Will Wright Gets Personal With Hivemind

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Will Wright Gets Personal With Hivemind


Sims creator Will Wright is working on a new idea called Hivemind that aims to turn invasion of privacy into a brand new kind of game.

What if, instead of you learning how to play a game, a game learned how to play you by customizing itself to fit your personal tastes, interests and experiences? That sounds like what Wright has in mind with an idea he calls "personal gaming," in which games tailor themselves to individuals in order to make their real lives more interesting.

"Rather than craft a game like FarmVille for players to learn and play, we learn about you and your routines and incorporate that into a form of game play," Wright told VentureBeat [http://venturebeat.com/2011/11/16/will-wright-hivemind/]. Among the many things the game could learn about you and work into itself are your location, the locations of your friends and how much money you've got kicking around.

And if that strikes you as just a wee bit creepy, well, Wright doesn't think that's a problem. Young people are more open to the idea of sharing personal information than older generations, he explained, and if you "entice" them with the promise of entertainment, they'll happily hand it over.

The goals seem pretty vague at this point but Wright said that once Hivemind has harvested enough data on a player, it can begin to make meaningful suggestions for entertainment options. "It blurs entertainment, lifestyle and personal tools. With that data, the world and the opportunities for entertainment become more visible to you," he said. "If we can learn enough about the player, we can create games about their real life. How do we get you more engaged in reality, rather than distract you from it?"

It could also work as a sort of matchmaking service, he continued, putting together people with similar interests and also opening up opportunities to crowdsource real-life problems. Players could send messages to friends asking them for help with a specific task, or provide assistance to friends who make requests of their own.

Hivemind is also the name of the new startup Wright created to develop the project, which will operate alongside his other company, Stupid Fun Club. Stupid Fun Club is more of a think-tank, he said, while Hivemind is intended to be an operational game company; the two will function independently, although ideas created at Stupid Fun Club could end up being incorporated into Hivemind. He also hopes that the announcement will attract interest from other developers and help build it into a big, talent-heavy operation. "We want to do this in a very big way," he said.



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Fasckira

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Oct 22, 2009
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This sounds amazingly awesome and terrifying at the same time. Bravo, Mr Wright, bravo.
 

LadyMint

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Apr 22, 2010
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So now he's Will Wright of Borg? Soon, the assimilation of all mankind shall begin.

In all seriousness though, I'd be interested in a game that would have a Pandora.com-like habit of learning my tastes and returning a gameplay experience to match that. I'd find it eerie at first but then I'd appreciate the attempt to stay fresh.

Then again, it might also have the Pandora.com-like habit of throwing suggestions my way that end up corrupting my gameplay experience and making it difficult for me to get it back to the experience I originally requested.
 

Sonicron

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Mar 11, 2009
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Wow, I didn't know the Sims guy was this much of a dick. Not only does he brazenly admit to this project being one big creepy spyware tool, but the smug **** also doesn't care in the slightest about any concerns potentially being raised because Bookface taught him that young people are likely to buy his product anyway.
And as for the 'crowdsourcing problems' thing, we have a means for that already - it's called an online forum.
 

Nimcha

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Dec 6, 2010
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Ah, I thought this was an actual game. Sounds more like a Google ad to me.
 

Loop Stricken

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Jun 17, 2009
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As much as I'd like to say this sounds interesting, I can no longer in good conscience become enthused with anything this man does. Not since the Spore travesty.
 

Corporal Yakob

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Nov 28, 2009
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Its a personal rule of mine to never trust anything that uses the word "hive"-the Borg, Tyranids, bees, you name it.
 

JaredXE

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Apr 1, 2009
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Young people are also more receptive to candy and the enticing promise of entertainment. Why does Will Wright come off as a creepy child molestor?
 

weirdee

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Apr 11, 2011
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Yeah, it sounds like the introduction of a pod people program in which the machine eventually stalks enough information to kill and replace you without anybody suspecting a thing.
 

DasDestroyer

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Apr 3, 2010
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Will we have to spawn more overlords?
This has got to be the weirdest and yet most awesome thing I've heard recently.
 

CD-R

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Mar 1, 2009
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Uh Oh. I think Will Wright's showing the beginning signs of Peter Molyneux syndrome.
 

GonzoGamer

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Apr 9, 2008
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That's not too creepy, trust me.
I just got back from the alternate universe where Will Wright is a supervillain. Now that's scary.

We should be glad that our Will Wright is virtuous and always willing to entertain...and not so interested in weather dominators and monkey soldiers.
 

Wither

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Nov 19, 2009
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"Young people are more open to the idea of sharing personal information than older generations, he explained". Fuck no. I'm fifteen, and ever since I read about the shit Google pulls, I'm the most paranoid person I know.
 

newwiseman

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Aug 27, 2010
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So long as the information extracted from you is processed locally and deleted once it's value has been evaluated I see no privacy concerns.

But if everything is copied up to a server for a potential data mining operation I see major issues with this.

Regardless, it sounds like an idea I had a few years back, I just never thought of an intelligent way of implementing it.