The game draws on the theory of natural selection. It seeks to replicate algorithmically the conditions by which evolution works, and render the process as a game. Conceptually, Spore is radical: at a time when most game makers are offering ever more dazzling graphics and scenarios and stories, Wright and his backer, Electronic Arts, are betting that players want to create the environments and stories themselves—that what players really like about games is exploring what Wright calls “possibility space.”

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About Will Wright:
A technical virtuoso with boundless imagination, Will Wright has created a style of computer gaming unlike any that came before, emphasizing learning more than losing, invention more than sport. With his hit game SimCity, he spurred players to make predictions, take risks, and sometimes fail miserably, as they built their own virtual urban worlds. With his follow-up hit, The Sims, he encouraged the same creativity toward building a household, all the while preserving the addictive fun of ordinary video games.

Wright’s genius is for presenting vital abstract principles — like evolution, differences of scale, and environmental dynamics — through a highly personalized, humorous kind of play. Users invest themselves passionately in characters they create (with Wright’s mind-boggling CG tools), and then watch them encounter fundamentals of life and nature.

If it all sounds suspiciously educational, well, it just might be … Wright has created not just an irresistible form of entertainment, but an ingenious, original pedagogy.

About John Seabrook:
John Seabrook has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1993. He is the author of Deeper: My Two-Year Odyssey in Cyberspace and Nobrow: The Culture of Marketing the Marketing of Culture. His work has also appeared in Harper’s, The Nation, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Travel + Leisure, and The Village Voice. He has taught narrative nonfiction writing at Princeton University and lives in New York City.