One Spore, One World 2

From Simcity to The Sims, ruling a whole city back to controlling an individual life; then there is a community-based online game called The Sims Online. And several years later, everybody is talking about The Second Life, a virtual world online game. Seeing there is a saturation of this market sector, game company, EA, has diverted its new game into new direction. “SPORE” a new online game that is beyond the boundary of individual and community; from a tiny molecule, through the evolution of civilization, to the whole universe.

Our role is to be Gods. We create lives. Through the survival of fittest, lives evolve and become capable of interacting with each other. Later, we help them to organize community: from a small tribe, to a city, to a large country. We lead them to civilization, to exploration of the Universe. We can make contact, colonize or even conquer new planets, via cooperating with or warring against other players in these planets. Our wish to be God, to rule and get control has been granted.

But are we really Gods? Personally, buying SPORE with very bad character designs, and paying monthly online fee to act as so-called “God”, I can tell that the real world could also be a “One Spore-One World” game. We are those creatures in this game, being “played” by “other users”.