Will Wright leaves EA, mostly

by JC Fletcher { Apr 8th 2009 at 2:30PM }

Legendary game designer Will Wright is leaving his position as the head of EA-owned Maxis, to do what most people at his level of success do: whatever he wants. Wright will be focusing on his Stupid Fun Club think tank, working to develop new IPs across multiple media -- IPs which EA will then have the option to pay him for.

"The entertainment industry is moving rapidly into an era of revolutionary change," Wright said. "Stupid Fun Club will explore new possibilities that are emerging from this sublime chaos and create new forms of entertainment on a variety of platforms."

EA has a share in Stupid Fun Club equal to Wright's, while a third, unnamed investor has a smaller stake in the company. EA has the first rights to anything Stupid Fun Club comes up with. The new organization has yet to announce any projects.

Source - GameDaily
Source - MTV Multiplayer

Tags: ea, stupid-fun-club, will-wright

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

TracerBullet @ Apr 8th 2009 2:35PM

Not sure what this will mean to Spore - every other sim something is pretty much in autopilot, so no ned to have write around.

Anyway, people like him trying new things is always a good sign on the industry.

Octillus @ Apr 8th 2009 2:37PM

As long as he doesn't join the Super Adventure Club, I think we're all okay.

Sir Buzz Killington( The Artist formerly known as Jakka) @ Apr 8th 2009 2:52PM

Eh...I wish Darth Chef became a recurring character....

Markez @ Apr 8th 2009 2:39PM

That is an odd, goofy picture, almost like the machine is telling him "Goooo doo my bidding!" Will Wright is merely a vessel for the machine intellect.

I doubt they'll go back to the well on this one, but I haven't played a Simcity since 2k/3k. From what I'd seen of the latter iterations it almost appears they overly complicated them. But those two were just about right. Since I don't have a PC gaming rig, just a garbage Dell laptop, I'd love to see a great city building game on a console.

Moptimus Slime (Gobot in disguise) @ Apr 8th 2009 2:46PM

they had a SimCity Wii/DS game

Oh, you said GREAT city building game

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/wii/simcitycreator
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ds/simcitycreator

Markez @ Apr 8th 2009 2:59PM

:( Yeah, I like the look of that Wii one, but man those are some sketchy reviews. A game like Simcity or Harvest Moon I'd really only want on a console anyway, don't like those type o' games on a handheld.

Moptimus Slime (Gobot in disguise) @ Apr 8th 2009 2:41PM

So its like Project Sora, but with Wright instead of Sakurai?

Courtney @ Apr 8th 2009 2:41PM

I want to own my own think tank.

Dirty @ Apr 8th 2009 3:15PM

Whats stopping you. Just go sit in your bedroom and think of cool shit and right it down.

Moptimus Slime (Gobot in disguise) @ Apr 8th 2009 3:22PM

or just get some business cards that say "Courtney, Professional Consultant" and get paid to do it

Courtney @ Apr 8th 2009 3:57PM

It's actually been really tempting, no joking. My final project before graduating college was a think tank composed of journalism students from 7 different universities, working together to try and come up with innovative ways that news outlets could improve their online features. We insisted on releasing all those ideas as open source, so that no one company could try and copyright/trademark our work.

A small group of us kept meeting for awhile after that, but it didn't stick. I'm thinking about trying to restart something this summer when I have some more free time, even if it's just an excuse to get some cool, intelligent people together to brainstorm.