Calling it “personal gaming”, Will Wright publicly announced yesterday his new game and studio, HiveMind, which will use a player’s personal data to customize itself to the player’s interests, location and (presumably) budget.
Wright’s inspiration came last year when he went down to Burbank, Calif., to give a talk and showed up early. He wandered down the street to a 1950s-style diner. There, he found a bunch of car enthusiasts who gather on the last Friday of each month to show off their cars. A car buff himself, Wright had a great time talking to those people. It was random luck, but quite entertaining.
“If I knew about these events, my life would be a lot more interesting,” he said. “How do we expose you to these events, these things? How can we make a system that understands enough about you and gives you situational awareness? It could take into account what time of day it is, where you are, how much money is in your pocket. Imagine if you could open Google Maps and it shows you things that are interesting to you on the map.”
This is very similar to the research and work that has been happening in MEML (Mobile and Environmental Media Lab) over the course of the last few years. By basing a game (or games) on personal data and the privacy issues can of worms that it opens, the interesting challenges for Wright and his studio will be (a) whether the player’s personal data can be actively collected versus passively collected (or both) and (b) if player engagement can be sustained to a deep enough level that the release of personal data becomes a non-issue.
Source: VentureBeat