Breakfast with Will Wright

Posted on April 29, 2007 by

Spore may not be complete, but work on the game has reached the home stretch. Now, instead of needing to explain what his game is about, legendary game designer Will Wright can demonstrate the levels of evolution in his game; he has creature-design tools to show.

Having recently had his face plastered on the cover of WIRED Magazine, Wright has reached a new kind of celebrity status few game designers will ever see. He is, for lack of a better term, the game designer for the masses. Cliffy B, Peter Molyneux, and the team at id Software may make the games that get gamers frothing at the mouth, but when it comes to computer games that appeal to a truly wide audience, no one competes with Wright.

As E3 2006 gets underway, here is what Will Wright has to say for himself.

WW: We're saying that Spore is coming out in 2007. The message that we are getting from [Electronic Arts] corporate is "Don't screw it up," which is great. What they mean is, "Lets get it right." This will be the game's last E3.

GameSpy: So it will come out in the first quarter of 2007?

WW: Probably just after that, though we are not being precise. What we are saying is just outside the fiscal year, which is March.

GameSpy: So April or early May?

WW: Yeah. Right.

GameSpy: Still PC only?

WW: Well, actually we are going to go on all platforms, but we will come out on PC first. We will even come out on cell phones and stuff. One of the things in the game is that as you go around and encounter things… creatures and plants, or whatever, you make trading cards of each thing. That is the metaphor for the database -- trading cards. So you can collect your cards. You can print them out. You can now play your own card game. That might be like the cell phone part. That stuff is so light. It's more about collectability as opposed to interaction. Every creature in the PC game is three or four megabytes. But the cards, that is the database that the player is building.

GameSpy: But the game itself is still "massively single-player"? (The term "massively single-player," which Wright created to describe Spore, refers to the concept that the creatures and plants and even cities that players create will be duplicated in an online database and duplicated in other players' games.)

WW: We could build a persistent world around Spore quite easily. First of all, 95 percent of the stars and planets will be offline. Nobody can speed up time. You cannot be all-powerful all of a sudden. I think it [a multi-player arena] is a separate universe that you need to go into. It's a new galaxy.

GameSpy: Have you started on your next project for after Spore?

WW: Oh, I always have so many ideas. No, I haven't actually started to work on a project. Usually about six months before I finish a game, I start to get serious about the next one. I'm still kind of batting around ideas. I am working on a book right now. I'm about halfway through the organization of it. The book is on design; it is a general design book. It's going to be a very graphic book.

GameSpy: How big is the Spore team?

WW: Our maximum team size is about 70 people, which is very small by today's standards.

GameSpy: I keep hearing about blockbuster games made by teams of 300 people.

WW: The Godfather had about 240, so having a team of about 70 feels really good. Basically we are outsourcing the artwork to the players. They are designing the creatures, vehicles, cities, planets. They are designing everything… the plants. Pretty much everything in the game.

To build the creatures, you are starting out with parts. We have seven part categories -- feet, mouth, weapons… Each category has four columns of parts, and each column has eight or nine choices. As your brain level increases, you unlock more columns. All in all we have about 400 creature parts. Each of these parts also has morphs. GameSpy: So what are the odds of two people getting the exact same evolved creature without copying each other?
WW: Extremely low. Extremely low.
GameSpy: If I wanted to replicate a creature you made, could I do it?
WW: You would be able to do a pretty close approximation of it, but it would not be exact.
GameSpy: So who do you consider the best PC game designers in the world?
WW: I would put Peter Molyneux and Sid Meier at the top of the list. There were some people who I think would have been up there except they kind of took weird turns. Alex Garden… Of all the odd things, he went off and started a company that sells automated parking systems.
GameSpy: What about John Carmack?
WW: I don't think of him as a game designer. He is a technologist. He is the best in the world at what he does… by far.

I respect the Bioware guys a lot. Peter Molyneux and I almost merged our companies quite a few years ago. Bullfrog and Maxis came really close to merging.
GameSpy: That would have been a good fit.
WW: It would have been tricky because of the distance and all. Peter and I, you know, the creative guys, did not clash. The business guys decided that it did not make sense.

Oh, one more computer [game] designer who I really like is Tim Schafer. I don't like adventure games at all except for his. Grim Fandango was really a masterpiece.

I guess in console, there are only certain games that I spend a lot of time playing. Lately it has been Guitar Hero, only because Sid [Meier] talked me into playing it. He told me how great it was. Sid's addicted to that game.
GameSpy: I've got to ask, how do you think Sony will do with that $600 price point?
WW: Six hundred bucks; that is a lot of money. I'm rooting for Nintendo. What I don't like is that the way the Wii controller works depends a lot on how close you are to your TV. If you are five feet away it feels one way. If you are 10 feet away, it feels completely different.
GameSpy: What games are you playing these days?
WW: I am playing with my DS a lot. I am playing Brain Age and Sudoku.
GameSpy: How old is your brain?
WW: It's down to like 29. I did not like the original DS very much, but this new one [DS Lite] feels like an Apple product. It's heavier, smaller, and has a really nice screen. It's a lot brighter.
Breakfast ends, and Wright starts towards the Convention Center. He will spend the next nine hours in a small room giving demo after demo of Spore. As he leaves, two people recognize him and ask about Spore or simply think him for all of the great games he has created.

"Does that happen more now, since you have been on the cover of WIRED?" I ask.

Wright laughs. "I get recognized maybe once or twice a day. The WIRED cover hasn't changed my life."

He may be the most recognized face in computer games, but Will Wright always has a friendly word when people approach him. He answers this question, shakes that hand, and thanks some person for the complement, then heads to the convention center for Spore's day in the sun.