Will Wright Is More Interested In Sales Than Scores

Andy Chalk

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Nov 12, 2002
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Will Wright Is More Interested In Sales Than Scores


Spore [http://www.spore.com] creator Will Wright says he's not too surprised by the varied critical reaction to the game, adding that he'd rather have low review scores and high sales than the other way around.

Speaking to MTV Multiplayer [http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/09/07/will-wright-reacts-to-crtical-spore-reviews/], Wright said the development team was aware early on that the game's use of different genres in various stages of gameplay would result in mixed feedback, as players "clicked" with different parts of the game.

"The feedback we're getting from people is that everyone has some level they like and some level they don't like," he said. "A lot of the reviews I've read have said that the Space Stage was far and away the best and they were disappointed by the earlier stages because they were too simple. Other people have said the Creature Stage is their favorite and that the Space Stage seems too complicated. We knew, since we were using different genres with every level, that everyone would have ones they really clicked with and ones they didn't."

"We were very focused, if anything, on making a game for more casual players," he continued, addressing complaints that the game was "dumbed down" in order to appeal to a wider audience. "Spore has more depth than, let's say, Half-Life [http://thesims.ea.com/], which was 97, and we decided - quite awhile back - that we would rather have the Metacritic and sales of Sims 2 than the Metacritic and sales of Half-Life."

"Part of this, in some sense, was: Can we teach a Sims player to play an RTS?" he said. "I think the complexity we ended up with was toward that group."

Of course, it's not as though Spore has crashed and burned. The game is currently sitting with a more-than-respectable 87 score at hype [http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/spore?q=Spore], that mark may be a bit lower than EA had hoped for.


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UnrealCanine

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Well it makes sence to me. They've spent a lot of time and money on this game, and from a business stand-point, it's the sales they're intrested in
 

Hey Joe

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Perhaps he sees the inherent weakness in relying on a subjective mean average like that of metacritic and he instead chooses to focus on the quantitative gross figures of sales.

Either that or he just really likes money.
 

zoozilla

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It's sort of odd to hear this from Will Wright.

I guess I never really thought of him as someone who catered to a "casual" market. His other games (Sims, SimCity, etc) were easy to get into, but they were also complex and interesting enough that they kept you playing. I think, in some ways, The Sims is deeper than Spore.

So it's strange for him to say "Can we teach a Sims player to play an RTS." I think Sims players were already playing something even deeper.
 

ElArabDeMagnifico

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Well, I hope he keeps his cool if he ever sees what happened on Amazon.

Almost 200 1 star reviews complaining about DRM.

Unfortunately for those who just think "hey I'll go order spore onli....WTF?! ONE STAR?!" - they will most likely skip review reading.
 

runtheplacered

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ElArabDeMagnifico post=7.70961.710497 said:
Well, I hope he keeps his cool if he ever sees what happened on Amazon.

Almost 200 1 star reviews complaining about DRM.

Unfortunately for those who just think "hey I'll go order spore onli....WTF?! ONE STAR?!" - they will most likely skip review reading.
That's the price you pay for implementing a stupid security choice. The English speaking pirates had the game a week ago, while the people who bought the game had to pay to be able to only install it 3 times. It deserves to be criticized. And heavily.
 

Joeshie

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Rather disappointing to hear that from Will Wright. As far as I'm concerned, he has just sold himself out. I REALLY feel like pirating it, just to show up him up now, but I won't.

I just won't buy it now.
 

stompy

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Umm... I thought this was how business was: who cares how people felt about the game if they buy it? If you make money at the end of the day, it's no real skin off your back if people don't like the product.

Oh, wait, product image...
 

Unknower

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Dammit... congratulations for twisting his words in the title. I though Escapist's news had some sort of credibility.
 

SmugFrog

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What game developer doesn't want his game to have good sales? If you created a game that got a 5/10, but copies were flying off the shelves, would you have any trouble sleeping at night?

I haven't picked up my copy of the game yet; but I'm really disappointed from the reviews and what people are saying. I think I will still have a lot of fun with this game though. I believe (maybe just hope) that a lot of content was yanked out so they would have ample stuff to fill expansion packs with.

For now, it does sound like Will has sold his soul to EA - and the DRM is indeed a joke and deal-breaker for a lot of people.
 

Andy Chalk

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Tenmar post=7.70961.710531 said:
Yeah my friend just informed me that after buying the galactic edition he had to pay another 50 dollars for a new set of codes because his were "defective" before he could even play Spore.
Come on, this is either a load of crap or your friend has way more money than brains.
 

Melaisis

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Its about lots of different people having lots of different experiences with a single game over the period of hours to months. Reviews, technically, are built for games with only a limited amount of options and with linear paths. Reviews rely on the opinion of a single person who - often - has only played the game for a few hours and not really taken the time to experience depth; instead simply rushing through the stages to get an 'overview' of the game. This is exactly what has happened with the likes of Spore and Will is quite possibly connoting that the game was built for thousands of people to experience, not just the odd sceptic.
 

runtheplacered

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Melaisis post=7.70961.711801 said:
Its about lots of different people having lots of different experiences with a single game over the period of hours to months. Reviews, technically, are built for games with only a limited amount of options and with linear paths. Reviews rely on the opinion of a single person who - often - has only played the game for a few hours and not really taken the time to experience depth; instead simply rushing through the stages to get an 'overview' of the game. This is exactly what has happened with the likes of Spore and Will is quite possibly connoting that the game was built for thousands of people to experience, not just the odd sceptic.
I wish that were true, but sadly the game really does lack any depth. I really wanted to like this game and spent hours on each phase, just hoping it would eventually reach out and grab me. The last game I did this with was Oblivion, which I also thought would be a fantastic game. Both games have yet to grab me, mainly due to a lack of depth.

Spore is 5 simple games in one, all of which are much simpler then their counter parts. I actually got to the civilization phase of Spore and realized I'd rather just be playing Civilization.

Either way, I could care less what metacritic says about this game. I've already played it and believe that the score it has is too high for what it is. I'm almost positive a lot of the reviews with a 90+ score are giving it that because they feel obligated to. If that game wasn't by Will Wright and marketed for the past 3 years, or whatever, there's no way it'd get that kind of a score.
 

Soulfein

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Well, hes honost. All game designers only care about the sales. You cant fault him for it, thats why he made it!
 

Joeshie

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Soulfein post=7.70961.713659 said:
Well, hes honost. All game designers only care about the sales. You cant fault him for it, thats why he made it!
Really? Because the constant delays of high profile games from companies like Blizzard and Valve certainly don't reflect that attitude.
 

ElArabDeMagnifico

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Joeshie post=7.70961.713818 said:
Soulfein post=7.70961.713659 said:
Well, hes honost. All game designers only care about the sales. You cant fault him for it, thats why he made it!
Really? Because the constant delays of high profile games from companies like Blizzard and Valve certainly don't reflect that attitude.
What? Valve and Blizzard don't want sales because they take the time to make a game good?
 

Joeshie

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ElArabDeMagnifico post=7.70961.713864 said:
What? Valve and Blizzard don't want sales because they take the time to make a game good?
I never said that. I said that it's clear that companies such as Valve and Blizzard don't only care about money or they wouldn't delay their games.

"All game designers only care about the sales." is what was originally said and it's pretty clear from companies like Blizzard and Valve that sales aren't the only thing on their minds.

Reading comprehension is great.