Over a month after it happened, I stumbled on this article on Will Wright’s GDC keynote. The entire keynote was a demo of his new game-in-progress, Spore, which is quite the revolutionary product.

Wright is the guy who created Sim City, and the recent industry darling, The Sims. As anyone who grew up in the 80’s remembers, there were dozens of Sim games, on every level, from Earth to Tower (a personal fav). Though Wright wasn’t directly involved with most of those, he was overseeing the development of the franchise, and had some provocative ideas about where it was going. Before The Sims was released, I read an interview with Wright that hinted at what he was really after: a scalable simulated world, where you could zoom out to play world builder, zoom in to manage the mico-economics of a lemonade stand, and everything in between. This Sim universe would be one engine running multiple games which would plug in to it, providing something for every kind (and age) of gamer. It’s basis would be all user-created content - every aspect of the universe would be create-able and change-able by the user.

Since that time, Maxis was swallowed and then dismantled, and The Sims became a worldwide phenomenon, drawing in millions of people who never thought they’d be addicted to a videogame. Both of these things had a profound effect on the notion of the Sim universe. The destruction of Maxis meant that the Sim engines, which were growing closer and closer together, were shelved and allowed to stagnate, while the rest of the industry marched into 3D. Meanwhile, The Sims demonstrated the power and appeal of social simulations, which were undeniably more accessible than economic simulations. And although The Sims Online proved less successful, the ability to share your sims and objects online in the original game (and sequel) was incredibly popular, proving that there was a market for internet-assisted interaction in these social sims.

At the same time, other games bloated with intense 3D graphics and huge new stories that required months of dedication to complete. As we move to next-gen hardware and software, companies like EA continue to expand outward and upward, considering it their life’s work to make the most realistic, complex racing game ever imagined. Customization was in, but who wanted to bother going through the trouble of creating something from scratch? That was work, right? And work isn’t fun…right?

Well, some of us are allergic to the EA bigger-faster-better mentality. It’s always struck me as a supreme example of machismo, reflecting the supreme influence of action-movie-addicted straight boys in the gaming world.

So, what’s a gaming genius like Will Wright to do? His games are slow and thoughtful, and require you to spend some time with the game before you get your reward. But he’s thinking about the industry and the art formmore than those EA execs, and he sees them heading for a crash-and-burn. Sooner, rather than later, their games will require so many artists and coders to produce that it will be impossible to make them profitable. Enter Spore: combine the long-coming dream of an extensible, scalable Sim Universe with the internet-assisted social simulation of The Sims. Spore is a scalable social simulation, and every piece of content is created by users - locally and over the internet. His team develops the incredibly adept game engine and interface, our team develops the content. Simple, elegant. And intuitive.

Spore scales organically, in a way that seems completely natural: rather than present you with the hundreds of options of how to play, the game evolves, just like we do. You start out as a single cell, and eventually evolve through multi-cells into a mammal. Then a city, then a civilization, then a planet, then a galaxy. Every step of the way, you’re given tools to create your creature, buildings, vehicles, etc., and the software figures out how they work. Wright made a three-legged creature, and the game engine decided that it walked left-right-center, and limped a bit. At the civilization-buidling level, his Dr. Seuss-esque creatures were attacked by Star Wars-esque creatures, which were the original creation of another gamer. They’re easily transmitted over the internet, because the game just needs to send instructions - all the graphics and AI are stored locally. This allows, at the galactic level, for thousands of gamers to encounter each others’ worlds.

The biggest innovation, technically speaking, is the user-generation of all game content. It’s revolutionary, and could change the way we think of gaming forever. After Spore, will we ever again be content to change the color of our racing car? It takes a cue from Second Life, the MMORPG that is completely user-generated. But making things in Spore is simpler, and it’s the game engine that figures out how they work, not user-created code.

I think the underlying revolution, which will likely go unnoticed, is the intuitive evolution of the game. This may be the first game which truly encourages a discussion of philosophy and humanity. Spore is, for all intents and purposes, art. Not only in itself, but also that it incorporates a creative engine, and demands that the user create to participate. It walks the player through the same type of evolution we experience in our own lives: unconscious individualism, which we experience as children; conscious individualism, which we go through as young adults; social responsibility, as we enter the larger world; interaction with different people and cultures, as we expand our horizons; and, eventually, exploring the unknown. Spore, in my eyes, is not only mirroring the macroevolution of the species, but also the microevolution of our individual lives; it’s a game about growing up. This unspoken, intuitive design will, I believe, make it universally appealing and accessible. Everyone’s gone through some version of this. Hopefully it will encourage future expansion and growth. What we’ll see, I think, is a variety of individual ideas about humanity and existence. Spore could do what all good art strives for: encourage thought and exploration of the human condition. It will be a game, and it will be fun, undoubtedly. But this is the first time I’ve seen a game be not just artistic, but art.

I have a favorite quote about theater: “Theater is church. Theater is people sitting in the dark watching people standing in the light talk about what it means to be human.” If Spore is what it looks to be, there won’t be anyone just listening anymore - we’ll be having a giant, worldwide subliminal conversation about it. And that has long-lasting implications for all of us.