14 DAY TRIAL // The fact that Will Wright left Maxis and Electronic Arts to create something called Stupid Fun Club, a self-described think thank focused on entertainment, caused a small earthquake in the videogaming world.
The man who has designed such franchises like The Sims, Sim City and the more recent Spore could be in a position to never create videogames at all and a lot of gamers were sad about that. But it seems that Stupid Fun Club is actually pretty videogame oriented and the mastermind working on three projects.
Will Wright talked to Venture Beat and stated that “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.” He added “We might get up to four or five. I want to stay pretty focused. We have a lot of ideas that we want to do. But it’s just three now.”
Stupid Fun Club is half owned by Electronic Arts at the moment and the publisher also holds the right to develop all the videogaming-related projects emerging from the think tank. Still, the Stupid Fun Club is working on play-oriented projects, which encompass games, TV programs, movies, toys and other mediums, with the Internet being the glue that holds all of it together. The organization has not given any background regarding its projects and has not even provided names for any of them.
It seems that the new position at Stupid Fun Club, without the pressure of a release date and without expectations to set and then meet, is a good one for the creative mind of Will Wright. He says that “It’s fun. I’m able to work on projects that are much broader than I could at Electronic Arts” and gamers all over the world are looking forward to seeing what he can cook up for them.