Will Wright, creator of one of the video game industry’s most successful franchises The Sims, is leaving the publisher Electronic Arts after 12 years to start his own company.
EA is tempering its loss by taking an equal stake with Mr Wright in his new venture – Stupid Fun Club.
News of Mr Wright’s departure stunned the industry on Wednesday. He is revered as a video game visionary and had been handled sympathetically by EA through a long and costly gestation of his latest game Spore, which was finally released last September.
Stupid Fun Club will be “an entertainment think tank developing new intellectual properties to be deployed across multiple fronts including video games, movies, television, the internet and toys,” according to an EA press release.
EA will have the right to develop game concepts that arise from Stupid Fun Club projects.
“The entertainment industry is moving rapidly into an era of revolutionary change,” said Mr Wright. “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.”
Mr Wright spoke about new forms of games as social experiences at the recent Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
He created the company Maxis with Jeff Braun in 1989, which was bought by EA in 1997. He designed Sim City, The Sims and Spore.
A year ago, EA reported The Sims, a game that allows players to build homes, communities and ordinary lives, had sold its 100 millionth copy. The Sims 3 is due to launch on June 2.
“We believe in Will’s vision for Stupid Fun Club and we’re looking forward to partnering with Will and his team long into the future,” said John Riccitiello, EA’s chief executive. “Will is a great designer and he’s been part of a great legacy of globally recognized game franchises.”
There was no inkling given about Stupid Fun Club’s first project, but Mr Wright covered the span of life as we know it with Spore, from amoeba procreation to interplanetary conquest.
At the launch of the game, he told me: “I’ve had some ideas I’ve been working on in the background. There are plenty of different ways of seeing the world. The Sims and Spore are both about life on different scales, but they are essentially about what life means.”
