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Mac|Life has published an interview with Will Wright and Lucy Bradshaw about the upcoming release of Spore. The Q&A covers a variety of topics including specifics about gameplay and the reasons for bringing the game to Mac users.

The new god sim will allow players to build single celled organisms and take them from the primordial ooze to the lofty reaches of outer space. At each stage of evolution the game will open up new options for play, eventually leading from simple survival to city building and galaxy conquering.

Why make a Mac version of it? Is it a romantic decision or a business decision or somehow both?
Lucy Bradshaw: ... First of all, games that Will had made befor--SimCity--originated on the Mac, had a strong following on the Mac, and I think launching first on the Mac was part of the reason for its success, because journalists were on them… [With Spore,] there’s sort of this energy with [the Mac] audience.

Will Wright: We want to see what weird, unexpected things people will do with these tools. And I think the Mac group will be over-represented and the people that surprise us with the weird stuff they do with tools.

Lucy Bradshaw: We’re kind of excited to take it to that platform and see what happens with it.

Why use TransGaming and a Cider port versus a native Mac translation?
Lucy Bradshaw: … When you talk about just the economies in terms of the Mac gaming audience as opposed to the amount of time and effort it takes to port something going native, with as much work as we’ve got, we can move it to the Mac audience a lot faster by using this approach. While I think there may be some advantages to going native, I think this gets you probably the best of both worlds. You get that game on the Mac where as a lot of games don’t move over there. And you’re really tapping into… Spore at the same time. So often it’s like six to nine months later.
We’ve partnered with Aspyr [on other games]. They’re really great. They did native versions before… like Sims 2. It took them, almost--I think Sims 2 Mac launched about nine months after the original. And every single expansion pack, it’s like six months after the original.

Will Wright: And that’s actually pretty fast.

Lucy Bradshaw: I think there’s a lot of benefit to doing a simultaneous launch.

Mac|Life: An Interview With Spore's Designers

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