Will Wright leaves EA News

SimCity, The Sims and Spore creator Will Wright has left EA to run Stupid Fun Club, an "entertainment think-tank" pursuing new IP.

EA has made an equity investment in the studio and is the principal shareholder. Furthermore, the publishing giant reserves the right to develop game concepts that spring from Stupid Fun Club's collective brain.

"The entertainment industry is moving rapidly into an era of revolutionary change. Stupid Fun Club will explore new possibilities that are emerging from this sublime chaos and create new forms of entertainment on a variety of platforms," said Wright in a statement.

"In my twelve years at EA, I’ve had the pleasure to work alongside some of the brightest and most talented game developers in the industry and I look forward to working with them again in the near future."

Stupid Fun Club was formed in 2001 as a side-venture for Wright, who was making robots for Robot Wars. This soon flourished, turned creative haven and started sprouting interesting ideas.

"I think there are going to be things coming out of the Stupid Fun Club that clearly reflect the lineage of games I made in the past, especially gaming experiences. But there are going to be some things that feel like they're out of the box, kind of neat ways of looking at entertainment," Wright said to GameSpot. "Stupid Fun Club is more meant to be just off the wall and odd."

Wright said his goal will be creating core IP brands like LEGO, which he describes as a "style": "There have been games done with it, and in some sense it's inherently playful and involving. So when I talk about a brand, I'm thinking more in that sense than in the, 'Let's develop a fictional world of characters that we can develop a movie about or do a TV show with' sense," he said.

Wright revealed he and EA had been discussing Stupid Fun Club for over a year, and, after seeing the enthusiasm for the project, he was happy to let the publisher become the partner that could turn his IP into videogames. Wright hopes to find other companies similarly adept in their fields to explore avenues like television and film.

There's no word on what Wright is up to with Stupid Fun Club, but there may be room for an announcement at E3, which takes place in June.

"Give me a few months and I'm sure you'll hear something," Wright, the tease, told Kotaku.