stupid-fun-club posts

The man who created Sim City, The Sims and Spore says he's back making new games but is keeping specific details to himself, at least for now. Eurogamer reports that Will Wright, speaking at GDC 2011 this past week, did say that the games he is working on won't be shrink wrapped in a box.

Wright states that the unannounced game projects he is working on will be " ... a little more diffuse" using both mobile and web platforms. He also hints that the games he is making will be more than just to entertain people, saying, "I'm really interested right now in games that get people more engaged in the world around them rather than distract them from it." Wright's most recent project is the TV series Bar Karma which features audience participation in creating the show's storylines.

Will Wright may be a "god" when it comes to creating some of the most influential and best selling PC games of all time (The Sims, Sim City and Spore, among others) but that doesn't mean he thinks games have limitations. In a new article over at CNN Wright is pretty blunt when he states, "Games are not the right medium to tell stories. Video games are more about story possibilities." He pretty much slams story-heavy game like the Metal Gear Solid series with Wright saying, "That's not the kind of game I like playing."

Wright is now the producer of Bar Karma, the new sci-fi themed drama on the Current TV network that does try to tell stories, although those are based in part on suggestions made by viewers via a special web site. So does that mean Wright has abandoned games completely? Nope. According to the article, Wright says that he is "also working on new games" at his company Stupid Fun Club. We assume those games won't have stories either.

Over a year ago, famed PC game creator Will Wright left his long time business home at Electronic Arts to found his new company Stupid Fun Club. While he still has an interest in game creation (he made a surprise last day lecture at the Game Developers Conference earlier this month) his first post-EA project may in fact be a TV show.

IGN reports that Wright is helping to develop The Creation Project, a TV series about the making of a TV series. Users submit ideas for a show and then vote on the favorite ones that are submitted. The winning TV story idea is then make into two half-hour episodes. Wright has reportedly created a software program called the "StoryMaker Engine" that will allow users to make storyboards for their TV series idea. IGN says the show could go live by the end of 2010.

Near the end of GDC 2010 on Saturday, a mysterious lecture given by a person only identified by the name "Phaedrus". As it turned out the speech was made by none other than Will Wright. The creator of The Sims and Spore has technically been out of the PC game development business for a year since leaving EA and forming Stupid Fun Club.

As reported on by Joystiq, Wright spent his GDC speech time on, among other things, the rise of social gaming. While you may see tens of millions of people playing Farmville now, Wright stated that it may not be the "next big thing" in gaming. He stated, "It gets a lot of attention, of course, because investors, when they're looking to invest in something, they're looking to invest in the steep part of this curve."Still, Wright predicts that social gaming could end up "doing about the quarter of the market, really."

The Sims and Spore creator Will Wright shocked many in the game industry earlier this year when he decided to leave his long time development team at Electronic Arts to start an all new company with the terrific name Stupid Fun Club. VentureBeat chatted with Wright this week to get an update on what he's been up to and what he has planned for his new company.

Wright says that Stupid Fun Club has three projects in the works right now including one that might be released in the next year. However not all of the projects involve video or PC games. Wright states, "One of them is toy related. The others aren't. We are looking at a lot of different industries. There's the web. Toys. We're not restricted to one type of entertainment. We're kind of looking for ideas that cross a lot of different boundaries." However games are not far from his mind with Wright saying, "We are taking the games industry into other areas. We are expanding what we call the 'play industry.' Games are limited in some ways. Play can be applied to so many different kinds of experiences."

Will Wright's departure from Electronic Arts to work full time at his "entertainment think-tank" Stupid Fun Club doesn't mean he has no more interest in his last game, the alien evolution sim Spore. Our sister site GameDaily reports that in a conversation with Wright he reveals that he will still be retained as a consultant to EA even with his new business and interests.

What does that mean, exactly? Wright states, "'I'm spending a certain amount of time every month actually working with the Spore team on future versions of Spore and expansions. So I will [still] be involved with EA on developing the Spore franchise as well." Wright added that he will be checking out what fans want to do with the game, saying, "So I think now we're at a maximum learning where the fans are going to be steering the franchise as much as we will – they have their hands on the steering wheel too."

Wednesday EA and Will Wright shocked the gaming industry when it was announced that the creator of so many acclaimed and best selling PC game titles was leaving EA to work full time at Stupid Fun Club. The "entertainment think tank" is a company Wright founded back in 2001 but will now run full time (with some financial backing from EA). The idea is that Wright and his team will create new entertainment properties that could branch out into other areas besides games.

In a new chat at Gamespot, Wright states we will have to wait a little while before they announce the first Stupid Fun Club projects. EA will have first crack at developing any ideas Wright's company comes up with into games. And what about Wright's last game for EA, Spore? He admits, "I think it was probably over-hyped, like a lot of games end up being, primarily because the development time was so long." However he is still pleased at the reaction the game got, especially among young gamers, Wright states, "We never expected a 3-year-old to be playing with their parents."

It's the end of an era for publisher Electronic Arts and game designer Will Wright. After forming Maxis in 1989 (bought by EA in 1997) and helping to develop titles like Sim City, The Sims and most recently Spore, Wright is leaving the publisher to work full time at Stupid Fun Club, a company which is described as an "entertainment think tank" that will create new entertainment properties for a number of different formats.

Wright and EA aren't completely separating. Today's press release announces that EA owns the same number of shares in Stupid Fun Club that Wright does and that EA will have the rights to create any games that come out of Stupid Fun Club's ideas. In the meantime the Spore team at EA's Maxis outfit will be run by Lucy Bradshaw. Rod Humble is in charge of EA's Play unit which includes The Sims.

Update: Our sister site Game Daily has posted up a chat with Maxis head Lucy Bradshaw where she talks about Wright's new move over to Stupid Fun Club and how it will affect the Spore franchise moving forward.