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Will Wright, creator of SimCity and The Sims, has unveiled his latest project called HiveMind. In a nutshell, HiveMind will be an immersive game that uses real-world information about a user to develop a unique in-game experience tailored to each player.
Wright is calling HiveMind a new type of experience known as personal gaming. While there isn’t a wealth of detail being released yet, we know that the game will learn about players rather than players learning how to play the game.
There could be up to 50 different criteria that the game would use to build an environment or character based on you. Some of these could include learning about a user’s daily routine, where you are playing from, where your friends are at and how much money is in your pocket.
The whole point of the game is to collect data about you and present you with a fun experience. The game itself was inspired by a real-world event that happened to him last year. He was in Burbank, California to give a speech and happened to show up early. He used the extra time to check out the surrounding area before stumbling upon a monthly car show at a 50s style diner (likely Bob’s Big Boy). He had a great time at the show and wished he knew more about similar events that were of interest to him.
“If I knew about these events, my life would be a lot more interesting,” he said in an interview with VentureBeat. “How do we expose you to these events, these things? How can we make a system that understands enough about you and gives you situational awareness? It could take into account what time of day it is, where you are, how much money is in your pocket. Imagine if you could open Google Maps and it shows you things that are interesting to you on the map.”
The whole idea of sharing personal information for the sake of a video game sounds a bit concerning, but Wright is confident that the younger generation would be alright with the concept if they could be guaranteed a fun experience. After all, many young people volunteer such information on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter on a daily basis with little “return”.
The idea is still in its infancy and there is no release date or even platform information available. The whole concept sounds interesting enough and if anyone can pull off such a game, it's Wright.
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User Comments: 9
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spydercanopus said:
Track, trace, database, fun!
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Well this news article is a bit late :/?
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Wright never fails
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Darkshadoe said:
"The whole idea of sharing personal information for the sake of a video game sounds a bit concerning, but Wright is confident that the younger generation would be alright with the concept if they could be guaranteed a fun experience. After all, many young people volunteer such information on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter on a daily basis with little ?return?."
insert Pedobear, NAMBLA, or To Catch A Predator joke here.
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Arris said:
So if it tailors a gaming experience around the personal information of someone addicted to playing World Of Warcraft, will it just create a game where you play World Of Warcraft?
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Wrong! Ever heard of anything else he has done besides the sims? Yeah, Spores was a HUGE hit, NOT! He said all the same things for his last two games, this guy is a one-hit-wonder.
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Darkshadoe said:cobra5k said:
Wrong! Ever heard of anything else he has done besides the sims? Yeah, Spores was a HUGE hit, NOT! He said all the same things for his last two games, this guy is a one-hit-wonder.
Might wanna do a little research on that. Ever heard of SimCity?
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And Spore sold over two million copies. I don't see how he is a one hit wonder.
I do wonder what cobra5k was hit in the head with, though.
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Arris said:
Will Wright seems to still be old school when it comes to game design. Fun, innovative and divergent. A lot of game design studios seem to have fallen into the hollywood copy/paste/change and psychological reward system to reinforce grinding/farming/repetative behaviour. Even if he isn't out selling MMOs and FPS games I'll be happy to see how this one turns out....
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