Well, yikes. USA Today has an article about Spore creator Will Wright. It’s a Q&A, and it has this bit (emphasis mine):
Q: There has been some discussion online about whether the game promotes evolution or intelligent design. What would you tell people interested in either side of that discussion?
A: I think the game is really trying to give an overview of evolution in a way that is very toy-like and caricature-like. We put the player in the role of an intelligent designer. When we first started the prototypes (of Spore) that wasn’t the case. We had the game carefully mutating things and it just was not emotionally engaging. When we put the players in the role of intelligent designer then people were much more emotionally attached to what they made.
But if you step back from it, you see creatures over many generations get more advanced. All this happens over billions of years. So, however you slice it, is definitely not a creationist universe. You might say it has aspects of intelligent design.
So what’s their title? "’Spore’ creator inspired by intelligent design, social networks"
Sigh.
I don’t see how it was inspired by ID from that answer, and it seems to me Spore has little or no relationship with it. They added in the user as designer to make the game more "emotionally engaging", and not through any scientific (or antiscientific, in the case of ID) impetus. Caveat: I have not fiddled with Spore, so I don’t have first-hand experience. Anyone who’s played it want to comment?
Also, we know that ID = creationism. That’s what the Dover trial was all about. Wright specifically says Spore’s not creationism, so that’s something to keep in mind.
Let’s see how quickly the folders, spinners, and mutilators at the Disco ‘tute can run with this. Grrrr.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:15 am
I bought the game Sunday, the collector edition with a documentary from National Geographic and the making of. I just love it. Although it doesn’t represent nature in an accurate way (Was it Dawkins that said nature was extremely cruel?), it does in a very appealing way. The main idea behind the game is to create the world you play in. Of course it will have resemblance to a world created through ID, since there definitely is a designer (I.E. the player). They were conscious about that.
However, the INSPIRATION of the game is clearly and without any doubts a simpler version of evolution. The National Geographic documentary (with Will Wright) clearly shows the inspiration of the game was developmental evolution and genetics. The Spore team made an incredible job at researching the subject and simulating evolution. Not just evolution, they also simulated the gravity in a galaxy.
Anyway, I’m sure Will Wright didn’t want to promote ID, but to make a fun game. And fun it is!
September 9th, 2008 at 11:22 am
The game is pretty heavy into intelligent design, but it has to be, really. What fun is a game that plays itself? If you want horns on your critter, you slap horns on your critter; you don’t just wait for them to randomly evolve.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:22 am
One of the game’s commercials mentioned “creatiolutionism,” or something to that effect. Unpack that, and you have a pretty good description; the monsters are rough avatars for evolution, only guided by the player instead of by normal selection processes (because, obviously, watching the critters evolve themselves would be a boring game).
September 9th, 2008 at 11:32 am
I was struck that they give very little incentive to make small changes to your creature over time. The designer works like a store, where you buy parts (feet, mouths, etc), and more powerful parts cost more “DNA”. You can sell back any of your existing parts for full value though, so at any time you can completely and utterly redesign your creature from scratch. Also, there is no speciation whatsoever, which really wouldn’t be that difficult.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:38 am
IT IS A GAME.
I have it waiting on my doorstep for when I get home and I’m excited about it but this is the classic Intelligent Design subscriber failure. Anywhere they can perceive the idea of design they want to co-opt it for their own nefarious uses.
This is a game. Period. It has no bearing on reality other than it is entertaining.
Anyone who tries to say it is anything but that is looking for things that aren’t there.
But honestly if the ID crowd wants to hold this up as some support of their non-theory (really what is the testable theory of ID?) is a few tacos short of a combination to begin with.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:39 am
grrr submit failure.
add this
And I’m happy that they use this as some proof for ID. It just shows how empty their side is.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:42 am
how long do you think it will be until an ID proponent figures out how to run “Spore” on a supercomputer somewhere and publishes a paper entitled “super computer simulation supporting the existence of guided biologic systems.”
September 9th, 2008 at 11:43 am
I guess you could make the arguement that it has ‘intelligent design’ aspects, since you are playing the game and it isn’t playing itself…but then you could make that same arguement about Doom or any other game, right?
September 9th, 2008 at 11:50 am
This is kind of like asking if the create-a-character mode in Soul Caliber is promoting intelligent design.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:52 am
I’m more dismayed at the media’s apparent buy-in to all this creationism crap than the game itself. That they would even ask that question makes me cringe. Well, it’s not like it’s from a REAL newspaper though.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:55 am
I don’t really follow the argument. It’s a game, you interact with it, you make changes. If it was just “evolving” on it’s own that wouldn’t be a game. It would just be a movie. Isn’t the entire point of an interactive game that you, um, “interact” with it?
But if the disco ‘tute jumps on the bandwagon that this in somehow supports ID then I’ll just have a raucous laugh. “See! ID is right! A computer game says so!”. If that is part of their argument their ship is toast (well, it already is, but, um, it’ll be more toastified. Toastification will go to a higher plane of toastostofy).
September 9th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Has anyone played it yet? I was really looking forward to it, but the initial buzz is this: no matter how wacky you try to make your creatures, the game is generally the same experience over and over.
A couple years ago I was sketching out a “game” that would use truly random factors and genetic algorithms to develop creatures. I was working out how to allow the natural development of artificial structure building when I stopped because I heard about Spore. Maybe I should revisit the idea.
I think they tried to keep it cute. A true evolution game would create things unrecognizable to us as lifeforms. It would also be more of a simulation than a game because no intelligent designer input allowed.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:57 am
I don’t think the media really buys into anything other than thier pocketbooks. ID vs Evolution is a hot button and has been for decades, combine that with a high-selling video game and boom! Insta-sell out headline that grabs people’s attention and makes them want to read the paper. The media is just as desperate to grab a buck as anyone else and don’t seem shy about misrepsenting an issue in order to make it more sensational or profitable.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:58 am
You still need a user to play the game in order to have the intelligent design aspect.
If you really want to read into it (and I think doing so is stupid), you could say that the game simulates intelligently-controlled evolution. So in other words, it’s a form of intelligent design which is still at the mercy of predominance.
September 9th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
If you’re thinking of getting Spore, first consider the fact that it’s crippled by copy-protection software:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=DRM+spore&btnG=Search+News
September 9th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
I bought the game and I love it, but I have to disagree about how boring it would be if it was solely evolution. I would love to be in control of the climate/continents/flora and watch what types of creatures evolve. Alter the conditions a little and see the results. Try to create a warlike society by limiting their access to natural resources, or a peaceful one by giving them bountiful supplies.
As for the creator, Wright is a self-professed atheist (perhaps agnostic atheist though I’m not sure what that would mean) and clearly has no support for ID being taught in schools or used as a scientific scheme. It’s a video game, its fun, entertaining and it might teach kids a little something about how we evolved. The ‘cute’ factor of it makes it appealing to this age group and spreads it to a wider audience. The gritty, cruel reality of nature might be fun for science buffs, but it probably wouldn’t sell very well.
September 9th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
A major influence on the game is ‘generative’ systems. The game-world is not designed by Ea or Will Wright, but pulls from a “metaverse” of creations of hundereds of thousands of consumer-end players. While each player is in a sense a creator, the collected material available to be assembled into the game’s details are designed by the decentralized mass of players with no common purpose or central theme. The influence is clearly success and failure on a evolutionary scale. And it’s super fun.
September 9th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Wow. That is a truly off-the-mark headline… very out of context.
Will Wright explains in the interview that to make a game work you have to make sacrifices. And he chuckled when he said the intelligent design bit — seems obvious to me it’s a joke.
But yes, our “friends” (read: enemies) at the Discovery Institute are surely squealing with pleasure over this…
September 9th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
I am not sure you can create a game with purely evolutionary themes without some sort of guiding hand or will and still have it engaging. Sim Earth was a game designed to mimic the evolution of life on a world but even that game openly had you the user “guide” the evolutionary process to achieve specific results, although it was possible to sit back and just watch and do nothing and let things happen on their own (although not nearly as fun). In Spore you cannot just sit back and watch, you are required to be that guiding hand and directly affect your species evolutionary path, in that regard you are the designer, especially with the Creature Creator.
I understand they are trying to mimic evolution as best they can while still haven’t a fully interactive game. You just have to let your imagination fill in the gaps and do a little suspension of disbelief, or in other words, just enjoy it.
September 9th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Spore is pretty awesome. QD, the experience is not the same one thing over and over, but there are only 2 or 3 ways to experience the game. I haven’t gotten tired of them yet, but I am aware that the game lacks some of the depth I’d hoped it would have.
September 9th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Regarding the Disco’ ‘tute:
www(dot)evolutionnews(dot)org/2008/09/evolution_by_intelligent_desig_1(dot)html
September 9th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
It’s a bloody game folks. Nothing more, nothing less.
I’ve been following this game for many months, maybe a year and I’m psyched to see it. No video game in this day and age will be able to mimic evolution so I’ll forgive the fudging of facts in favor of game play. If anything, I figure it would make the scientific community happy in that ID really is just fantasy, just play the game and see how crazy that line of thinking is. My 2 cents.
September 9th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
When did we loose sight of “its just a game”?
September 9th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
perhaps agnostic atheist though I’m not sure what that would mean
It means that a person is agnostic regarding proof of the (non)existence of deities, but doesn’t believe in any regardless. There are agnostic theists by the same token.
That said, I’m pretty sure Wright is just a plain ol’ atheist.
September 9th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
My little complaint is that they advertise it as being a simulation of evolution, when it’s really not. No natural selection is involved, which is just too bad. Natural selection simulations are Fun Times, for real.
I wouldn’t say it’s ID either, though. In the evo/creo wars, Spore comes firmly down on the side of “video game”. Having a “player” who “controls” the “universe” is a video game thing, not a theological thing.
September 9th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Frankly, it’s okay if a game is inspired by Intelligent Design or any other religious or mythological theme. I’ve written stories which include magic or talking trees; that doesn’t mean I believe in either of those things; similarly the creators of Spore don’t need to believe in ID to make a game that USES ID. Otherwise what about all those video games that have vampires in them? Or Norse/Greek/Roman gods? Did the creators of those games subscribe to those beliefs? Clearly not.
Go ahead, say it: Spore makes the player “God” and he “Creates” the world as the “Intelligent Designer”. Don’t forget, though, that it is FICTION.
September 9th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
How do the creators of sporn get inspired?
September 9th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
It would work as a game, I think. It would also work as a directed toy model of evolution.
But it wouldn’t work as an argument against the ignorant. ([IDiot mode] “Control.” Design input! [/IDiot mode])
Btw, Jolly Bloger suggested speciation, and that would be great to watch!
Yeah, it’s not as if they had a reputation to protect.
September 9th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Another voice saying “It’s just a game”.
Here’s another way of looking at it. Spore has as much to do with promoting ID and creationism as the film Capricorn 1 has to do with proving that the moon landing was a hoax.
September 9th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
A better headline might be, “‘Spore’ creator realist, wants to sell video games.”
September 9th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
_We_ know that ID = creationism — most everyone else doesn’t.
September 9th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I agree that an “evolutionary” game could actually work. Perhaps the way to do it would be to give the player control not over the creatures in the game, but over the environment instead. Say you start with a randomly generated lifeform with a set of given traits, and over time the player is able to manipulate its environment in attempt to give the lifeform specific traits, while at the same time trying to keep it from going extinct. Once the lifeform develops sufficiently the player could then guide the development of its civilization culture, but by then you would of course be limited by the species’ biological traits.
September 9th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Another vote for “Get a grip folks, it’s just a game.” But weren’t we saying something similar back when “Harry Potter” first arrived on the scene? Hey guys, it’s fiction… I’ve met a lot of folks who seem to live for getting their tidy whities a little tighter (and don’t have a real good grip on reality either.)
I believe that Spore has been in the development stage for over three years. I remember reading about it some time ago. I thought at that time it was to be more like evolution and was real excited about that. I picked up our reserved copy of the game yesterday. I really have not had a chance to play for myself, the game and my computer disappeared with my teenaged son for most of the day, but from what I have seen, I am disappointed with the science aspect. In final released form, it’s just a game. Sims by another name is my current opinion.
And yes, the copy protection really sucks. As far as I know, you are allowed only one online account for sharing and interacting with other players. We have only one computer capable of playing Spore, that is one that has enough graphics power. Different users on the same computer do have their own galaxies to control. But you are allowed only one online profile. I can’t imagine how a family is going to work that out if multiple family members share one computer. Our solution is that Mom simply not going to play online (it’s not my gig anyway.)
September 9th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
One of the coolest features of the game is the evolutionary chart shown when you progress to the next level of gameplay.
It shows each generation of your species, the changes they went through as a result of genetic mutations and social interactions, species milestones and other important events that contributed to the evolution of your creature.
It’s obviously charting EVOLUTION and concept of evolution is core to the game.
~j
September 9th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
When I first heard about the game it sounded like a great concept because your little bacteria guy would evolve over the course of the game to a species of creatures that would survive or not based on how you designed it. However, the final game has no evolution in it at all. At each stage of “evolution”, you just recreate a new creature that has no relationship to the creature from the previous stage as far as I can tell. Then, you control one of them as it walks around and eats, fights, and socializes until you get to the next stage and can redesign a new creature.
Its more like a set of minigames where you design your creature for that stage and then use that creature to try to clear the stage. None of the evolutionary coolness of the pre-release hype is there. Even in the Sims, you could sit back and watch your family do whatever they wanted if you chose. In Spore, you have to play your creature all the time.
So, it will be a fun game for kids who want to design a creature and then run around as that creature. But when it comes to the cool evolution of your creature species hype, its just a bucket of fail.
September 9th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Also, SETI has apparently teamed up with people behind Spore to promote their TeamSETI program. Become a member for 1/2 price!
~j
September 9th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Will Wright seems like a very sciency dude. To say he was inspired by ID is ok. To say he wasn’t inspired by evolution in anyway would be a mistake.
September 9th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
I almost hurt myself laughing after I read that. I wonder if the person who writes the headlines is the same person that writes the article. I’ll probably get the game next week or so since I’ve been a fan of Will Wright’s games for years.
I do think a more interesting and “scientifically sound” game would be more along the lines where the player could influence natural events (i.e. cause vocanoes, storms, earthquakes, asteroid strikes) and see the effects. Sorta like aliens influencing the natural selection process over billions of years. Then again I was the kid that would spend hours building a thriving metropolis in SimCity just so I could watch the disasters destroy it.
September 9th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
It’s (just) a game! A fun one, IMHO …
I’ve had it installed since Sunday and have had a good time with it (no, I haven’t had DRM issues). A fair amount of its appeal is how fun/easy the tools used to create the creatures/buildings/spaceships are. An unguided evolution game just wouldn’t be fun, alas.
September 9th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I think he may be calling you (the player) stupid. “You might say (the universe) has aspects of intelligent design.” That is, if you (the creator) are intelligent. You might not be. It’s a joke.
September 9th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Here is an awesome interveiw of him on Colbert
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCAANSGZEHI&feature=related
Mostly related to this anyway..
September 9th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
This is kinda like saying World of Warcraft supports Young Earth Creationist..since it only evolves when the developers tell it to evolve.
September 9th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
On the matter of somewhat-intelligent design: http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=199
September 9th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Initiate wall headbanging sequence.
September 9th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
@utakata
Maybe they can see if a virus can be spread through the game like what happened with WoW. Might make it more realistic.
September 9th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
I thought I read somewhere that there was a free trial edition for download. Was that right?
September 9th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Obviously the game was inspired by evolution, otherwise the time line would be 7 days with no transitional creatures whatsoever. It would also be even more boring than if it was a simulation of pure evolution with no player input (think LIFE the 70s computer game fun for 10 minutes or maybe as a screen saver). I can think of ways to avoid the player as intelligent designer, the player would very similarly to the other sim games design the ecology as well as tweak the niche of the various actors in that ecology. The goals beyond that would be up to the game designer do you champion one species over another or are you trying to have a sustainable ecology? I dunno there are a lot of ways to design an evolution game. I actually suspect I’ll be a bit disappointed. For one thing I’d like a cute switch, so I can play with cute critters or how they might actually look. I’d like it to explore very exotic body plans beyond bilateral symmetry as well as exotic environments (ammonia oceans and very low gravity on a planet orbitting a near star Jovian type world). The abiotic elements would be interesting to explore as well. It boils down to reality likely wouldn’t be too enganging for entertainment. ( It is odd I read the article and must have just tuned out the headline, didn’t notice that.)
September 9th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
I think a fun and reasonably accurate evolution game simulation would require that the player not be in control of a single critter, but instead a population, ecosystem or entire biosphere. That way the game can do speciation, and be free for random or player controlled events to cause extinctions without it being game over.
A game like this could give players the option of selecting different levels on control. At one end, he could be the Big Kahuna, creator god, empowered to design all the organisms and manipulate the environment in any way he pleased. At the other end would be screen-saver mode, where it runs in the background with no player control, and you can open it up at your leisure to observe what is happening. Giving players the opportunity to compare the different results between play sessions where there is intelligent control, and play sessions that are random and undirected would be pretty enlightening, I think.
In between, I envision levels like the following:
1. Prometheus – the player is like a minor deity in a pantheon, tasked by his superiors to seed the world with life. His god-like powers are limited and need to be replenished/earned by achievements satisfying the head honcho.
2. Mother Nature – all organisms are randomly created at the beginning, and the player has complete control over the environment to manipulate selection pressure as he pleases.
3. Alien Panspermia – the player can design the organisms and alter them, but the environment is controlled entirely by the computer, with random, mass-extinction level events.
4. Evolutionary scientist – the player has limited control over both the environment and the ability to alter pre-existing organisms to a limited degree, and set up experiments by manipulating the selection pressures on various populations, but large scale random events may occur to mess up his plans to which he has to react, and the organisms may evolve on their own beyond player control in unexpected directions.
5. Creationist – this is like screen-saver mode, in which the player is incapable of altering any aspect of the game, but he is given a notepad in which he can make up stories about what he’s seeing.
September 9th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Does that mean D&D is inspired by ID? As Dungeonmaster, I get to design everything, roll the dice, and decide your fate at every step.
September 9th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Spore is just a game. It claims you get to oversee your creatures from their abiogenesis right through their evolution over millions of years until they are space faring.
However it certainly does not come close to representing the reality of evolution.
However it is no friend of Creationists, the game is seeped in Evolutionary thought with no concession to the Creationist model.
It is also certainly far to obviously a game to have anyone thinking ID implications from it.
So even though it is a complete misrepresentation of Evolution, it is probably Creationists that have more ammo to cry foul over it than Evolutionists.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Spore is pretty awesome. QD, the experience is not the same one thing over and over, but there are only 2 or 3 ways to experience the game. I haven’t gotten tired of them yet, but I am aware that the game lacks some of the depth I’d hoped it would have.
Hmmm. X-Play gave it 5 out of 5, and their review staff tends to correlate well with me.
Well, it’ll have to wait either way. My PC is mainly for telecommuting and does not even have a 3D card, and my Macs are all pre-Intel, and Spore on the Mac requires an Intel processor. And I’m in the middle of Tales Of Vesperia and Infinite Undiscovery is out and Fallout 3 is near and Force Unleashed and Sam & Max on the Wii and… geez. Why does all the good stuff come out at the same time?
September 9th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
I think the only thing we can call Spore is Directed Panspermia
September 10th, 2008 at 12:18 am
joke or not? I can’t tell whether to laugh or feel indignant.
http://antispore.com/
September 10th, 2008 at 1:22 am
There is a reason this genere of games is called “god games.” Sheesh. No need to read any pro/anti science agenda into it. It’s cool to play god and Mr Wright makes the best god games out there
September 10th, 2008 at 2:24 am
I would be interesting to have a game in which your organism produced slightly varying offspring with each generation and in which the player can slowly alter the environment with which the organism interacts. For example, one could reduce the amount of available food, introduce a new predator, increase the amount of water etc etc. This would probably be horribly complex to model in game, but it might be intriguing to see what sort of creatures ‘evolve’ without direct manipulation.
September 10th, 2008 at 5:44 am
Can’t be inspired by ID. The IDer’s don’t like “directed evolution”.
September 10th, 2008 at 6:31 am
@Darth Robo
And yet, the Discovery Institute is using Spore as a way to validate ID. Follow the link I posted above, or visit their web site and search for Spore.
September 10th, 2008 at 6:57 am
As Jolly Blogger said, you don’t do small changes, and can completly redesign your creature after every “mating”, which to me was quite boring. I’d much rather it have given the opportunity to only make small changes, and maybe even narrow the changes to what your gameplay allowed. As in, I added spikes to the tail of my cell/watercreature, and used it to attack other creatures, the game would then allow me to make more modifications on that part, more mobility etc etc, as that’s what I used to most.
That would’ve been much more fun, actually seeing your creature evolve, with your help, but with alot of emphasis on how you used your limbs etc. Would be more evolution like…
All in all, I’m quite dissapointed with the game overall, expected more, then again, only played about 5 minutes in the second stage so far.
September 10th, 2008 at 8:44 am
Does that mean D&D is inspired by ID? As Dungeonmaster, I get to design everything, roll the dice, and decide your fate at every step.
I always saw a D&D Dungeonmaster as more of James Bind super villain.
“Do you expect us to fight the Dragon Of Eternity to obtain the Jewel Of Fluffy Goodness?”
“No, Mr. Elf Warrior. I expect you to die!”
September 10th, 2008 at 8:44 am
Bind = Bond
Der
September 10th, 2008 at 9:19 am
I don’t think Spore wants to be a creationist/ID game. In most computer games, things don’t just evolve naturally, unlike the real world, so there has to be intelligence behind the evolution in the game world because everything is programmed. That’s what people have to realize on their own – that games and real life are not the same thing.
September 10th, 2008 at 9:34 am
This game is all about intelligent design. Creatures are designed by you, the gamer, who presumably is intelligent. Features and attributes of your creatures are selected, sculpted, moulded into the form which you see fit. It has nothing to do with Natural Selection. They made this decision very deliberate, because doing any different would not have produced an interactive, playable game. So, the title of the article is probably quite apt, not that I like either the title or the way the game has “evolved” from initial conception.
As for Will Wright’s statements that the game “is definitely not a creationist universe”, it is rather unfortunate, for anyone who knows the controversy should realize that THERE IS NO distinction between Intelligent Design and Creationism, and his game is a game of Intelligent Design, therefore it most definitely IS a creationist universe.
September 10th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
The game game has about 2,000 negative reviews on Amazon and only about 100 positive reviews. Most people fault it for a ridiculously harsh DRM rootkit copy protection scheme, but a large number also claim the game is more about creating cute critters than any serious exploration of biology.
September 11th, 2008 at 11:13 am
People are reading way too much into this game. It’s a GAME. It’s not about endorsing any particular socio-political agenda. It’s supposed to be FUN.
But if you really want to know where Will Wright lands on these issues, just take a look at some of his earlier games. After the success of Sim City, he went on to create Sim Earth and Sim Life, which were both fairly sophisticated simulations of the effects of environmental pressures on evolution. Sim Earth was more high level, while Sim Life actually simulated each creature at the genetic level by tracking inherited traits and mutations, and their effects on how it interacted with the environment. Very cool, but not nearly as much fun, or as successful, as his better known titles. In fact, they were probably intended to be more educational in nature.