That idea reminds Wright of a sci-fi story by Bruce Sterling called Maneki Neko, named after Japanese gift cats. The story is about the “gift economy” where people contribute gifts to strangers and in return get back everything that they need. People can earn “karmic points” that can be redeemed, a common feature of social games on Facebook.
Wright sees this vision for a game as the logical extension of his game career. He moved from simulating and solving the problems of cities with SimCity to solving individual or family problems with The Sims. Now he is moving not toward solving the problems of a simulated person, but solving the problems of a real person while entertaining them too. “When you look at the arc of the games I have done, starting from SimCity, they are each mining a deeper level of creativity,” Wright said. “And they are more focused on the individual over time.” Hence, Wright is now in the age of personal gaming, where the “user becomes the game.” (via Inside Will Wright’s next big game: HiveMind (exclusive) | VentureBeat)