Questions for Will Wright
 

Hey Guys, Will Wright, Co-Founder of Maxis and designer of The Sims and Spore, will be a guest for one of my classes on Tuesday.

Do you have any questions you'd like me to ask?

Re: Questions for Will Wright
 

Does he regret the decision of integrating SecuROM technology into Spore?

Because it had a huge backlash. His game was 1-star bombed on Amazon. And since then, they've raised the limit to 5 computers but its still a crippling feature.

Re: Questions for Will Wright
 

Is there a SimAnt 2 on the horizon?

Re: Questions for Will Wright
 

This.

Re: Questions for Will Wright
 

Oh my god. That's awesome. I wish I could have Will Wright at my school. :(

Re: Questions for Will Wright
 

This.

Re: Questions for Will Wright
 

I think you'll find he had very little to do with the decision to incorporate Secu-ROM. I mean, he's essentially already answered that question and I'm sure he gets bugged with that all the time:

http://kotaku.com/5064405/what-will-...out-spores-drm

Some good questions:

What did he learn from working on Spore that he'll take with him to his next project? Which leads into, does he have any ideas for what he'd like to work on next?

Or, if he could have changed one thing about the development process of Spore to make it a better product what would he have changed (if anything)?

Re: Questions for Will Wright
 

Sandbox gaming and storytelling rarely go hand in hand. How can developers better integrate sandbox systems like in Spore with a greater/more compelling narrative as illustrated in games like Mass Effect?

Re: Questions for Will Wright
 

What did he enjoy working on more, Civilization or Spore?

Re: Questions for Will Wright
 

How would you go about preparing a risotto?


Seriously. Ask him that.

Re: Questions for Will Wright
 

I like the Simant question.

Re: Questions for Will Wright
 

I totally forgot that I met him once at a wedding. The thought was just literally resurrected from deep within my mind. I had completely forgotten about it. I was young though and didn't ask him any questions or anything. And I really didn't care about any of his games.

Follow-up question: Do you regret not immersing yourself more deeply in the decision-making process of Secu-ROM? After all, you ARE the creator of the game? Or are those menial details too inferior for your creative genius? ;)

Re: Questions for Will Wright
 

So what I experienced this Tuesday was nothing short of incredible...and last night was just plain hilarious!

Along with Will Wright, Bran Ferren, former President of Walt Disney Imagineering, came to speak to the class on the subject of...well....everything. Probably the most intelligent person I've ever had the pleasure of hearing speak, this youtube video of an older presentation of his does him no justice, but gives a face the to subject nonetheless.



Some lessons he had that I found interesting were:



- Lighting is the most important aspect of everything, because without it, we can't see.

- The most effective way of getting your point across, or having your ideas come alive, is to simply be able to effectively tell the story behind it.

- The most prosperous industries are the ones that cater to things people have cared about for thousands of years (their basic needs, and behavioral trends), or have the ability to add something completely new, and he explained this though charting the greatest inventions in history.

Language, Writing, Moveable Type, Telephone, Computers, Internet. An the internet is by far the most important of all of these as it has established the largest reach, at the lowest cost, of any invention ever.

- Finally, he gave us the 6 things he believed led to eternal happiness and success via doing things that people care about and bringing them together

1. Vision - You must be able to articulate a vision that causes people with talent and money to follow, and is capable of drawing an audience.

2. Trust - Leadership that can be trusted is vital

3. Talent - You must attract them according to their needs

4. Complexity - Keep it simple enough for the general community to accept.

5. Education - The core competency of the teaching industry is storytelling, just like everything else, so we must educate ourselves and others to effectively be able to tell stories

6. Storytelling

So that was Bran Ferren, who also said that Powerpoint presentations were the devil, and etched quite a few graphs on the chalkboard throughout his talk.


Now, Will Wright came up next, and funny enough he made use of a powerpoint presentation that had close to 300 slides on it!



He began by telling us his theory on how quickly new generations able to absorb information much faster, using the equation [(information absorption constant/age) = Information you can ingest/second]. He had a whole chart up on what the constant numbers were, but he was going too fast for me to get it all down, but for our age range it would be something like this:

(5000/20 = 150/sec) x 60 = 9,000 bytes/minute = 5 PowerPoint Slides per minute......


so it was a fast paced "lecture"

Some notes that I can elaborate on if you want:


- All new forms of media are put down by those currently on top

- TV was supposed to be a new advent in the future of education

- Specific problem solving -> -> -> Mass entertainment -> -> -> Creative Expression

- The cast of Gilligan's Island were actually embodiments of the 7 deadly sins.

- Schema = Expected pattern of causality

- Experience builds schema. Two types of experience
1. Play, Toy (model simulation experiences with toys)
2. Story, Others (employ other people's experiences)

- Model highlight certain useful aspects of the world and ignore others

- Chaotic systems - Little Changes result in huge differences

- In story telling, it is traditionally vital that you show a relevant causal chain to the user or audience.


- Games are about resetting from the beginning and seeing the different causal chains. Exploring the possibility of space.

- Open topologies of open simulated games is the current status

- Kids are employing the scientific method when they play games. Kids see symbols in video games not literal actions on the screen.

- Most games actually take place in the imagination. Games are the scaffolding of the imagination.

- Entertainment -> Tool -> Self-Expression. Such as the Internet browser and search bar allowed people to be "found" which gave them a reason to "publish."

- Calvin Factor - Being subversive and going against the grain. What Will lives by.

- Emotions incited by linear media: Joy, Sorrow, Pity.

- Emotions incited by video games: Guilt, Accomplishment, Pride.

- Failure based learning is most effective

- Flow of creation in the gaming community<--> Recognition

- Fractal entertainment - Identical experience in different scales of participation; identity, branding oneself.

- Augmented reality in video games and real life. Location based games the future.


I had to leave to get to a funding proposal before the Q and A could start, so no luck on the questions guys. But, if you have any questions for Peter Levinson, President, FOX Interactive Media, let me know as he will be here next week.


And finally, Tucker Max



If any of you have read "I hope they serve Beer in Hell," you know exactly what body of work Tucker has employed himself in for the past decade or so. A University of Chicago and Duke Law School Graduate, Tucker is now famous for his short stories on sleeping with skanky girls, getting drunk, and the doing the same thing over and over again. I never read any of his stuff, so came into the talk with no expectations.

He was hilarious, completely rude, and I liked him right away. After a few of his stories, he actually became serious though, and advised all in attendance (a huge majority of which were frat boys and sorority girls [see: target audience, "fratire" genre of writing) to break away from the machine and the system, to stop being cogs and follow our passions...and then he pitched his upcoming movie ;)

Re: Questions for Will Wright
 

What exactly are you studying Ace?

Re: Questions for Will Wright
 

I'm actually a History Major with a Minor Concentration in Afro-American Studies...

...but, I plan on going to Law school in a few years and then pursuing a career as an Entertainment or Sports Agent. Oddly enough, UCLA does not have a major concentration for Business, Sports, or Entertainment (marketing, management, whatever), so I decided to create and organization for the student body which would address these needs.

Going to school and living in the Los Angeles area, students are surrounded by media 24/7, and to not be able to actively pursue that career path while still in college boggled my mind. So, the Sports and Entertainment Business Network (SEBN) at UCLA, which I am President of, seeks to educate to educate undergraduates about the entertainment industries, provide opportunities to gain experience, and help employers, alumni, and students to connect through networking, work experience, and community involvement.

As a result of SEBN, I've also started working at the Graduate School of Business at UCLA for an Executive Director, and one of the tasks I was employed in doing last quarter was assigning enrollment numbers to a handful of the best Juniors and Seniors for this specific class. There are 117 people in it, 50% are getting their MBA, 25% are in the Film Schoo'ls Graduate production program, 15% are engineers, and then the rest were my choice.

If you're interested more in the class, HERE is a link to an article written on a similarly structured course taught last year by the same professor, Peter Guber.