I Call Bullshit: User-Created Conflict

The War for Freedom in Spore
6/25/2008 6:03 PM | 2 Comments | Page 2 of 2

Even worse, I bet the fine folks on the Spore team knew this would happen. Although I've never heard Will Wright utter a derogatory or tasteless word in any of the interviews I've conducted or during his numerous public addresses, I still get the idea that his sense of humor is pretty diverse. I bet Will Wright doesn't mind if fans use his game to make goofy screwing monsters.

My primary piece of evidence is a speech he delivered at GDC a few years back, talking about Spore and emphasizing the power of the community to produce surprising and rich content. The illustration he used was of a coked-up bobble-headed blonde Sim with a grin plastered on her Barbie head and what might best be described as a gaping cannonball wound through her midriff. The juxtaposition was jarring and, like my "Planet of the Apes" episode, left a sort of dent in my psyche I have not been able to hammer out.

Yes, gamers can be weird. People, it turns out, are weird. Get enough people together and you'll see just how far weird can go. Then again, life, if you really get up close to a starfish or stop to consider a porcupine, is pretty weird, too.

Letting EA prune the ever expanding edges of the weirdism bell curve that Spore will joyously generate is a form of creative eugenics I can do without. In a world where I can shop to Nirvana, I don't see why I can't share what amount to soft-core Pokémon with the universe.

And don't tell me it's to protect the children. If they have access to this content then they have access to the Internet. If they have access to the Internet then, trust me, if they want to see boobs, they'll look at boobs, and not go hunting for the extinct Boobalicious .

[Want more Spore? Check out Games for Lunch: Spore Creature Creator and The Five: Spore.]