The question of games as simulation is actually a very interesting one, and in my opinion, the one true way of viewing games -- every game is a simulation of some fictional universe, and the player's primary goal is to understand, interact and finally abuse that simulation to achieve his goals.
Sandbox MMOs are the end-game, but I don't think we exactly need them just yet -- we can get 80% of the way there in a much simpler fashion -- you don't need true simulation; you just need sufficient simulation. You don't need world-modification, you just need sufficient world-interaction. You don't need environmental destruction and creation, you just need environmental reaction. The true goal is a reactive, but self-stabilizing, environment.
For example, the mistake Ultima Online made with their simulation was to make the environment self-containing -- which lead to catastrophe as soon as the assumptions were violated (players hoarding resources, and not feeding it back into the system). They had the simulated, editable environment.. but it wasn't self-stabilizing (or even stabilized by GOD aka Origin Systems), and it badly needed to be.
Dwarf fortress makes the interesting modification of allowing, accepting and even encouraging catastrophic environmental reaction -- losing is fun. A sandbox MMO obviously can't do the same, because it'd be too detached from any individual player's interaction, but there's clearly variation that can occur in how you run the simulation
But currently most games don't understand that simulation is the one true goal, so they don't even get close. We're not at 80% of the way there.. we're more like 10%, except in a very few titles. EVE is probably the only thing that makes any real progress towards it.
But anyways that's far more advanced than what Spore needed to be a good game. Spore didn't need to be an advanced simulator in each of its stages -- it just needed to have some legitimate reactions to the choices you made. It needed a basic simulator in each stage, but really the only simulation with any merit was stage 1 (the bacteria or whatever). After that.. nothing you did mattered except for stats.
Sandbox MMOs are the end-game, but I don't think we exactly need them just yet -- we can get 80% of the way there in a much simpler fashion -- you don't need true simulation; you just need sufficient simulation. You don't need world-modification, you just need sufficient world-interaction. You don't need environmental destruction and creation, you just need environmental reaction. The true goal is a reactive, but self-stabilizing, environment.
For example, the mistake Ultima Online made with their simulation was to make the environment self-containing -- which lead to catastrophe as soon as the assumptions were violated (players hoarding resources, and not feeding it back into the system). They had the simulated, editable environment.. but it wasn't self-stabilizing (or even stabilized by GOD aka Origin Systems), and it badly needed to be.
Dwarf fortress makes the interesting modification of allowing, accepting and even encouraging catastrophic environmental reaction -- losing is fun. A sandbox MMO obviously can't do the same, because it'd be too detached from any individual player's interaction, but there's clearly variation that can occur in how you run the simulation
But currently most games don't understand that simulation is the one true goal, so they don't even get close. We're not at 80% of the way there.. we're more like 10%, except in a very few titles. EVE is probably the only thing that makes any real progress towards it.
But anyways that's far more advanced than what Spore needed to be a good game. Spore didn't need to be an advanced simulator in each of its stages -- it just needed to have some legitimate reactions to the choices you made. It needed a basic simulator in each stage, but really the only simulation with any merit was stage 1 (the bacteria or whatever). After that.. nothing you did mattered except for stats.