ELECTRONICS Sims' simplicity reigns over thrashing computer games

The best-selling computer game franchise involves thinking, not killing.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
There is little blood or violence in Will Wright's computer games. No battles with a hulking dragon. As a player, you are neither hunter nor hunted.
In an industry dominated by games that revolve around killing, the 42-year-old Wright is an amazingly successful anomaly.
One of the most prolific and respected designers in gaming, Wright started the ubiquitous "Sim" franchise. His creations are quirky, addictive approximations of reality whose legions of fans include people who normally eschew computer games.
"While most of the industry was worrying about how they could build bigger and more destructive weapons and destroy more people with every single second of game play, Will was creating concepts that appeal to everybody," said Peter Molyneux, creator of the immensely popular game Black and White.
An ordinary living room is where much of Wright's most popular game, The Sims, takes place. Released in 2000, The Sims and its offshoots became the best-selling computer game franchise ever, with 20 million copies sold.
The road to fame
The idea behind The Sims -- you steer little characters (called sims, naturally) through daily tasks -- was rejected by the company he co-founded, Maxis. But instead of conceding defeat, Wright went at it by himself, taking the game "underground" until Electronic Arts bought Maxis in 1997 and backed the project.
Wright debuted in 1989 with SimCity, a game about building urban landscapes. It was the first of several sim-franchise titles that Maxis called "software toys" because they emphasized teaching as well as entertaining.
"Something about our culture has really disconnected the idea of play from what it should be, which is education," Wright said. "We see play as kind of this disposable act that just adolescents are engaged in."
The games are so popular because they are so lifelike. In SimCity, Wright blended several simple concepts that made the game's artificial intelligence appear more complex. What resulted was the illusion of self-organization, where the whole was smarter than the sum of its parts -- an idea called emergence these days.
"He was a real innovator in structuring his games as little systems, rather than hero-centric narratives," said Steven Johnson, author of the book "Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software." "It turned out that that system -- even in the first iteration -- was much more lifelike and organic feeling than any of the simulated people we'd met in video games."
SimCity was originally shelved by its publisher, Broderbund Software, over concerns it wasn't enough of a "game" and didn't have an ending. Before it was released, several natural disasters, including tornadoes and earthquakes, were thrown in to liven up the mix.
The Wright idea
Wright is a humble, aw-shucks guy who has no qualms calling himself a nerd. He reads voraciously, he said, anything from science fiction to social theory.
The ideas for his games are pretty heady, too -- The Sims was based in part on Christopher Alexander's theories about architecture in the book "A Pattern Language." Another, SimAnt, was inspired by the work of Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson.
Wright said he has always been fascinated by the idea of mimicking human behavior and has avoided the industry race toward splashier pictures.
"Graphics is really not a big issue for us anymore because we can make a person in a game look far more real than we can have them behave," Wright said.
The success of that focus shows.
According to figures released by NPD Funworld, The Sims was the No. 7-selling game for September, astonishing for a title that came out almost three years ago. Four other Sims titles were on the top 20 list.
Wright got into computer games by way of robot-building -- computers helped him write a better code for his creations. He still builds them and has appeared in the BattleBots tournaments on Comedy Central with his 16-year-old daughter, Cassidy. One of their creations, ChiaBot, camouflages its arsenal of weapons in a bush on top.
Wright's next step in gaming is The Sims Online, an extension of The Sims that will put almost the entire virtual world in the hands of the players.
The game sells for $49 and cost $10 each month.
The Sims Online is nothing like the fantasy role-playing games, led by Everquest, that attract tens of thousands. It will encourage gamers to live in neighborhoods, visit each other's homes, and build attractions -- a haunted house, a swimming pool, a restaurant -- for other people's characters to visit.
Incentives like money and popularity will influence behavior.