Would you say game maker Will Wright is being smart in forming his own team?
William Wright (born January 20 1960 in Atlanta, Georgia) is an American video game designer and co-founder of the game development company Maxis, now part of Electronic Arts. In April 2009 he left Electronic Arts to run “Stupid Fun Club”, an entertainment think tank in which Wright and EA are principal shareholders.[1][2][3] The first computer game Wright designed was Raid on Bungeling Bay in 1984 but it was SimCity that brought him to prominence. The game was released by Maxis, a company Wright formed with Jeff Braun, and he built upon the game’s theme of computer simulation with numerous other titles including SimEarth and SimAnt. Wright’s greatest success to date came as the original designer for The Sims games series which, as of 2008, is the best-selling PC game in history. The game spawned multiple sequels and expansions and Wright earned many awards for his work. His latest work, Spore, was released in September 2008 and features gameplay based loosely upon the model of evoluti
Influential videogame designer Will Wright said Wednesday he is resigning from Electronic Arts Inc. amid creative differences with the company for which he created best-selling computer games such as The Sims. Mr. Wright said he was leaving the Redwood City, Calif., publisher to concentrate on Stupid Fun Club, an entertainment think tank he founded in 2001. He had been at EA for 12 years, most recently leading development of a game called Spore that attracted wide attention but less-than-stellar sales. In an interview, Mr. Wright said he decided to leave EA because he wanted to design interactive games for devices beyond just game consoles and PCs. He mentioned televisions and even household appliances as “an area where we would conceivably be.” “The model we’re looking at is to work from the design outward,” he said. “That’s where the creative differences were. I wanted to branch out, make it entertainment as a whole.” Mr. Wright’s departure comes as EA struggles with its product line
