Masters of Your Universe

Will Wright, creator of SimCity and The Sims, is redefining the “god game” with Spore, which seeks to establish a mass online community of unlimited worlds and creatures. Players will have the opportunity to guide user-created avatars through six stages of evolution: Cell, Creature, Tribal, Civilization, and Space.

When put into practice, the game’s philosophy of maintaining life could inspire questions behind our own development as a species. Spore will be available on September 7^th. Download the Creature Creator for free.

Comments

Gaming worth our time?

Submitted by ST Frequency on Mon, 08/11/2008 - 11:42.

I have eschewed video gaming for years as a pointless drain of my time, money, and energy. But after watching this Spore demo presentation by Will Wright a few years ago, I thought I might have to make an exception. This is a truly incredible project. The object is to fluidly create your own universe of lifeforms, fom the cellular stage through evolutionary strata into the realms of UFOs and intergalactic community-building. In order to thrive and flourish as a species/planet, peaceful and sustainable practices are paramount. The micro-to-macro scope of the gameplay promises to inspire myopic minds to ponder the infinite breadth of life and existence.

The "procedural music" soundtrack to the game was designed by none other than Brian Eno. As edits and alterations are made by the player to the Spore creations/universe, subtle changes in the ambient score follow.

I doubt I'll give in and dedicate a few months of my life to Spore, but I do hope this game finds a wide audience among gamers.

sounds good, but...

Submitted by Somacub on Mon, 08/11/2008 - 12:49.

go read the message boards at amazon.com - the game (and the free demo) is packed with what amounts to spyware...seems to be a pretty big debate by the hardcore gamers on how to deal with such a blatant invasion of privacy

it's a shame though - like ST, i remember seeing early demos of the game years ago, and have been anticipating it's release ever since...never thought i'd have to debate the purchase on ethical grounds!

That's a very good point,

Submitted by Stephen Hershey on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 09:57.

That's a very good point, but this type of spyware is everywhere... i would rather take the risk to connect in such a potentially imaginative community, especially this late in the game.

is multiplayer "reality gaming" next?

Submitted by Fiz on Mon, 08/11/2008 - 16:05.

Though I too can't see myself spending months playing Spore, I do wonder what potential this quality of multiplayer gaming might hold for us in the near future. Rather than creating an alternative reality to spend one's time shaping and exploring, what if multiplayer online games cold shift their focus to life on Earth as it is now, allowing us to shape our common experience in uncommon ways? In other words, if the internet is to play a central role in replacing our current unsustainable government in the U.S., would a multiplayer computer application, somewhat like Spore perhaps, become a means for realizing and articulating our collective vision in real time?

Yup

Submitted by Moontrap on Sat, 08/16/2008 - 19:28.

Word! (that's like lingo innit) and thanks for the tip on Panarchy, i'm reading about it currently. I was thinking when walking my lupine derivative today that we may need to arrange an agreement between them that wants to jack-in essentially full time and those that want to maintain their place in the garden.

A weed in the narcissist's garden.

http://decontaminated-continuum.blogspot.com/

...

Submitted by Edutainment on Mon, 08/11/2008 - 18:55.

I'd love to say I hate to jump on the cynic wagon but... Oh how do I love thee little fiery red wagon. After spending time in the MMORPG realms it doesn't take long to realize the caliber of mindfulness you're dealing with, which is to say little to none. These games are made to sell "units" and continue selling more via expansion packs, not made to expand consciousness. The MMORPG world is just as fluxed up as this one or the next. And the little intelligentsia that is present in these games is far far far to immersed in the high fantasy of the luxurious entertainment (that's why they play) to even consider growing a head of cabbage with their free time never mind curing their myopia. It's an entertaining life sink. Machines fall WAY short of fulfilling what we hope they can at this point. Show me a machine that writes with the fluid playful eloquence of CJ Moore. The fire and conviction in Xanadu. And all the rest of you amazing people. The real quality software designers already understand the problem inherent in luxury on this scale, that's why they construct monkey wrenches to throw in the cogs of the Frankenstein, hence the spyware etc (you will not find spyware or any of this other crap in the Operations outside coporations, violence begets violence) ... Locke, Newton, Smith, Descartes, and Bacon are all laughing right now. I just hope im around to see them eat this crap that we inherited. Ive got some serious gripes with machines. And im touching one right now! Yuck!

Counterpoint

Submitted by Martin D. Anderson on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 10:49.

I think it's very exciting that such a game is coming onto the market. The virtue in such a game is that the "player" is actually the "author" as well. We are moving into an era where software tools are given to people that, in effect, allow them to "program" the story-telling of the software itself. As Doug Rushkoff recently said (paraphrasing) "The opportunity we're getting in this media renaissance of the computer is not writing...the medium we're getting now is a programming medium." Spore is a huge step in creating a participatory psychology when it comes to one's entertainment. Even in MMORPG's, as Clay Shirky points out, at least the player is doing something. Yes, it's not actual, participatory democracy, but this stuff isn't going to happen overnight, and it's not going to happen by grousing about how we're all being manipulated. It's going to happen by transforming our entertainment in palatable and tolerable stages into a form that involves active and willful engagement. Spore has limits - one is still operating within the constraints of a construct, but it's a step in the right direction. And guess what? If it's a success, there will be a greater demand for this type of game, which will spur further innovation and push the form into something even more participatory. The next game might just be a create-your-own-democracy type of game. The fact that the constituents of this hypothetical game might be elves, dwarves and orcs does not unqualifiably condemn the game to be a disassociative, escapist activity. Fantasy can have a lot more to do with reality than one might think.

Fantasy

Submitted by Edutainment on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 13:49.

While fantasy does play an credible role in this world I can not help but see these "advancements" in compartmentalized entertainment as anything BUT, a beyond fantastic feedback loop, yea a compartment. The idea is that this technology is crafted by us, we proceed its existence and as ever changing cognizant beings as soon as a software/machine we craft is "complete" it is already obsolete because the master has already developed a new set of needs by the very act of completion of the craft. Therefore a machine can not, unless made to be cognizant (in which case why not just make a human baby), be a valuable substitute for organismal interactive fantasy, otherwise known as Life. Or, until this technology can advance its relationship with its predecessor on its own (like a human baby), it will in no way be of any real value to our reality, unless you like treadmills. And if the day does come that these machines (or software's) do in fact look to their predecessors (humans) and declare them obsolete, well?... I'd argue that it's compartmentalized to even dream a machine is capable of processing cognition (which is capable of speeds WAY faster than light, being that it gains momentum exponentially, its speed is not fixed). Not to mention a machine of this magnitude would undoubtedly require resources the likes of which probably do not exist in our closed circuit solar nursery. Unless of course this software you're referring to is actually just us, in which case have fun on this gerbil treadmill feed back loop of pseudo-entertainment. Did that make any sense?

The distinction I would

Submitted by Martin D. Anderson on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 17:20.

The distinction I would make is of the "ghost-in-the-machine" variant, except it's really more of a "we-in-the-machine". Game software in general and Spore-ish software in particular isn't some automaton that is running in parallel to us. We are the will of the software on a ever-deepening level. It's more akin to riding a bike than it is a mechanical process in and of itself.

The pleasure of these games comes not necessarily from how the game is playing out in the pre-structured universe but the story we bring to it, that we layer on to it, how we imagine the inner life of the little creature might be and then directing it with the multivarious tools available. It is a cyborg-like process, not a cybernetic one, just as a great running shoe makes us a cyborg. It isn't a substitute for organismal interaction, it is a hybrid mode of interaction distinct and unique, just as this online "conversation" we're having is both machine and human. Do I think a face-to-face chat with you would be a more fulfilling human experience? Yes. But new forms of entertainment aren't value-less by virtue of involving bits and bytes, they are simply mediations of the human experience that give us new types of experiences. Do I think we are an over-mediated culture? Yes. But I also think mediations are not all equal and some have more progressive value to society and culture than others. What about the virtual-reality gear that is used in medical operations in which anesthesia can't be used? Anecdotal evidence shows that patients whose visual and auditory landscape is that of natural scenes of great beauty suffer less with it. This may be compartmentalization but it has great value in that circumstance. The challenge, to my mind, is weeding out those activities that genuinely numb us to our living world and those that enliven and hold us "between" in ways that help us have a deeper appreciation and understanding of ourselves and the world.

In other words, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I dont throw babies

Submitted by Edutainment on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 19:35.

But if Im reading this right and it's nano nucleotic cyborg summoning you're talking about then I say let the babies Fly! Kidding of course, I don't throw babies. Interesting you brought up the medical uses of these devices. I'm pretty torn up by the vast medical field right now. All those great folks genuinely want to help people get better but the majority of them are just concentrating on the aftermath of crisis when perhaps a more "predictive focused" research type could stop the need for any suffering at all. Maybe the problem is there is no fame in the cure? No money? One does need to eat.

Spyware and you can't just go anywhere...

Submitted by Greycat on Mon, 08/18/2008 - 00:32.

The spyware is in place for as many reasons as there are layers to the controlling powers. But somewhere, around the top, you might find it there to monitor what types of realities people are creating.

Think about it, we all have these worlds inside our heads that we call the universe. Most of us are so distracted by work and money and inter-relationships to really define those worlds.

But put that concept into one of the top distractions on the planet right now, the PC, and you get a grand psychological experiment of whats going on in people's heads. Probably without most of them even being AWARE of it.

Talk about a big blinking eye on the back of a dollar bill...

SPORE ain't a good or bad thing, it's just a mirror of what we all are creating. I for one am curious as a hellcat to see where this goes. Who knows, I might even create a world itself and see what happens.

Edutainment wrote:

" Show me a machine that writes with the fluid playful eloquence of CJ Moore."

Language has been around for quite a long time, hence it's eloquence in creation. Computers have been around for what? Less than 100 years.

In many ways, language is JUST as limited as computers are (Sorry, sorry, Love me! Love me!). At least, they get us in as much trouble as compuers do.

Digestion

Submitted by Edutainment on Mon, 08/18/2008 - 09:05.

"In many ways, language is JUST as limited as computers are (Sorry, sorry, Love me! Love me!). At least, they get us in as much trouble as computers do."

You are brave indeed. Not because I don't love you, I do. Because you speak the unspeakable. Here we are using both language and computers, how dare you observe their limitations? I'm winking agreeably but you can't see me behind this veil.

Slavoj Zizek, that crazy sociologist type dude, likes to point out the importance of hard line personal belief system critiques. I couldn't agree with him more. Also in an interview from Propaganda Anonymous, Robert Anton Wilson pointed out "My areas of ignorance are absolutely staggering." But these are not acts of heroics, these humble notions are older than words.

When we begin, not just to say "I am ignorant", but to live it, we allow ourselves the permission to observe the otherwise unspeakable. Our shortcomings.

Some of the shortcomings of our language are stunning. We boldly, sometimes arogantly, sometimes innocently, attempt to capture and contain the ethereal stuff of sentience. We impose this action upon reality in a vain attempt to find our way to a singular understanding of purpose, an eloquent unified explanation of the question, "why?"

Frustratingly, Our long broken tools (such as language in our current understanding) just do not seem capable of pulling it all together. This is likely because our methodology is flawed and this flaw is so pervassive in our thought patterns that we take it for granted. Like the sun, earth, moon and stars. Because they are so constant they are prone to ignorance.

So what is it that is broken about language and our methodology? Why can't we get to this "Why?" I believe it is the very act of observing this question which separates us from the answer. The moment "why?" is observed it is no longer "why?" It becomes not a singular entity because our methods of knowing involve separating concepts into fragments for digestion. For example: An apple is an apple until we begin to observe it's qualities. Then it becomes "Red," "spherical," "smooth." So it is in the method of observation that knowing becomes an exponentialy fantastic journey.

We do not need machines to show us the fantastic wonderment which they very poorly emmulate, they need us.

I love you more than you know.