Will Wright working on new games

By Fred Dutton Published 5 March, 2011

SimCity man teases unconventional future.

SimCity creator and all-round industry legend Will Wright has announced he's working on his first new game projects since 2008's Spore, hinting at a predictably unconventional new direction.

Speaking at the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco today, Wright revealed that work was underway on a number of projects, but suggested that they wouldn't be traditional boxed products.

"For the most part, the stuff we're working on is not shrink-wrapped, AAA, Xbox-only. It's stuff that's a little more diffuse, mobile, web," he explained.

"I'm really interested right now in games that get people more engaged in the world around them rather than distract them from it. Using the world as a human platform rather than an Xbox. Kind of AR stuff."

Wright also detailed how he had been keeping busy since work on ambitious evolution sim Spore wrapped up. As reported last year, his new StupidFunClub outfit has been working on a user-generated TV concept, and he's also developing a range of toys. The first of which, an ant farm, will be out later this year.

"[We're] trying to move gaming out into the wider world – toys, the web, stuff like that," he said of his current modus operandi.

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About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (12) Latest comment 1 year ago

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  • Lusterpurge #1 1 year ago

    Spore was a disappointment but likely more because of the execution than the idea. I hope Mr. Wright will still make the occasional big game because I love his games.

  • Gojiratron #2 1 year ago

    This guy is one of the industry's true visionaries and I'd love to see what he could come up with on iOS devices.

  • Mister-Wario #3 1 year ago

    ""[We're] trying to move gaming out into the wider world – toys, the web, stuff like that," he said of his current modus operandi".

    Wha? How are toys part of gaming? Well, unless you have that gimmicky Spyro toy Activision is selling.

  • RoaringPanda #4 1 year ago

    @Mister-Wario
    He said he's moving out of traditional gaming, not saying toys are part of gaming. He's exploring stuff

  • smirny #5 1 year ago

    Facebook game.

  • uknortherner2000 #6 1 year ago

    @Lusterpurge: "Spore was a disappointment but likely more because of the execution than the idea. I hope Mr. Wright will still make the occasional big game because I love his games."

    Spore was a failure because of EA's interference. The original game that was showcased a year before release was far more in-depth and promising than the final product turned out to be. EA only saw the $$$$, and this, combined with the surgical removal of one of the key game stages (an underwater stage to be sold back to the gamer as DLC), SecuROM and installation limits drove most people away. EA showed nothing but contempt for its customers (hell, the fuckers even charged for the demo!), and ran what was left of Maxis into the ground. Hell, The Sims 3 had nothing to do with Maxis at all.

    It will be interesting to see what Will Wright comes up with now that he is free of that interference. Yes, I'm aware that he has a partnership with EA, but that's all - he's no-longer employed by them and can do as he please.

  • suicidal_penguins #7 1 year ago

    Spore was Molyneaux level disappointing but fair play to him for standing back and re-assessing his direction.

  • Claudiov1.0 #8 1 year ago

    Will Wright is one of the most revolucionary guys in the industry, let's see what can he bring new...

  • Soton4084 #9 1 year ago

    I wish he would just make a new version of Simcity. Simcity 4 was superb, but Societies was awful and not a proper sequel in my opinion.
    Edited by Soton4084 at 05/03/11 @ 19:51

  • Der_tolle_Emil #10 1 year ago

    Spore was quite fun if you played it with a friend because it's quite funny if you come across a weird creature with an incredibly stupid name. I thought of it more like a very interactive creature editor rather than a simulation and I did have my fun with it.

    Personally I'd love to see a new Sim City. Sim City 3000 was brilliant but I just didn't get along with Sim City 4. All the fiddling around with budgets of individual buildings didn't sit well with me. Every once in a while I try to get back into it but sadly it runs like crap even on newer machines. It's just soooo incredibly slow.

  • Eraysor #11 1 year ago

    Spore was actually pretty good, especially with the expansion pack. Obviously still nowhere near as amazing as it should have been, but I still thought it was a good game. Having played a bit of the Darkspore beta, I can only say I'm impressed, even if the creature editor has been rampantly scaled back.

    I just hope someone at EA sees sense and commissions SimCity 5 sometime soon.

  • Mister-Wario #12 1 year ago

    RoaringPanda: Not really. He seems to be insinuating the toys form part of gaming: "moving gaming out into the wider world: toys, stuff like that".