Questioning Universality

Ian Bogost over at Gamasutra visited the ICE 2008 conference Toronto last week, where he spent some quality time with Spore, playing with the editor and following the reactions of the visitors to its booth. He noticed some unexpected behavior patterns:

I have no doubt that the game will be a success, but I wonder if new players will pick up the box and think, “I’m not sure I’ll be able to create anything good,” or “I’m not the kind of person who toys with life.” And I wonder what marketing strategies and play styles might combat this.

We also get some tiny bits of information on how the editor behaves when performing certain actions. It’s a good read covering the whatif’s and but’s that you always encounter with innovative games leading up to their release. Discuss this further in our forum.