Wright unveils new "personal gaming" start up

Sims creator and industry veteran Will Wright has unveiled a new start up HiveMind, which is working on ways to use players' personal data to create a new gaming experience.

Both the new start up, based in California, and the game are called Hivemind, and aims to make games that adapt to the player's habit and lifestyle.

"Rather than craft a game like FarmVille for players to learn and play, we learn about you and your routines and incorporate that into a form of game play," Wright told Gamesbeat.

"It blurs entertainment, lifestyle, and personal tools," he continued

"With that data, the world and the opportunities for entertainment within it become more visible to you."

There are no details as yet on the planned platform or release date for the project, but it seems likely that the game would need some sort of mobile or social networking connection to mine data about its players. Wright suggests personal interests, location, friend's activity and even spending could be used to tailor their game play.

"If we can learn enough about the player, we can create games about their real life," Wright said.

"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."

HiveMind was founded by Wright, Raj Parekh and Jawad Ansari, and some of the ideas for the project were born as Wright worked with the Stupid Fun Club, which he launched in April 2009. Wright hopes to expand HiveMind in the future.

"This has to do with where gaming is going," Wright added.

"We had our eras in console gaming and social gaming. A lot of this personal gaming will happen on mobile devices. The question here is how can we learn enough about the player to create games about his or her real life."