................................. To leave Commie, hyper to http://commie.oy.com/commie_leaving.html ................................. From: "Redherring.com" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> You play you PHOENIX, ARIZONA -- Here at the Demo 2001 conference, we're looking at a strange combination of products: there are solid infrastructure operations and then there are some really bizarre concepts, like a Web-controlled robot and a new game that invades your life. Electronic Arts's Chris Plummer says Majestic is unlike any other game because "you play you." It would be hard not to: the game, a combination treasure hunt and thriller, interacts with you through your standard communications devices -- email, phone, fax, and instant messaging. The computer-controlled characters in the game contact you at unpredictable times. You can also interact with other people playing the game, although it won't always be obvious who's real and who's programmed. The game is part of EA's paid online service, and the company thinks of it as its "Sopranos" -- the series that will drive people to keep their subscriptions alive. (EA also runs the online game community Ultima Online.) FURTHER READING * Company site: Electronic Arts http://www.ea.com * Microsoft allies with EA for Xbox http://www.redherring.com/companies/2000/1213/com-xbox121300.html * How to design a blockbuster game http://www.redherring.com/industries/2000/1201/ind-gamerst120100-home.html I keep telling people that somebody's going to do a game that's a real-time strategy game that's really directed toward casual gamers on some very simple level, and it's going to be a huge hit. And I think it's like the way The Sims has touched all these nontraditional gamers with getting into directing somebody else's life. If you could direct civilization or do it in a way that's not so conflict oriented, then casual gamers would like constructing a civilization, taking ownership of it, nurturing it, building it up. I think a game that does more of that, takes out some of the combat, conflict, could really touch a lot more people than games have today. I think one of the reasons Age of Empires did well was because we reached those people with our game. They like the hunting and gathering and the birds flying by and its a bright, sunlit world. RH: And Will, how old are you and what is your favorite game? Will Wright: 40 years old. My favorite game is probably Go. Not the computer game, but the board game. It's got this incredible balance of the most simple rules you can imagine, far simpler than chess, but out of that flows this amazing complexity. It is in some sense a little microcosm of real life, where there are these very simple, few rules. It seems to capture some sense of the real world. It's believable. RH: Bruce? Bruce Shelley: I'm 52 years old. To me, my favorite game is playing poker for money. It's simple. There is an intellectual challenge to mastering the technical aspects of the card game, understanding the probabilities of the hands. There is the money aspect of it. And then, there is the social aspect of playing with friends. You get to know the personalities of the players and bringing that all into your economic and your technical equations with your cards. The betting brings another dimension to the technical aspect of the game. And, to me it involves an efficiency issue of being most successful with the limited amount of money I have to spend betting. For me the essence of games is getting the interesting decisions to deal with. I've always said that sthe rocket science of gaming is creating interesting decisions for the player to deal with. That's why I got into games in the first place. I found that no activity, outside of games, engage my mind so fully.
