Will Wright is, dare I say it,  legendary. He’s a risk taker, a thinker, and a genius. He’s the man responsible for bringing the city sim genre to light when he created Sim City. His games are unique, and almost always non-violent. Also, his games make money, lots of it. I barely need to mention the name of what’s arguably Will’s most popular series–The Sims–for you to know that fact.

Will Wright gave the keynote address at the 2009 SIGGRAPH conference. I was very excited to listen to him talk, as his talks are known to be full of hilarious geek humor and internet jokes. Will’s talk at SIGGRAPH certainly did not disappoint. He opened his talk with pictures of his cat, and explaining the kitten cuteness factor as found on the internet. He then explained the design process of a product by featuring an image of Hello Kitty holding an AK-47. He had the crowd in stitches within the first two minutes.

Pic unrelated

Will Wright is a very intelligent man who was clearly very passionate as he presented his dissertation on how humans perceive the world, and to a greater extent media, in their daily lives. His talk was titled ‘Playing with Perception‘, and it focused on how we perceive things in media. This generation consumes more media and information than any other before it. Rather than distill the pros and cons of all of our media consumption, Will focused his talk on why we ingest so much media, do we care about what medium we view it on, and how normal people can become producers of media for everyone else to experience.

Will suggests that consumers really don’t care how they receive media. He compared his iPhone screen size to that of an iMax screen. The difference, of course, was staggering, but Will thinks that despite the difference in clarity and detail, users become too distracted by tech to be concerned by such an unimportant detail. Our phones can show us a movie while we text a friend, which can be done while watching television, listening to music, and surfing the internet on a laptop. The point is, we bombard our senses with media today, and this has led to the creation of a collective hive mind, meaning a massive body of unified thought over a large group of people.

Data is passed so frequently and easily today that we all sooner or later begin to share the same information. A breaking event can be texted, Tweeted, posted on Facebook, and added to a forum from mobile devices and laptops the moment they happen. As this information is passed from person to person, a collective understanding is achieved. We build our understanding of the world around us by our experiences, on both our own understanding, and by what we learn from those around us.

What Will ultimately argued is that not only do we consume data, but we also are producers of it. He used his recent game Spore as an example. Any person can create content in Spore, which in turn enriches the game for everyone else that is playing. Today, normal people are able to produce media to a greater extent than ever before. Digital cameras allow easy taking and storing of pictures and video, which can be uploaded to the internet and shared. Wikis allow any user to contribute to the collective knowledge banks.

Take the television series LOST for example. A casual viewer can watch the newest episode, turn off the TV when it’s over, and be done with it. There exists a collective group of hardcore fans that experience the show differently. When it’s over, they’ll dissect every little detail, try to connect bits of story, and put all the information in a massive Wikipedia entry. Will was quick to point out that a minor character from LOST had a larger wiki page than President Barak Obama. As the hardcore fans present all this information that they have produced, the casual fans benefit from receiving it, and furthering their own understanding. Normal people become producers, and new data is generated and shared.

Will’s talk presented a very interesting perspective on how the production of data is changing our daily lives, and how it will effect the future of the human race. Will clearly has an understanding of the human mind far beyond my own. But even with a topic that is so cognitively risky, Will captured his audience, and presented an incredibly entertaining and thought provoking talk.

Advertisement