As I searched for something to talk about today, I came across this article from Joystiq featuring a discussion by Will Wright about Spore and the gaming industry.
For those of you who don't know Will Wright, he's not only the creator of Spore, but he's also the creator of the Sims franchise, and arguably one of the greatest game developers of all time.
And yet, I'd venture to say that at least some of you reading this have never heard of Will Wright before. I'll bet you've played the Sims and may even know about Spore, but you had no idea who Will Wright is.
If that's true, the blame shouldn't be placed on you and you certainly shouldn't be expected to perform research just to find out who develops a specific game. Instead, the blame should be placed squarely on the video game industry, and more specifically, major companies like Take-Two and Electronic Arts, for creating an environment where anonymity is not only accepted, but expected as well.
And if you ask me, that's just wrong.
... Read moreDon Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
When designing characters for Spore, players will have a wide selection of body parts to choose from.
(Credit: Electronic Arts/Maxis)
Attention gamers: If you're looking forward to the taking a hands-on role with the forthcoming Spore, you've got work to do starting June 17.
That's when Electronic Arts and Maxis plan to release the Spore Creature Creator, in both a free, downloadable demo version and a $9.99 retail version (or 9.99 euros, for buyers in much of Europe). The demo version will be available from Spore.com and also will be included with The SimCity, due to be released June 23.
The retail edition provides access to all the creature-making parts for Spore, while the demo version is limited to 25 percent of those parts. Gamers will be able to share their creations with friends, via routes including uploads to YouTube.
In Spore, a long-awaited game from Sims creator Wil Wright, gamers will get a taste of evolution, taking their characters from primordial existence to civilization. (Wright has set a high standard for success--The Sims recently logged its 100 millionth sale.) Besides the individual characters, Spore-ophiles will be able to establish tribes and conjure up buildings and vehicles, including UFOs.
The hands-on work of shaping and painting fantastical critters with Creature Creator won't be just a preliminary exercise, to be abandoned when Spore arrives in September. Gamers will be able to import their creations into the retail version of the game.
Spore for the PC and the Mac is set to debut September 5 in Europe and then two days later in North America, and a version for the Nintendo DS is also due at that time. A version for the Nintendo Wii will come sometime later--it's still in the "early prototyping phase," according to the Spore FAQ.
For more preview images of Spore, see this CNET News.com gallery: Images: Conjuring creatures in EA's 'Spore.'"
At Apple headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., Thursday, the company officially launched the iPhone software development kit, which lets other companies create applications for the device. Here are a few videos from the event, courtesy of ZDNet.
Steve Jobs unveils iPhone App Store, where third parties can sell their iPhoneware.
Electronic Arts demos its new 'Spore' game on the iPhone.
Salesforce.com brings analytics, business intelligence apps to the iPhone.
iPhone update integrates AOL instant messaging.
The long-awaited iPhone software development kit, which will be released in June, was finally unveiled Thursday.
And with it came a few applications, developed in a couple weeks by some very high-profile names in tech. Apple demonstrated seven new applications in a variety of categories: business, communications, and games.
• Touch FX: Adds Photo Booth-style effects to a photo using your finger on the iPhone touch screen. Pinch or tap to introduce fun-house mirror style effects.
• Touch Fighter: The first official game for the iPhone, developed by Apple engineers over two weeks. You fly through space and steer by using the iPhone like a pretend control wheel, with both hands on the side.
• Spore: Electronic Arts created a mobile version of the game.
• Salesforce.com management application: Salesforce.com created an application that does more than you can do with its Web-based application. For instance, it can talk to Maps to plot directions to your next appointment, figure out how many more widgets you need to sell to make your quota, and more.
• AIM: AOL made an iPhone version of the instant-messaging service. You can switch between conversations with a swipe of the finger, like if you're scrolling through photos on the iPhone. You can also upload photos from your iPhone to serve as your buddy icon.
• Medical records app: Epocrates, a maker of software for medical professionals built a native iPhone application that can access an SQL database for accessing medical information, pictures of pills, and checking for potentially harmful drug interactions.
• Super Monkey Ball: A game from Sega. A skiing game, where you hurtle down a ramp trying to get bananas, and other things. It uses the accelerometer for control, just like Tough Fighter.
See my colleague Tom Krazit's blow-by-blow chronicling of the event as it unfolded in Cupertino on Thursday morning.
CNET News.com's Tom Krazit contributed to this report.
'Spore' in action.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)This post has been updated to confirm when we should expect an official announcement from EA.
As has been anticipated, Electronic Arts is set to announce Tuesday that it will be bringing its highly anticipated game Spore to the Mac sometime in 2008. It's a big deal, because PC and Mac versions of a game are often released months apart, if at all--some major game manufacturers skip the Mac platform altogether because they simply don't see the market value. EA, however, plans to bring Spore to both platforms simultaneously.
The announcement has been timed in conjunction with--you guessed it--the Macworld Expo.
The premise of Spore, the latest project from SimCity and The Sims creator Will Wright, is to evolve a custom creature through the entire evolutionary process, starting as a one-cell organism and eventually going on to turn it into a highly evolved being that can conquer intergalactic societies.
EA representatives told CNET News.com that an official announcement should be out around 12:00 p.m. PST time on Tuesday.
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