Will Wright, creator of The Sims and the upcoming Spore, has said that for his next project he's interested in focussing on socially relevant gaming.

He's very coy about the game itself but outlines some interesting ideas on gaming's social potential:



Wright elaborates, talking about gaming as an educational tool in fields such as politics, economics and the environment:



You might remember Danny Ledonne making a "socially relevant" game in Super Columbine Massacre RPG!. It prompted a media outcry and got pulled from the Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker Competition. Granted, his materiel was highly controversial, but one message came from the incident: people aren't prepared to treat gaming as anything other than light entertainment.

That said, we're talking about one of gaming's most forward-thinking developers here, not a bedroom programmer. Presumably he knows what he's doing. Still, it doesn't sound like as much fun as Spore, does it?

Do you think that socially relevant gaming is… relevant? Tell us in the forum below.


^{Source: Popsci.com}