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Electronic Arts finally got its Spore video game out of the door last night with a spectacular launch event at the new California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park.
Prior to a guided tour of the galaxies in the planetarium, Frank Drake, who formulated the Drake Equation on extraterrestrial life in 1960, gave a talk and Will Wright, Spore’s creator, made a presentation in his own inimitable style.
Wright, who justifies the genius tag, made it seem that his whole life had been a preparation for Spore. He described how he spent all his time building models as a kid growing up in the 60s. He was inspired by the race to the moon and the future predictions of that era - from nuclear-powered cars to space colonies.
He has been building robots since the 80s and has had a lifelong interest in astronomy.
All of this fits with the Spore experience where players create and evolve their own lifeforms and go on to populate planets and conquer space.
Wright began the research on this much anticipated game seven years ago, so its own evolution has been lengthy. It also makes you wonder where Wright has left to boldly go.
From SimCity and SimEarth in the 80s and 90s to the 100m-selling Sims in this decade, and now Spore, Wright has pretty much covered life as we know it and beyond.
But when I questioned him afterwards about whether he could take on the subject again on such a grand scale, he said:”You’d be surprised.”
“I’ve had some ideas I’ve been working on in the background. There are plenty of different ways of seeing the world. The Sims and Spore are both about life on different scales, but they are essentially about what life means.”
So another variation on his theme is apparently in the works, but probably on a Spore delivery timescale:
“It might take a while,” was his parting shot.
David Gelles, Joseph Menn, Chris Nuttall and Richard Waters in the FT's San Francisco bureau upload their views - plus tech insights from writers in New York, London and Tokyo
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