Seed article about devteam's debates over science vs cute

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 09/26/2008 19:09:06

I'm not seeing the smoking gun some of you are seeing. The way some of you describe it, Will Wright grudgingly conceded to the "cute" faction when rather I think it was his sensibilities as a game designer that won out. Did he want a high brow simulation that would only appeal to a small niche of hardcore science geeks, or did he want a game that a large number of people would enjoy playing? Obviously it was the latter. As the head of Maxis, I'm almost certain he had final say on game design decisions, so I really doubt he was bullied into compliance by his team.

theultimateend wrote:

nykara wrote:

darwintheory wrote:That guys a freakin idiot (not Will he cool). I simply fail to understand why the
cuteness was nesscary. Look at other games (hunting, RPG, FPS) they don't need
cuteness and they sell millions of copies. *sigh* maybe some day they will create
a realistic add-on to make the game look better. Don't get me wrong, I like the current
Spore but that "Cute Man" should be fired as I see him as the reason Spore dissappointed
many, he killed Science Spore!

Yeah but then you need to look at World of Warcraft over a lot of the other MMO's that are out there. It's the *most* popular out of all of them and it is cartoonish. The fact is cute sells. There's also a reason why the alliance side in WoW was always more popular then horde - again because people want cute little gnomes or night elves instead of things that look like Bulls or have huge ugly tusks.

Some people in here have made some very realistic and not-cute designs and other people have made cute designs. My personal tastes is for cute (That's why my favorite animals are things like rabbits and koala's and dogs and cats because they are all cute) the way I see the current set up though is that it caters for all kinds of styles and preferences.

If you think the graphics are why wow sells you really should never get into game development.

Your projects will tank.

Badly

WoW's popularity as the biggest outlier in MMO history (I'd even say gaming history, but don't have numbers for that one) are due to three things:
1) Produced by a big name company people already liked and knew (Blizzard)
2) Used that company's most popular IP (Warcraft)
3) Had money thrown at it by that company to make it thrive

mflux wrote:I got my girlfriend to sit down for a few hours to play Spore today. Being a non-gamer she got from Cell to Tribe with my help. So far she's had the most fun in the Cell stage.

Then she turned to me and we had a conversation like this:

her: "So... if I put more eyes on my cell, he can see other creatures better?"
me: "No. Putting more eyes on it doesn't matter."
her: "Really? It seemed like the bigger creatures with spikes and a dozen eyes found me a lot easier."
me: "Actually, adding a dozen eyes is the same thing as having one eye, and it doesn't matter where you put them."
her: "Oh."

I'll add, the "Oh" being expressed with disappointment. Excitement was building because Spore was almost suggesting that her changes (like the eyes) made a difference in the game world, but it did not.

I guess someone could counter-argue that placing spikes versus spit parts does make a difference. However I think these decisions never map consistently to consequences.

A HA! They were wrong! Ok, this is only 1 person's reaction. But i'm sure that people wouldn't of been put off (as much as they seemed to imply) with procedural creature creation. And furthermore, I've posted about the fact that it does remove a bit of the incentive to experiement with the creator. Now it's just a 3d model I have to assemble that has no bearing on the game.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 09/26/2008 19:18:35

You forgot one more

4) Was designed by the most diabolically dedicated game-balancing team ever assembled.

See Starcraft patch history....

blanketyblankman wrote:

WoW's popularity as the biggest outlier in MMO history (I'd even say gaming history, but don't have numbers for that one) are due to three things:
1) Produced by a big name company people already liked and knew (Blizzard)
2) Used that company's most popular IP (Warcraft)
3) Had money thrown at it by that company to make it thrive

WoW really plays no part in the discussion of Spore, but meh....

WoW did well because they made an EXCELLENT MMO 1-60. WoW up to about level 50 was the most fun I've had in an MMO, but then they changed dev teams and turned it in a grind game.

WoW itself though, pre-end game is very well done with a lot of care and detail.

Again what WoW has to do with Spore I don't know.

WoW really plays no part in the discussion of Spore, but meh....

I know this is a bit out of context but Blizzard should be taken as some kind of golden standard for product support. Even non-MMO games they've made in the past they've supported their player-base and fan-base through years and years of patches. The games initially designed and released by Blizzard rarely resemble the games that we see today. They are truly the kings of product/community support.

mountainman wrote:I'm not seeing the smoking gun some of you are seeing. The way some of you describe it, Will Wright grudgingly conceded to the "cute" faction when rather I think it was his sensibilities as a game designer that won out. Did he want a high brow simulation that would only appeal to a small niche of hardcore science geeks, or did he want a game that a large number of people would enjoy playing? Obviously it was the latter. As the head of Maxis, I'm almost certain he had final say on game design decisions, so I really doubt he was bullied into compliance by his team.

Will clearly sold himself, what a shame. But thats what happens in a capitalist world.

mountainman wrote:I'm not seeing the smoking gun some of you are seeing. The way some of you describe it, Will Wright grudgingly conceded to the "cute" faction when rather I think it was his sensibilities as a game designer that won out. Did he want a high brow simulation that would only appeal to a small niche of hardcore science geeks, or did he want a game that a large number of people would enjoy playing? Obviously it was the latter. As the head of Maxis, I'm almost certain he had final say on game design decisions, so I really doubt he was bullied into compliance by his team.

Nobody gives me the numbers of this small niche crowd.

Because when I go to places like pax, space conventions, technology conventions, or watch conventions on TV I see cumulative at least a few million people.

So when did a few million people become a niche market?

Because if it is I'd like to point you to the worlds largest MMO and it's niche market.

I really can't see what you or that article discuss.

There's nothing wrong with cuteness. And it's 100% compatible with science. That entire article gave me a creeping feeling all over. Someone has used idiotic reasoning as a silly excuse to subvert gameplay. And now someone is using the same crap logic as an excuse for how much Spore sucks when it comes to evolution principles (and gameplay).

Spore is blatantly anti evolution, anti science. Just about every other game I have, and they're many, teach science better than Spore. Just get rid of the science spin.

Not that I really care. I don't need Spore to teach me evolution. I need Spore to be fun (and it could have been better in that department) But I do need it to NOT TO MISREPRESENT THAT 'INTELLIGENT DESIGN' IS SCIENCE!

So get rid of the science marketing spin. EA and Maxis should really be more careful. They need to thread very carefully when it comes to evolutionsts toes. If they are worried about the religious rightwing, they are worried about the wrong group.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 09/26/2008 21:36:12

I'm not seeing the smoking gun some of you are seeing. The way some of you describe it, Will Wright grudgingly conceded to the "cute" faction when rather I think it was his sensibilities as a game designer that won out. Did he want a high brow simulation that would only appeal to a small niche of hardcore science geeks, or did he want a game that a large number of people would enjoy playing? Obviously it was the latter. As the head of Maxis, I'm almost certain he had final say on game design decisions, so I really doubt he was bullied into compliance by his team.

So... you're saying Spore appeals to the lowbrow? As in... stupid people? That is what the opposite of highbrow implies, and the fact you say a large number indicates that this game was made for the portion of the population that prefers pop music, slapstick comedy, and WWE.

Edited one spelling error.
Oh, and I'm not saying people who enjoy the pop, slap, or WWE are stupid - however it is the populist lowbrow form of society as defined.

Vhorthex wrote:Just to add some more spice,

I love how in this article they tackle the procedural creature creation. Rather than simply add tutorials explaining the functions of the creator, like explaining all if any consequence on your creature. Like for the 5 leg example. Once you add the 5th leg, the "speed" indicator on the stats bar could change to red and have a tool tip "Too many legs impair movement". Or "Sections of body are too heavy making the creature move slower". Wtv, i'm not saying this messages are pure gold and explain the entire problematic. But I think some of you will see what i'm getting at.

And anyways, What they said about the fact that having procedural creature creation would limit the creativity of people. In the sense that oh I can't make an 8 legged creature that runs super fast, how is that fixed in the current creature creator? Since parts are linked to wtv "attack/activity" the player is forced to chose these pieces to have a succesful creature. As much as putting no eyes makes the game harder to play, in what is that different than making an unbalanced creature and not having it funciton in an "optimal way".

And if anything, wouldn't of the procedural creature creation actually make people think when they create? In the sense of you make this funny looking creature. But when you start using it you realize that certain tweaks need to be made. And this approach would lead to discoveries of optimal placements or funny/bad results.

See in this field, the "simplyfing" of creature creation actually makes me less inclined to design anything special for, you just slap on the lvl 5 mouth and the level 5 feet, and the creature is fine. So theres no incentive of creative thinking as far as for impact on gameplay.

Couldn't agree more! And I don't understand why the idea of compromise (which evolution is all about) is thrown out in this game. Ok - you make a heavy creature that can't run fast, but his weight adds to his defense and his attack. Or maybe instead of running fast he has big horns that he uses as weapons. Instead there is indeed little creativity involved in creating my creature. I pick the pieces that I need to "stick on" my creatue so that I can dance better for creatures who share similar or lesser stats. Instead of feeling like I'm in a living ecosystem I feel like playing some stupid dance party game.

And to SpongB6F1, you're so right about legos. To actually build something that rolls along the ground you need to put wheels on the bottom of it - and one wheel's probably not gonna cut it. In the Spore world you can put anything any where. Maybe that's great for the creative minds of 3 and 4 year olds, but get above that a bit and kids need more stimulation (I think). Which is why legos are so succesful. Yes, you can build ANYTHING you can dream of, but whatever you build has to follow some rules. Maybe a little carried away with the Lego analogy, but what the hell

Vhorthex wrote:

mflux wrote:I got my girlfriend to sit down for a few hours to play Spore today. Being a non-gamer she got from Cell to Tribe with my help. So far she's had the most fun in the Cell stage.

Then she turned to me and we had a conversation like this:

her: "So... if I put more eyes on my cell, he can see other creatures better?"
me: "No. Putting more eyes on it doesn't matter."
her: "Really? It seemed like the bigger creatures with spikes and a dozen eyes found me a lot easier."
me: "Actually, adding a dozen eyes is the same thing as having one eye, and it doesn't matter where you put them."
her: "Oh."

I'll add, the "Oh" being expressed with disappointment. Excitement was building because Spore was almost suggesting that her changes (like the eyes) made a difference in the game world, but it did not.

I guess someone could counter-argue that placing spikes versus spit parts does make a difference. However I think these decisions never map consistently to consequences.

A HA! They were wrong! Ok, this is only 1 person's reaction. But i'm sure that people wouldn't of been put off (as much as they seemed to imply) with procedural creature creation. And furthermore, I've posted about the fact that it does remove a bit of the incentive to experiement with the creator. Now it's just a 3d model I have to assemble that has no bearing on the game.

Not only that, but I find myself rushing through because there is no need to experiment. I mean, what's the point?

Hammarskjold wrote:

spec24 wrote:Will's own beliefs (which he happily sold for just a little more)

That really seems uncalled for. "Happily"? How could you know this?

-FrL-

Because, as others have stated, he is the head man. He has a name - Will Wright. And people in the industry treat this person like he's some kind of software God. If Will had wanted to make it so, it would have been made so. Will could have sold Spore off the Maxis website and other online download sites, cut EA out of the mix, and probably made more money in the long run (no need to share with the giant money sucker EA).

spec24 wrote:Will could have sold Spore off the Maxis website and other online download sites, cut EA out of the mix, and probably made more money in the long run (no need to share with the giant money sucker EA).

But would Maxis have had enough money to fund the development?

parvati wrote:

spec24 wrote:Will could have sold Spore off the Maxis website and other online download sites, cut EA out of the mix, and probably made more money in the long run (no need to share with the giant money sucker EA).

But would Maxis have had enough money to fund the development?

That's true, considering Maxis is owned by EA rather than just being the publisher... that does make it a bit harder

Will would've had to start a new company.