Friday, August 15, 2008

"Militant Atheists" criticize Spore

As a simulation of evolution from single-cell organism to space-faring civilisation, Will Wright feared his latest creation, Spore, would draw criticism from religious groups. But so far, the game's creator has revealed, the portrayal of religion in the game has only drawn the ire of angry non-believers. Wright told Eurogamer: "I think our bigger fear was that we didn't want to offend any religious people; but looking at the discussion that unfolded from this thing, what we had was a good, sizeable group of players that we might call militant atheists, and the rest of the players seemed very tolerant, including all of the religious players."
Full story here Interview with Will Wright (creator of Spore) here

1 comment:

cybrbeast said...

Wow, those are some whiny atheists. The creatures 'evolving' religion in the game seems likely as the human race has gone and partly surpassed that stage by now.
But where I would be most critical as an atheist is that this game actually goes against evolution and supports a form of the creationist argument. Because along every step of the way you the player steer 'evolution' which is bringing god back to the equation. But it's a game FFS, so no whining.

I do have some doubts about Spore itself though. I have kind of a black and white feeling, where everything is awesome in the beginning, but then starts feeling limited and boring.
Exploring the universe and terraforming (once your civilization is advanced enough) might be fun for a while, but basically you are just coming along worlds with user created content where you can play or wreak havoc for a while.
I also wonder if the game mechanics of all the different stages have been worked out well.
Finally what happens when gamer stumble along worlds inhabited by cockasaurus and the like? That will be hot coffee all over again. Or will they have a team that checks all the 1000s of user generated creatures everyday, hmm probably they will, and hopefully only select well designed creatures.

Wow this is a long comment :)