Will Wright: We "dumbed down" Spore for casual players and sales

chautemoc | September 08, 2008 | Interview | PC

MTV Multiplayer's Stephen Totilo spoke with Will Wright about the review scores Spore has been getting and if the game had been "dumbed down" for casual players, to which he said yes, responding "we decided — quite a while back — that we would rather have the Metacritic and sales of “Sims 2″ than the Metacritic and sales of “Half-Life.”

As wonderful as the content creation and sharing options are, the one consistent complaint I’ve seen is that the gameplay seems to have been “dumbed down” for the sake of appealing to a more casual audience. Was it?

“I’d say that’s quite accurate,” Wright told me. “We were very focused, if anything, on making a game for more casual players. “Spore” has more depth than, let’s say, “The Sims” did. But we looked at the Metacritic scores for “Sims 2″, which was around 90, and something like “Half-Life“, which was 97, and we decided — quite a while back — that we would rather have the Metacritic and sales of “Sims 2″ than the Metacritic and sales of “Half-Life.”

And one way of getting there is to present a narrower range of options than a hardcore player might be expecting?

“Yes,” he said. “Part of this, in some sense was: can we teach a “Sims” player to play an RTS [or Real Time Strategy game]? … I think the complexity we ended up with was toward that group.”

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The Sims 2 [PC]
Spore Creatures [Wii, DS, PC]
The Sims 2 [Mac, GBA, PSP, DS, PS2, GC, Xbox]

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Comments

2 thumbs!
Newcloud | September 08, 2008

thats the single worst thing anyone can say about there product a week after release
2 thumbs!
Daigoji_Gai | September 08, 2008

Newcloud - possibly, but only to us. I am realizing now (especially after the Nintendo E3 press conference) that gaming is now mainstream, and to capitalize on a big ROI for development and marketing of a game, it is smarter for major game developers to play up to the highest common denominator...

Yes, us hardcore old school gamers should be pissed, but this has been something coming for some time now. Look at Chris Taylor's Space Siege, the Deus Ex sequel invisible war, and the "console" friendly changes to The Elder Scrolls we saw in Oblivion... thankfully Oblivion for the PC had mod tools and clever modders that have made it far superior to the console versions and even added old school UI's and features from the more hardcore and previous elder scroll games but... yes...

Mainstream masses = dumb down the game = more money for game developers and publishers.

Sad, but true reality.
- 2 thumbs!
  AznLiquid | September 09, 2008
  
  But this just sounds like a lame comeback to all the criticism about Spore's weak gameplay after the first 30 minutes of Cell stage.
1 thumbs!
TheMarkedOne | September 09, 2008

Damn, I was half considering this title to add to my collection. I was always put of by the cutesy graphics though but now that they have dumbed it down there's no way im going to buy it until its in the bargain bins !
1 thumbs!
RabidChinaGirl | September 09, 2008

I think you guys are blowing things out of proportion. For one thing, HE never said it was "dumbed down," and the underlying idea here is that a game like Spore is meant to appeal to a greater audience, thus mandating less complex gameplay/lower learning curve. "Dumb down" is just the interviewer's own word choice, and based on what Wright tried to convey, I don't think it was meant to be that negative.

It's foolish for Daigoji_Gai to be comparing Spore's casual audience appeal (which follows in the footsteps of Sims) to that of games like Oblivion's console vs. PC versions. PC grants more options, and thus games have to be altered when they're developed for consoles to better suit a controller with an interface that's more console friendly. So now gamers need PC's to be considered "hardcore"? Preposterous.

Apples and oranges. Spore IS what it is, and I'm surprised people thought it was going to be the hardcore gamer's salvation. It will have its unique appeal, as Sims did, so either play it or don't. Don't flip out just because you're not a game's target demographic.

Yeah, more money for game developers and publishers -- so they can make more games.
- 0 thumbs!
  Daigoji_Gai | September 10, 2008
  
  It isn't foolish at all and RabidChinaGirl - I was acknowledging a trend that has been long in the coming, and it isn't compairing apples to oranges. You missed the point, I wasn't compairing a game with an appeal like SPORE to Oblivion, I was commenting on a shift occuring in the industry at large:
  
  1) I recommend you look at some of the comments made by Warren Spector regarding Deus Ex 2: Invisible War. He acknowledged THEN that this was a trend, that making a game less "complex" and "easily" accesible = wider appeal and better sales.
  
  2) I also recommend you read the comments from the fallout regarding the 2008 Nintendo E3 conference... there is a great MTV Mplayer article about it, that also talks about this shift in the gaming industry.
  
  It isn't flipping out - but a real trend that I and many other industry insiders have been commenting and observing for a long time.
  - 1 thumbs!
    RabidChinaGirl | September 10, 2008
    
    Well, I can further argue my own points, but it would be quite futile as people's opinions aren't so easily swayed, especially not over the internet. I am not disagreeing with you, either.
    
    All I cay say is that I was not only addressing your comment, merely cited it. Whatever your point was, you failed to convey it clearly the first time, and it is easy to misconstrue your intentions. If you include such examples in your comment, of course some might think you are making a comparison.
    
    If you'll notice, I did not argue against what you said, only stated that I feel your examples do not accurately reflect this situation. Whatever the trend in gaming may be, I believe Will Wright has a badge of sorts that can exempt him from this trend, as he did state that when they started creating Spore, they knew it would follow along the footsteps of games such as Sims, not Half-Life. It was presumptuous of gamers to think that Spore would fall in line with "hardcore" games and be targeting "hardcore" gamers.
    
    That is not to say it is a bad game.
    - 0 thumbs!
      Daigoji_Gai | September 11, 2008
      
      Poor examples? If you've been following the industry those examples ARE the benchmarks given the titles that came before them and the level of depth (and meta features) that the previous titles contained that the newer "more accessible" entries did not. Both game journalists and the creators themselves (of the titles I mentioned) have pointed to them as prime examples of the cultural shift in gaming... and given the early hype and comments from Will Wright (and the previous titles under his belt) many PC gamers that were following this game for years were naturally expecting something more akin to the depth of SimCity 2000 rather than The Sims.
      
      I don't think it was presumptuous at all, and no one is saying it is a "bad game" - just not the mental jugglefest of his previous titles pre-Sims, and that is why PC gamers, in particular, were throwing tantrums.
    - 2 thumbs!
      RabidChinaGirl | September 11, 2008
      
      What you said does make sense, so I'm not arguing against it. I just misunderstood your point in your original article.
      
      I don't disagree with the trend you portray. But my own feelings toward Spore are not as negative as some other gamers because I've been following its progress since an article about the game and Will Wright debuted in TIME magazine around 7 years ago. It was very exciting, but as time went on, I saw that the game was taking a direction which did not appeal to me as a picky gamer. That's not to say I think it's a BAD game, it just isn't no. 1 on my "to play" list right now.
0 thumbs!
Daigoji_Gai | September 12, 2008

No I agree with you as well... I will say that anyone that claims Spore doesn't have depth, doesn't fully understand the marvelous ecosystem and evolution model Wright was able to ambitiously turn into a game... it is insane and I don't think the complainers fully grasp what the game is.

I wouldn't be surprised if college level biology courses asked students to tinker around with it...
- 0 thumbs!
  Delslayer | October 17, 2008
  
  I'm sorry but no. If you think that any college level biology professor would even consider using this to teach anything on the topic of evolution then you obviously have no understanding of the theory of evolution. The Spore "evolution" model is intelligent design, and deserves no mentioning in any refutable science class; using spore in any science class would give an incorrect understanding of the underlying concepts of evolutionary science.
  Basically evolution isn't always beneficial and relies upon a number of factors. Birds didn't just evolve wings because they thought "hey this might just be helpful"(which is exactly what spore's "evolution" model would have you believe). Birds evolved wings as a result of millions of years of genetic variation, mutation, and natural selection acting upon all of the resulting traits, all the while eliminating species that share a common ancestor with modern day birds until finally only modern day birds were the last remaining survivors of that evolutionary line.
  
  But anyway I realize that this is a relatively old topic, I just wanted to clarify that any professor who uses spore in college level biology course needs to have his eyes gouged out while receiving a vicious skull *bleep*ing.