GG: What did you learn from the success of The Sims – perhaps, even a surprising lesson – that made you rethink the game design concept for Spore?

Wright: After The Sims launched I spent a lot of time on the community website. I was really surprised by how people used the game to tell stories and then wanted to share these stories with other people. They created whole worlds that they wanted their friends to see. I was really amazed by that. I wanted to build that functionality into the game, so that creating and sharing were baked into the basic gameplay. That’s probably the most significant way that The Sims influenced Spore.

Will Wright: In conversation