Lessons in Game Design, lecture by Will Wright

[@ivanr3107]

The amount of knowledge and intellect in that man's head is incredible

[@sedthh]

the title of this video should have been: Game design done Wright

[@Freefork]

The description should read: Will Wright successful teach game design? Find out by watching the video!

[@bimomuzakki9379]

that's wright

[@SuperSmashLife]

what a boss, he was in control the whole presentation, he didn't lose anybodys attention, and he rocked the question and answer section. I like this, this=good

[@ArtOfTheProblem]

by far the most influential talk I've ever heard. been listening for years

[@yosefsantoni599]

The industry needs more Will Wrights. Too many people just making games to make profit.

[@smallbluemachine]

so true.

[@MrMuz86]

I used to joke that engineers would make good game designers because they're trained to solve problems. Will's engineering/economics background really shows in this talk.

[@EddieKMusic]

games - problem solving programming - problem solving Now I know why programming is fun...It's just like playing a game :D

[@rajkumarroy4944]

U touch everything man...science, abstract art, cognitive science.. u r simply GENIUS !!

[@chenlim2165]

This is pure gold. So much insight in one talk, despite the fact that it is over 10 years old! Everything is still relevant today (2013). Thanks for making this available. I hope you can convince Will Wright to give an updated talk someday.

[@AthenisOculi]

Thanks people 18 years ago who chose Dynamics over Community, as a programmer y'all really helped me today.

[@bassheadgg]

1:02 He talks about adaptive learning, he's describing what we now call Machine Learning, this guy knew what he was talking about

[@00nerd4]

Truly is brilliant that he could look ahead so far, so many things he talked about are gaining traction now

[@Ando9233]

Wow very insightful and captivating for the whole 2 hours or so. This has totally changed my perception of the Sims or any video game. I have a bucket load of admiration for him.

[@Hellodentist]

I've watched this like 5 times. I'm not a big fan of Will Wright's games, but I can just listen to him talk for an hour and forty two minutes quite often.

[@EddieKMusic]

Best video in youtube. I watch it once in a while to get my dose of motivation :)

[@6littleMERMAIDS]

i could listen to him all day and nerver get bored he's amazing xD

[@appidydafoo]

This man is a genius. Thank you for sharing this lecture.

[@SDX9000]

wow, amazing, superb, you name it! :) I am not planing to work with games or IT at all, but the concepts and models discussed here are just sublime to be familiar with. Now I need some time to process this mass of knowledge :) Will Wright is certainly AAA+++ expert in his area.

[@evilpilch]

What Will calls the Calvin Factor, my friend and I refer to as 'Off-Mission Gaming' - and I do it all the time. Playing the game it wasn't meant to be played. In worms it was constructing a network of girders and the swinging and bouncing off them with the ninja rope and making up ridiculous names for the ensuing 'tricks', like Skidpan Hatstand and carjack. My friend and I played 'girder worms' for ages. :-)

[@litelus]

6 people had their sim spontaneously combust

[@Quadraxis14]

Oh god, referring to 24:50 my girlfriend actually did that once XD It was pretty funny to talk about how our characters reacted to each other. I've never really played The Sims myself but it really is interesting to hear Will Wright talking about all the ways games can stimulate and manipulate our minds and decision-making. Really cool stuff.

[@alstorp100]

Will made an unbelievably special, great game. But then EA took a huge dump on it and made it into a cartoon game for 5 yearolds. Spore could have been so much more.

[@Charlemagne_III]

Mr. Game Dynamics spokesman, thank you so much for saving the majority of this talk. Will fucking Wright is there in person, who the fuck wanted him to talk about communities?

[@freakazoid6657]

will wright is my hero, for sure.

[@carollollol]

WOW that is really interesting!!! I loved the methaforical quote about the master piece and the lego house!!!

[@ThatOneGirlThatPlays]

i cannot thank you, computerhistory enough for this. will's genius live!

[@kdsquire99]

I'd forgotten how much I took from this talk.

[@nikosniper30]

I have no interest in game development/design but this is so fascinating. Will is a genius!

[@Secondadmendment]

I am very intrested in game design and this was one of the most interesting video i have seen about it.

[@ErichoTTA]

Very long video, but still worth the watch.

[@Simon2d3d]

That little truce in the middle happens SOOOOO much in TF2. Always with the friendly heavies and stacked taunt dancing.

[@rootinza11]

Depending on the area of game design you want to work in, further maths and physics will be a big help :)

[@EddieKMusic]

This is VERY interesting. I'm happy that I chose game programmers career :)

[@oo.646]

A great talk about Models.

[@nicholasharris2108]

I'm so glad with the choice the audience picked in the vote!

[@PeterSodhi]

Excellent thank you for the post, the speaker is excellent.

[@terminus8497]

watching this in 2024 theres no denying Will Wright was living in the future

[@Zorton_10]

without question, very inspiring...

[@the_jkm]

Some interesting points here: Will talking about how analytics could be built into all software, the guy talking about inter-school esports

[@sethillgard]

Amazing talk! He is a genius!

[@sethillgard]

Awesome video! Thank you very much for sharing. This inspired me.

[@PoepOpStokje]

Do you think he got his spore creature creator inspired on the pinball creator?

[@TamaMcGlinn]

1:35:35 This does not apply to Big Rigs: Over the road racing. It's simply too awesome to compare directly to any other piece of software to date.

[@MentalPolution]

What was that helicopter he mentioned at around 26 mins in?

[@aimansohail1327]

This guy is my inspiration

[@merryjing]

I have just started a games designer course,I have years of experience in playing and composing music,in film script and comedy script writing,I have already come up with about 8 game ideas that are quite good,I have been playing games since the first hand held electronics games game out with the advent of the first calculators and have seen them develope over many years and never thought i would be creating them...only problem is i have the great ideas to be a good games designer...but ..cont

[@spikebarnett]

I thoroughly enjoyed that.

[@JCKR3B0rnn]

I still use this.

[@ThriveCreativeMedia]

What was urdu-text doing in that WIndows Paint Pic!?????

[@okee9]

Try Blitzmax it'll give you a good introduction to programming games, it's a nice language to use and your finished game will be almost as fast as if it were created in C/C++ and more importantly start with small games working your way up to more difficult types of games, blackjack.tetris etc and remember always plan your game in a notebook before you even write your first piece of code

[@mishovy1599]

1:23:00 crazy that he's talking about emulators back in 2003

[@DannyBirchTheAnimeLoverGamer]

He is best known for the SimCity franchise and The Sims franchise series.

[@ZiggySleepdance]

[mind blown away]

[@crushedratio]

30:47 the heart of starcraft!

[@EinfachArtur]

omg...i think this is the longest and the interesting video ever

[@paintcan176]

Recorded 2003. Has 2004 Flight Simulator. What?

[@Negative132]

my friend asks if he should get a bachelor degree of art in game design and a bachelor degree of science in game programming or if he should get the degree on game design and arts and animation.

[@DJOpaixMusic]

1:04:03 when bad rumors go around about someone in a town.

[@1luarluar1]

Hello, my name is Raul. LITTLE LITTLE ESSAY ON RPGs Morrowind, Skyrim, Gothic II, Dark Souls 2, Fallout 3, Daggerfall, Baldur's Gate 2, Vampire the Masquerade:Bloodlines, Planescape Torment, Deus Ex, Dragon Age Origins and many more...(please tell me your favorite one and I will add it to the list). All of them are fantastic games, some of them masterpieces. What makes these games great games? I believe that the great games and in particular masterpieces have the power to go inside our mind changing us forever, not just as individuals, but us all. My thoughts are just ideas freely written (I'm sorry if they are repeated, it's because I need to explain them again and better or with different nuances). Some thoughts are also poorly written, but try to grasp the core of the idea and develop it from here. 1) A beautiful and original story can go inside us much more then great graphic or gameplay mechanics. 2) The sound and music can give life to the game and enhance the experience to higher levels, put a lot of thoughts an efforts in this part; there are still a lot of developers that don't understand the importance of sound. 3) A face that speaks but does not show emotions it does not work, is better in this case don't show the animated face at all. 4) If the acting voice is inconsistent, is far more better just use the written dialog. 5) A less detailed world in terms of graphic allows to make it much more bigger. 6) More realism does not mean more immersion, I actually think that is less interesting. 7) A game is not a book, so I think that the dialogs and written words should be kept at a minimum. 8) A realistic sky is beautiful, but not interesting. Is far more better to give some character to the sky with original clouds shapes. 9) Bidimensional sprites sometime can have more character then 3d models, why not for example, animate a face with a sprite animation on a 3D model or use full characters sprites even in modern games? 10) A world with a interesting architecture is far more memorable. 11) Sometimes low quality sample sounds can have more charm then high quality samples. 12) I suggest to developers to simplify the world so to be able and dedicated resources to make it more interesting. 13) I suggest to developers to use an old engine for concentrating on gameplay, story and characters. 14) A memorable character will never be forgotten. 15) Even the most sophisticated AI will repeat itself, so use simple scripted technology to create unexpected situation and behavior. 16) Surprise the player is one of the most important thing in a Game. 17) Scripting is time consuming but worthy as just the fantasy of a person can create beautiful unrepeatable things, events, stories, characters; this is why simplify the world can be a smart thing to do. Developers now have huge resources that can dedicate over this task instead of realistic graphics or realistic physics. 18) I think multiple choices are a non-sense, or at least not powerful. The feeling of fake options dispels the sense of immersion; the feeling is that someone wants to tell me where I'm going. 19) Steer away from realism, it drains a lot of energy and does not serve the purpose to immerse the player in something magical. 20) The world is always in the mind of the player not inside the monitor, leave the space to his imagination, in this way it is more powerful. 21) Mods are fantastic and one of the biggest reality of gaming, congratulation to all the modders that put their love in this new reality; all modders can use freely my music, just contact me if you like it and want to use it. 22) Instead of using expensive full orchestra music, hire few different unknown composers/players that can produce a lot of different music, or even more simple use very old music out of copyright and then transform it by changing the pitch, instruments, speed, scale or isolating just few parts and repeat them; few notes from Bach repeated over and over can be surprisingly wonderful. 23) The faces of NPCs are very important, give them a lot of charisma, make them memorable. 24) It is not necessary put the voice to all the dialogs, just few memorable voiced sentence are enough to give the presence to a character. 25) Usually developers make something happen in every location, I think is a mistake; I prefer to have plenty of places where nothing happen and then when I found a place with some kind of event, it will be far more enjoyable. 26) Use a voice or writing that sometimes describes and add details to the scene, a character a place, a situation: this is a powerful tool for immersion; for example we cannot have smells or odors in a games, so the developers can add this perceptions with a txt or voice descriptions. 27) Stanley Kubrick used the enviroment, the architecture of a building, the layout of a room, objects as a way to communicate; it is really a powerful way to express emotions, thought, feelings with shapes, colours and objects. 28) The presence of an NPC is much more important then his/her animation, there is no need of lip-sink or fancy movements because just the appearance can give strong feelings. 29) What an NPC says is very important, he/she has to say something that will be remembered, so use little txt or voice, but it has to be always memorable. 30) Create unique NPCs, never clone a NPC, make them simple using sprites with just few frames and few sounds. NPCs created with editors are all similar, apparently different but actually very similar, while hand-drawn NPCs are always different, and having different people drawings them, will create really different and striking NPCs. 31) Pointing the direction to find someone or something with an arrow or highlighting it in the map is a non-sense and shatters the feeling of free exploration; the players are not babies and if the developers are using these tricks to help the player in finding the way, is an utterly failure and they do not understand the concept of free world. 32) Real time maps are not good, the pleasure to use a virtual paper map is much greater. 33) A beautiful and engaging combat mechanic gives a strong satisfaction, but is a short taste, what remains in the player's mind is the feeling of the place, the story, the NPC characters. 34) Everything and everyone the player will see during the game, has to be special, everything and everyone has to remain in the memory of the player, otherwise there is no point. 35) The game will succeed if the player will be not able to understand what comes next, not even a bit; it has to be a journey of surprises. 36) A masterpiece needs inside multiple layers of meanings. 37) Draw mountains with a structure that suggests meanings, emotions. 38) When the player approaches an enemy or NPC, it has to be a fresh encounter every time; AI will never (for the moment) be able to recreate the imagination of a real person. AI even if sophisticated, will recreate the same patterns that will bore the player; at the opposite, scripting the behavior will always create something new and fresh; scripting is an old but simple technology and it is also time consuming but the resources of the developers could be diverted in this direction, instead of complicated graphics or AI; an old engine like for example the ones used in Morrowind or Daggerfall are very simple and fast to use by nowadays standard, all the resources could be diverted to create unique behaviors; I imagine the developers of Skyrim, using the engine of Daggerfall to create a more deep gameplay...10 people could create the whole graphic world and the other 90 dedicated their effort scripting unique behaviors; in Skyrim the combat is very funny and effective but after a while it is repetitive, the monsters behave always with same patterns....I imagine a programmer dedicating 1 day of work just to create a monster and his behavior, now imagine 90 programmers doing the same the same for 1 whole year....they will create a world full of original and unique NPCs. 39) What is important is the feeling of something is happening and it has to happen just in our mind, this is the secret of a masterpiece. 40) Stories in games are rather basic but there is no reason why they couldn't reach deeper levels; the same is for the characters, the NPCs; I exhort the modders to concentrate their attention on a single NPC trying to give it exceptional deepness, to show what can be achieved in a game; a very deep NPC could bring life to the whole game. 41) Voice-acted technology does not work, even if the acting voices are well done (which is very rare) there is always the feeling that are detached from the NPCs; I prefer much more just the writings and simple unique sounds to give presence and to the NPCs; for example, an hostile NPC could have aggressive sounds, while a friendly NPC could have some relaxing sounds; I would like to suggest to give at least one unique sound for every NPC that suggest its personality; voice-acted technology is about realism but reality is an false friend of games. 42) Most of the NPCs usually communicate informations that the player usually does not want to hear, is better silence then boring informations; keep them at a minimum and convey emotions instead of informations. 43) Older RPGs have usually more mystery and have a more immersive quality, because they were relying less on realism and more on the feeling of the story, on the deepness of the characters; don't let the technology drives and wins over the art of imaginations which is much more powerful. 44) A world with simple graphics like using sprites or very basic 3D models with maybe just few important texture can be much more complex in therms of characters, story and gameplay; I suggest to modders to use an older engine to create a more immersive world; what about Bethesda using an old engine to create a new game, I'm sure it will be a very unique experience and will challenge the team. 45) I think a game should let you create the story and characters in your mind, it has to push you to imagine. 46) I think that receiving and completing missions or quests from an NPC is a rigid way to be immersed in a game and it feels like the open world game suddenly become like a narrow experience. 47) Simple and non realistic graphics have a charm that for me is more powerful, for example, Gothic 2 has a great atmosphere that other more recent games have not. 48) Sometime the best games in terms of complexity, graphics, sounds, budget, are actually not working to create a sense of immersion and other games, more simple, less complicated, with a lower technology succeed instead to create a believable and immersive world. 49) A masterpiece is a game that constantly surprises the player with new locations, new NPCs, enemies, behaviors, stories and; I think that the more the game is simple, the more it can be deep and engaging. 50) Instead of working on creating a very detailed world, is better having a varied world; for example for the sound, instead of having hundreds of sounds inside a village, I think is more effective having just few sounds typical for each different place; I much more prefer having sounds that characterize uniquely different places instead of having the same hundreds of sounds in every village, for example. 51) If you need to use voice-acted technology, instead of using hundreds of actors, just hire a really talented single one that does all the readings; a powerful warm voice is much more engaging and emotional effective. 52) A sprite enemy NPC with a great sound has a bigger presence then a super sophisticated 3D model with a weak sound.

[@MrGatonegroish]

God bless the man.

[@leftyfourguns]

Wow he's describing machine learning over 10 years ahead of its time

[@edminchau811]

social networks, too

[@Hitchpster]

This guy made the game less interesting to me in history: The Sims, but I still think he is a freaking genius.

[@NerdrageOfficial]

Making a game has the biggest possibility space ever.

[@killrathy]

Genious!

[@stefansava]

1:28:38 give the guy in the front the mic..

[@BrandonCourt]

Great talk. He's the coolest nerd on the planet lol

[@husamalaloulou8001]

Hi, I need a quick help in (game design)? If you can please send me , Thanks

[@MrWizzleTeets]

9. Stay out of my possibility space.

[@therealabid]

1:39:16 I felt that

[@JorisvanLeeuwen]

U could start with the free program GameMaker (Try to google it)... That's the program I started with when I was your age.

[@MuteebGeniTeam]

8:10 looks like someone is trying to write urdu back in times I guess urdu keyboards and font were not available.

[@PlayerZYX]

Are you really just focusing on 'The Sims'? What about Sim city, Sim Earth, Sim Life?

[@electrowaffle]

I still build models on and a while.

[@meanmole3212]

Dynamics YES

[@Stalky24]

is it wrong I have prodigy playing in background to this? :D

[@tommyjones1978]

agree 10000%

[@archivey-h8e]

EA ruined Spore dont worry Will, us PC gamers still love you

[@Nashfanfl13]

pause it @17:59 he was going into the different metrics and it seems that a lot of the people that were playing the Sims online were sad lol..

[@familyguy711]

God is he like, god lol! He is the most amazing human being EVER!! Hes the best!! I wish i could get his autograph!

[@Freefork]

When someone in the back row gives you the finger and nobody knows: 52:36

[@moonuchan]

sad that will left EA and Maxis..Now what do we do????

[@dileepvr]

People here seem to be emphasising the tech part a bit too much. As Will claimed, games are part tech and part psychology. To quote Gabe Newell: "An artist who can model, or a programmer who can write, or act, will to better in the games industry than a tech geek. Miyamoto for example, hates computers. He liked to play music, go out into the woods, and fantasise about meeting fairy-creatures, all of which inspired Zelda. So read books and paint. Listen to the Ron Gilbert interview on gamespot.

[@higgins007]

27:30 Invents Minecraft.

[@SharizanAbdullah]

I just feel like playing the sims now

[@TearyEyesAnderson]

I always thought that the study he's referring to at 1:30:45 missed the point as to why a guy would be using a woman character in a video game. I like Indiana Jones movies & such, but that's :( when seeing the character bend down & go through a tunnel, then like 'Charlie Blast's Territory' when you see the character scratch his back side. I'd still rather see Lara Croft, & most women wouldn't worry about seeing Croft's rear end. 1:09:05 Mario meets SimCity in SNES & on the 64DD both great games.

[@inoclasism]

17:59

[@FALCONLICK]

hes a genius

[@HazeAroundtheWorld]

Did this dude make spore?

[@evilpilch]

On the subject of playing female avatars in a game, my response is two-fold. On the one hand I agree, I have experienced far more beneficence from other gamers (in-game) when they think they're interacting with a female. And have been chatted up on numerous occasions when not using VOIP which blows my cover! But the other reason is simply that if I'm going to spend tens or hundreds of hours watching a screen - I'd rather watch a woman running around than a man!

[@eldewen]

why are there so many empty seats?? I would've been all over this.

[@mhb11]

Wrong decision to take about dynamics - it was too philosophical from a pragmatic point of view for the average game designer. Should have picked Will's mind about communities and user psychology. That's really a starting point for beginner/intermediate designers, and one can only graduate on to philosophizing after imbibing the "low level" stuff first. This presentation is only good enough for the first 30 minutes.

[@raulitech]

as a computer enthusiast i like these videos but they are far too long and i just can't get the time to watch it all.

[@idnyftw]

seeing the ancient EA logo kinda makes me a little sad inside :|

[@Scottagram]

@Regginyaga You just insulted Will Wright. Lemme ask you: The chair or firing squad?

[@k1llk1ngph30n1x]

@JonathanShelton1 You have no idea.

[@darkrathamantis]

@sl2mmer Get down your ego tower pal. Games are cool, and if more people can enjoy them that can only be a good thing. Famous game writer Lee Sheldon says that we game developers have two goals: 1) making games transcend time and become art, and 2) going mainstream like the other media (books, movies, tv, etc.). 80% of the world population can be categorized as "socializer" gamer type. Just because you don't belong to this type doesn't mean we game designers shouldn't design for them.

[@joemanYT]

will wright looks better now a days.

[@KakiHat]

@darkrathamantis leave him alone. For all he knows, video games started with Halomens.

[@GrognardLady101]

Seeing what EA has done to some of these companies is appalling.

[@nikolt2000]

we want TSO aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa