Will Wright Leaves EA/Maxis For Stupid Fun Club

Dave Knott writes "Gamasutra reports that SimCity, Sims and Spore game creator Will Wright is leaving EA/Maxis. He will now be acting as head of Stupid Fun Club, an 'entertainment think tank' that he was previously funding out of his own pocket. From the article: 'The club has focused mainly on designing and building robots, as well as creating video productions based on them. Wright and EA will co-own Stupid Fun Club, which will focus on developing new cross-media IP for games, movies, TV and toys. EA has the right to develop game concepts that emerge from the think tank, and both the company and Wright have an equal stake.'"

Spore

[religious freak]

Anyone know how Spore has been received or how well it's selling? I've always thought it might've been a disappointment?

I still haven't played the game, but I've got to imagine that if there were troubles, this is probably why he split with the company.

Re:Thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

That gives me a great idea for a new first person shooter.

Re:Holy shit

[Anonymous Coward]

I spent about five minutes there, trying to figure out what it was all about. It was five minutes of my life that I'll never get back. That is the most pointless excuse for using bandwidth that I've ever seen.

The "Stupid" is very fitting, while the "Fun" is complete bullshit.

He should be put in a fucking wood chipper, while it's running.

Re:Spore

[bigstrat2003]

A lot of people hated Spore, I think they're smoking crack. I enjoyed it. I think it might have to do with expectations, though: I've always felt Will Wright was rather overrated as a designer (SimCity aside, cause that was amazing), so I didn't buy into any of the game's hype. If you did buy into it, though, I can see how you might have felt let down.

Re:Spore

[BurningFeetMan]

You've gotta remember though, EA & Will burnt a LOT of people who actually invested and were looking forward with Spore, such as myself. Now, I personally go out of my way to tell people NOT to get a game produced, owned, written etc by EA, or Will for that mater.

Re:I like Will Wrights stuff

[Daswolfen]

It was alright, but it had the potential to be so much more. An example, a +5 leg is just as good as 5 +1 legs. The game was supposed to be based on the evolutionary process, and yet, that process played no real part in the game. Also, once past the initial stages and in the tribal stage, it played like a second rate strategy game. To be honest, I got more enjoyment out of the creature creator than the later stages of the game. Now don't get me wrong, Wright has done some great work in the past... Sim City, the Sims, etc., but EA's fingerprints are all over Spore and the fact that Wright sold out rather than sticking to his guns to make the game he promised is evident in the final product. Now I know there is an expansion pack coming, so that may have add whole dimensions to the game that would change my mind, but I can't see spending even more money on a game that lost its replay value too quickly. SimCity and The Sims both had excellent replay value, but Spore got old quickly.

And I stand by my statement about Sid Meier. His games are vastly superior to Wrights and provide way more replay value than Spore could even think of. Civilization, Pirates, Railroad Tycoon, and the rest all provide nearly infinite replay (admittedly so did SimCity and to an extent, The Sims, but you needed expansion pack after expansion pack) value.

This is just my opinion, but I have been playing these games since the late 80s, early 90s. Now I am probably biased because two of my favorite games for my C64 was Pirates and F15 Strike Eagle (with Silent Service and NATO Commander in the mix as well). I know I am coming off as a Sid Meier fanboy (and I guess I am to an extent... I will buy pretty much any game his name is on or he had a hand in) and I do want to acknowledge that Will Wright made some great games as well, but Spore just wasn't up to his previous benchmarks of quality.

Re:Daikatana

[Anonymous Coward]

Fortunately Daikatana finally came out after the delays, and it exceeded all expectations. I've been making my own Daikatana mods and maps ever since. I'm not sure if anyone downloads them from PlanetDaikatana, but I'm the only one on the message boards there.

Re:Spore

[Rockoon]

Of course, this really doesnt matter.

They have already gotten literally millions of free player-created "creatures." The cost of creating all that content would have easily been hundreds of millions of dollars if they hired modelers/artists to make it.

You can bet anything that in the next year or two, E.A. will release games that are not anything like Spore, but will leverage the player created art they got for free from Spore players.

"Thats my Ososaplopicus!! What the hell is it doing in StupidGame 2010, and why did they rename it HaHaHaSucker?"

Re:Maxis = Sims

[Anonymous Coward]

After the way he was backstabbed and had Spore sabotaged by other members of the development team, I can't blame Will for leaving Maxis, either. It makes me sad to see people still dumping on him for the way Spore turned out when it was revealed months ago that it wasn't his fault.

Re:May as well

[Headcase88]

That may tell you something.

That Sturgeon's Law [tvtropes.org] is as true to paper dolls as it is to everything else.