Dynamics, Emergence and Simulation

November 7, 2007
Will Wright | Creator: The Sims, SimEarth, SimCity, SimCopter, SimAnt and the forthcoming new game: Spore

Achieving complex results through engineering simplicity.

Speaker Details

Twenty years ago a video game that you could neither win nor lose was inconceivable-unless you were Will Wright. With five years of college and no degree, twenty something Will Wright had the idea of creating a game based on designing and building cities. In achieving that goal Will created a new genre in gaming and the beginning of one of the best loved game franchises in history. The idea for SimCity occurred to Will when he was designing his first game, Raid on Bungeling Bay, when he realized he preferred building islands to piloting attack ‘copters, and the success of SimCity led to SimEarth(1990), SimAnt(1991), SimCity2000(1993), SimCopter(1996), SimCity3000(1999).Will had studied architecture in college, and originally conceived of The Sims(2000) as an architectural design simulator. When he added people to the buildings everything changed, and The Sims became the bestselling PC game for the next four years, only surpassed in 2004 by its sequel, The Sims 2. Popular console, handheld and mobile phone versions of the game have contributed to the huge success of the franchise, which has sold more than 54 million games, to date.Will’s honors include making Entertainment Weekly’s “it list” of the “100 Most Creative People” and a lifetime Achievement Award at the Game Developer’s Choice Awards, and he became the 5th person to be inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame.Will is currently devoted to the creation of Spore, which took home the Electronic Entertainment Expo’s most coveted prize, the Game Critic’s Award for Best of Show. Also at that Expo, Spore was named Best Original Game, Best PC Game and Best Simulation Game.