spore

It has been a while since I mentioned The New Yorker. There has been excellent content in recent issues, but little of it has been available online. The newest magazine corrects this problem as John Seabrook’s profile of Will Wright has just been posted at the newyorker.com.

Game Master
Can Will Wright reinvent the video game again?
by John Seabrook
Issue of 2006-11-06, Posted 2006-10-30

In 1989 Will Wright created revolution in the video game industry with SimCity, and he continued to evolve the genre through 2000 with The Sims. Since then he has been working on his next masterpiece: Spore, a game of evolution with a novel online component. Seabrook describes Spore, its designer and its backer (Electronic Arts) with insight and precision. It’s a great read, even for those who lack interest in gaming.

Bonus link 1: Video of Will Wright demo-ing Spore in 2005 and promotional footage of the game from 2006
Bonus link 2: More Spore details via Wikipedia