civlization game. Each step along the way you get to decide how things should look or evolve, and your world can be populated by the creations of other players.
Don’t understand how that would work exactly? Watch this video and be dazzled:
[googlevideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4776181634656145640 [/googlevideo]
