Spore designer and self-described atheist Will Wright told Eurogamer that "militant atheists" are upset with certain religious aspects of the game:
[With Spore] we didn't want to go too far down that [creationism] path: we leave the whole creation of the universe question open. Obviously as the player you're coming in and playing something like a god, directing the evolution of a species, but we never really state who you the player are...
our bigger fear was that we didn't want to offend any religious people; but looking at the discussion that unfolded from this thing, what we had was a good sizeable group of players that we might call militant atheists, and the rest of the players seemed very tolerant, including all of the religious players...
But so far I've had no critical feedback at all from anybody who is religious feeling that we were misrepresenting religion or it was bad to represent religion in the game. It was really the atheists!
As GameDaily notes:
Religion briefly makes an appearance during parts of the game's civilization phase. That said, it's never made explicitly clear if God or some other force or entity is in control of the universe.
Comments
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
Oh. Fakkin' WHAAAAAA!!!
I long for the 1970's when no one whined about every little thing they didn't like. Now the world is filled with whiney, little bitches.
People are so damned rediculous.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
Will Wright should heed the warning: Don't feed the trolls
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
I call complete rubbish on this one. Nowhere does it say what the atheists said or who these atheists are. It's just some random noobs posting on forums, trying to create a little controversy. Well they succeeded and everyone here was silly enough to take their trolling seriously.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
Its a fucking vidoegame why are they angry man people are retarded
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
If this is true, then I am truly disappointed in these athiests. Most atheists are smarter than this. These guys sound like the right wing nuts who are trying to force some form of religion on everything and anything, even make-believe worlds.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
Trying to enforce one's own worldview isn't specifically a right wing, left wing, front or center issue. Everyone has the potential to be a tyrant, all that differs is the means of amassing power.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
This goes to show that whatever you do someone will take offence.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
But spore really does prove that creationists are talking rubbish, we are not penis monsters being constantly attacked by giant cunts.
Unless Gods cock looks like us (we are after all "made in his image"), and well we do have politicians…
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
Militant atheists? Really? I hope they understand that by joining a group of people that are willing to not only use their words but their fists to bring people to their own version of the truth, a group of people who are easily offended when their world view is contested, they have in fact joined the atheist definition of a religion.
I'm an atheist and spore looks kind of boring just by the pure fact that it has no story, there is no competition, there is nothing controversial, no hard choices, no adrenaline kicks. It looks kind of like the sims, bland and wasteful.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
Depends what mood I'm in to be honest with games like that.
Sometimes it's nice to play things like City Builders, where you only occasionally 'nudge' matters and see the long-term effects of that interaction, other times it's nice to have games that are a little less 'cerebral' in nature.
That said, I have a natural love of finding 'systems' in things, which has served me no end in my Computing degree, and can happily spend hours setting up systems and seeing how they act/interact :)
Will Wright finally figured out how Rockstar Games sell so well
Expect him to talk about how The Sims 3 offends Chris Hanson. I do not think he's actually making any other games at the moment.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
Can someone please explain to me why atheist are so upset? So what if there is a god in the game. Ateism isnt a religion they probably just want attention.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
There are those that treat it like one.. you know, the ones that get horribly offended and give you a 10 minute lecture if you put a christmas tree up. Mostly I just use the term 'asshole' which covers both militant atheism and militant theism in one descriptive term.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
No it's more of a case of a small amount of complainers that don't represent anyone.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
This is why agnostics are the best. They could honestly give a shit how the universe was created. If they do, they would look at it unbiasedly.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
So its easier to have a clearer point of view by... not actually having a point of view? :p
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
Are you implying that agnostics are the only ones who can look at things unbiasedly?
Because that certainly isn't a pompous biased comment right there.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
It's times like these that make me glad my parents told me when I was little that it's impossible to satisfy everyone.
"If you cure Cancer, someone will complain you didn't cure some other disease"
Always expect some group to hate what you've done, then you will never have to be surprised or disappointed when they do.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
The truth is it's a vocal minority, very often of people who don't really care about their point of view, they just have a possibility to whine and therefore do so. That's been the nature of the Internet since day 1.
Personally, I have some doubts about the point behind Will Wrights comments to be honest, it just seems like yet another excuse to complain about people on the Internet. So will got some nasty Emails, poor Will, it's not like he can't afford a secretary. So because people are complaining about him on the Internet, he's going to complain back instead of rise above it.
As is so commonly said on the Internet. Don't feed the Trolls.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
Dear Atheists,
If you have a problem with Spore...GET OVER IT! Either play the dang game and enjoy it or don't play at all. Thank you.
-a logical person
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
Dear logical person,
The number of people who are complaining about this game are indeed very small, and I assure you that you'll find more people complaining about sporn then you will see complianing about it's inculsion of religion. I wish I could say the larger atheist society will reject these guys but there is no larger atheist society. Atheists are about as unorganized as you can get (with the exception of agnostics). So with that in mind there will be nuts.
Signed,
Me
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
Organising atheists (or agnostics, for that matter) has been likened to herding cats.
The most likely reason being that people who value independant thought are going to resist throwing their lot in with other people, even if they're likeminded.
-- teh moominz --
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
<sigh>
One day the Internet will tell the difference between 'atheists', 'agnostics', 'liberals', 'democratics' etc and the much larger population of 'people who like to complain'.
I suspect these people were about as 'atheist' as Jack Thompson is a Christian, in other words, they are when it's suits their need to complain.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
I have to admit. What fun would a game be if all you did was sit around and watch as random things happened to change the creatures. You might as well just go watch a movie.
The prospect of creating external factors to change the evolutionary path of your creatures is a lot more fun than watching them bump around and hoping that something interesting will happen.
E. Zachary Knight
http://www.editorialgames.com
Oklahoma City Chapter of the ECA
MySpace Page: http://www.myspace.com/okceca
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1325674091
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
As a biologist I respectfully have to disagree, my chosen profession is very interesting precisely because "random* things happened to change... creatures" :P
Then again, a lot of time has elapsed to allow interesting things to occur. ;)
Gift.
*and not so random.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
You know... I think it would be kinda cool to be able to create the enviroment and have the virtual critters evolve to become better suited to it and more advanced.
You are creating the planet, and letting evolution take its course....
My God! We could anger two groups at once!
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
Maybe as a mini-game, you could design a planet with a bunch of sliding scales and some contintent placement, and the game generates some advanced life on the planet based on the environment. Obviously not designed as a serious evolution simulator, just a quick bit of fun to see what wacky ways things could adapt.
After all, they're putting hundreds of other random features in.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
My first reaction to a recent SPORE video and the voice-over. "WOW. That's exactly the point of view of the Intelligent Design thoery!!" No wonder Atheists are upset. That violates their religion! I'll buy a copy of SPORE for that reason alone!
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
So the Earth is just a big game of Spore?
Personally, I find Spore to be nothing to do with ID, and everything to do with 'a very big game'.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
Why so antagonistic? You come across as habouring a phobia of atheists - not very charitable, is it?
-- teh moominz --
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
In fairness the game is a variation on "God sims", and therefore pretty much "Intellegent Design" as a game. Of course playing designer may be fun, but it won't validate the empty hypothesis that is ID. ;)
Gift.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
There is no point to "Intelligent Design". It's an idea in search of a theory...thinly veiled religious dogma, not science. I'll buy a copy of SPORE because it actually seems like a good way to test how external, environmental pressures and random mutations over time can bring about interesting bio-diversity just as Darwin posited while remaining within a controlled, simulated environment.
OR MAYBE I'll buy it because it should be an addictive, fun program in the way Populous, Civilization of Sim City have been. Don't bring atheism OR religion into this...it's pretty irritating either way.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
I'm an atheist who's very excited about this game. There. That out of the way?
I've been thinking about this alot lately, perhaps far too hard at that. Spore seems to reflect whatever you yourself believe, I think it promotes evolution, other people think it supports "intelligent design". I'd say that's silly to think the latter just because you control the evolution, cause, you know, it wouldn't be much of a game if you didn't, but that's just me...
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
This is just sensationalistic reporting, read the linked interview. Plus would I be right in thinking that they were actively looking for what anyone might find objectionable?
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
I'm surprised these atheists don't understand the basic concept of not applying philosophical views to entertainment, and to a lesser extent, politics. Isn't logic supposed to be the fundamental idea of an atheist? Oh the irony.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
Well, you'd think militant atheists would also recognize that their idea is essentially a religion too, but they seems to have missed that one.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
People, the small minority of atheists was not upset that you play "God" in the game, they were upset that religious factions in the game have magical powers (like healing spells). Personally, I agree that its a bit odd to have magic in a game purportedly about science, but I'm not offended or anything.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
Not a creationist at all but I don't know how exciting the athiest version of spore would be lol
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
Atheist version of Spore: A computer capable of playing Spore self-constructs itself out of nothingness. Eons later random bits of data form into a game called Spore. The game starts itself and a character race is created by random choices. Further randomness continues. No outside source or force involved.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
Evolution doesn't work on 'constructing random stuff out of nothingness', it's never been advertised as such by anyone except those who want a nice soundbite to attack Evolution with.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
It doesn't work that way. It does start that way, though.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
In my opinion the fanatical militant atheists are more annoying, negative, pessimistic and all around assholish then the very religious types. The very religious types beliefs might seem a little crazy but at least they tend to be rather nice when debating other then the fanatheists who happen to scream "If you believe in God you're a sheep and/or retard" or "Opiate of the masses" at the mere mention of God or religion coming up.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
OMG, generalisations FTW!
This may reflect your own experiences, but let me assure you the opposite can also be said to be true.
-- teh moominz --
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
Notice how I said fanatical militant atheists, I'm not refering to all atheists. Actually maybe I should have said anti-theists instead.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
Hell is for belivers and religion is what yuo make of it, as is the news it seems.........
I is fuzzy brained mew =^^=
http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/
(in need of a bad overhaul)
Copyright infringement is nothing more than civil disobedience to a bad set of laws. Let's renegotiate them.
---
http://zippydsm.deviantart.com/
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
This is really not the controversy that a lot of gaming blogs are making it out to be.
I know what Will Wright is referring to. On EA's Spore forum, there was a very lengthy topic. In Spore, depending on what strategy you take, you gain new abilities at every stage. If you choose the religious rout, you gain powers that appear to be religious miracles. This is what people were taking offense to, not the inclusion of religion, but these fantasy based powers.
There is no group of atheists who are opposing Spore or anything. This was a group of Spore fans who felt that Spore was drifting away from its core concept, and discussed it on the internet. The gaming press has really been making it out to be more than it really is. It's not like Will Wright is receiving death threats from Richard Dawkins or anything.
So it's really just a group of people on the internet arguing about features in a video game that isn't released yet. Doesn't really make for a compelling controversy. Maybe if we could find someone appearing on CNN, declaring Spore an "Ignorance Simulator" due to its inclusion of religion, or something of that nature. ;)
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
If that's true it'd be nice if Will Wright would come out and say his statements were taken out of context or what have you. Unless he misunderstood things himself.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
Btw Sai, have you ever played Guild Wars and had anything to do with the [DVDF] alliance? Just I've not seen many other people go by the online name Sai.
Re: Militant Atheists Upset Over Spore, Says Will Wright
I wish this was at the top of the comments thread, and somebody would look into it and see if it's the real cause of all this crap.