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.'"

Comments

Thank god

[QuantumG]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/05/27/

Oblig.

Re:Thank god

[Hurricane78]

Already done. It's called Postal 2.

Re:Thank god

[darkshadow]

Already done as Conker's Bad Fur Day
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conker's_Bad_Fur_Day

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:Spore

[Rockoon]

Will sacrificed his original goal, that of something similar to evolution, for a toy completely unrelated to evolution.

Remember all of Will's talks about the high cost of content and how the game industry needed to change?

He had lead everyone to believe that "procedural content" was the goal, when the real goal was apparently to get millions of people to create content for free: all your creature designs are owned by E.A and are automatically uploaded to their servers.

And that explain the evolution sacrifice nicely, as well as the "free" creature creator. They wanted no limits to creativity in order to maximize the diversity and quantity of the free content they were going to aquire.

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: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:Spore

[BurningFeetMan]

But... My giant space slug... No!

Fuck, and I thought I felt ripped off before. My hatred for EA just scaled 10 fold.

Holy shit

[Mozk]

Holy shit that website is ugly! They use Comic Sans, for FSM's sake.

I know that Will Wright is famous and that appearance isn't always everything, but who would do business with a company with an appearance like that?

Re:Holy shit

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought "Meh, just someone complaining" but this site is....really bad. The globe menu is silly, I didn't even realise it was a menu, the buttons spins around for too long so you can't read them and then when they stop they are still difficult to read due to the font and colour. The text is pink and has crusty pixels around the edges. The website itself has very little useful information what so ever and it lags when ever you do something. It looks like a website made in Flash by a High School student learning how to design websites.

Re:Holy shit

[Firehed]

Please - I regularly work with HS students learning how to design websites, and that comparison really isn't fair to the students.

This might be a stupid question...

[HexOxide]

This might be a stupid question...

But, how is Will Wright actually leaving EA if EA co-owns Stupid Fun Club?

Re:This might be a stupid question...

[Strange Ranger]

Unless he controls 51% of stupidfanclub it's just a reorg and a nice promotion.

Re:This might be a stupid question...

[physicsphairy]

It sounds like EA's fifty-percent stake entitles them to share in profits and IP, but Will Wright is still totally in charge of his company (which makes EA more of an investor-with-benefits). And just because EA is a bigger entity does not make co-owner Will Wright an "employee" of EA. They can't fire him, for example. So it is correct to say that Will Wright has left his employment at EA.

Re:Daikatana

[Anonymous Coward]

But he already had Spore. Your last game before Daikatana is supposed to be GOOD.

Already Broke Rule #1

[theskunkmonkey]

Everyone knows that the first rule of Stupid Fun Club is to never talk about Stupid Fun Club!

When will people ever learn?

Re:Already Broke Rule #1

[General Muzak]

You're wrong.

The first rule of Studpid Fun Club is to never make fun of Stupid Fun Club.

(oh btw - please don't mod this funny, for obvious reasons)

Re:Having fun with the articles title:

[acrobuddy]

Well my first glance was: Will Wright Leaves EA/Maxis for Stupid Fan Club ... made more sense my second look.

I watch too much SNL

[Deathlizard]

* Warning: Pregnant women, the elderly and children under 10 should avoid prolonged exposure to Stupid Fun Club.
* Caution: Stupid Fun Club may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds.
* Stupid Fun Club Contains a liquid core, which, if exposed due to rupture, should not be touched, inhaled, or looked at.
* Do not use Stupid Fun Club on concrete.

Discontinue use of Stupid Fun Club if any of the following occurs:

        * Itching
        * Vertigo
        * Dizziness
        * Tingling in extremities
        * Loss of balance or coordination
        * Slurred speech
        * Temporary blindness
        * Profuse sweating
        * Heart palpitations

If Stupid Fun Club begins to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head.

Stupid Fun Club may stick to certain types of skin.

Ingredients of Stupid Fun Club include an unknown glowing substance which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space.

Stupid Fun Club has been shipped to our troops in Saudi Arabia and is also being dropped by our warplanes on Iraq.

Do not taunt Stupid Fun Club.

Stupid Fun Club?

[ProfM]

Is that anything like Super Adventure Club?

Seriously, look at the website

[durnurd]

I don't know what's going on with that website. It vaguely reminds me of Zombo.com. There's nothing there, but it's some damned fine nothing.