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77-410: William Ralph Wright (born January 20, 1960) is an American video game designer and co-founder of the game development company Maxis , which later became part of Electronic Arts . In April 2009, he left EA to run Stupid Fun Club Camp, an entertainment think tank in which Wright and EA are principal shareholders. The first computer game Wright designed was Raid on Bungeling Bay in 1984, but it

154-407: A context to an event in a game, making the activity of playing it less abstract and enhance its entertainment value, although narrative elements are not always clearly present or present at all. The original version of Tetris is an example of a game apparently without narrative. Some narratologists claim that all games have a narrative element. Some go further and claim that games are essentially

231-474: A daughter named Cassidy in 1986. The family lost their home and most records of Wright's early career in the Oakland firestorm of 1991 . Wright and Jones separated in 2008. He has since married Anya Zavarzina. Wright is on the board of trustees of the X Prize Foundation , a non-profit organization that designs and hosts public competitions intended to encourage technological development to benefit humanity. Amid

308-513: A form of narrative. Narrative in practice can be the starting point for the development of a game or can be added to a design that started as a set of game mechanics. Gameplay is the interactive aspects of video game design. Gameplay involves player interaction with the game, usually for the purpose of gameplay is entertainment, education or training. The design process varies from designer to designer and companies have different formal procedures and philosophies. The typical "textbook" approach

385-521: A game designer in the United States is $ 130,000 a year. World design is the creation of a backstory, setting and theme for the game; often done by a lead designer. World design can also be the creation of a universe or a map, as well as topics or areas that are likely to be pursued by the player. It is a map referenced for creation of everything as it shows where it is and allows for the most logistical design in any given game. World design shapes

462-411: A game designer is designing game play, conceiving and designing rules and structures that result in an experience for players. Thus game design, as a discipline, requires a focus on games in and of themselves. Rather than placing games in the service of another field such as sociology, literary criticism, or computer science, our aim is to study games within their own disciplinary space. Because game design

539-416: A game designer with less than 3 years of experience earned, on average, $ 55,000 ( £37,874.88 ). A game designer with more than 6 years of experience made, on average, $ 105,000 ( £72,306.58 ). The average salary of these designers varies depending on their region. As of 2015 the salary of experienced workers has shifted to approximately US$ 87,000 ( £59,911.17 ) As of January 17, 2020, the average annual pay for

616-403: A game designer with more than six years of experience earned an average of US$ 65,000 ( £44,761.22 sterling), US$ 54,000 ( £37,186.24 ) with three to six years of experience and $ 44,000 ( £30,299.90 ) with less than 3 years of experience. Lead designers earned $ 75,000 ( £51,647.56 ) with three to six years of experience and $ 95,000 ( £65,420.24 ) with more than six years of experience. In 2013,

693-476: A loss. EA bought Maxis in June 1997. After losing his home in the Oakland firestorm of 1991 , Wright was inspired to turn the experience of rebuilding his life into a game. He began developing an idea of a virtual doll house , similar to SimCity but with focus on individual people. This idea would evolve into The Sims , which was based on Wright's firsthand experience rebuilding and furnishing his home. The game

770-623: A member of the board of directors of Linden Lab , the creators of Second Life . At the Game Developers Conference in March 2018, Will Wright announced a new project, the upcoming mobile game Proxi . At GalaVerse on December 11, 2021, Wright announced a new project, in partnership with Gala Games, called VoxVerse . Wright said VoxVerse will be a blockchain game , where players will be able to create areas to explore and interact with and share these with other players of

847-428: A new project is being discussed (either internally or as a result of dialogue with potential publishers), the designer may be asked to write a sell-sheet of short concepts, followed by a one or two-page pitch of specific features, audience, platform and other details. Designers will first meet with leads in other departments to establish agreement on the feasibility of the game given the available time, scope and budget. If

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924-465: A new show for the network. The program, entitled Bar Karma , began airing in February 2011, and featured scenes and twists pitched by an online community, using an online story creator tool designed by Wright. Stupid Fun Club ran for four years before closing down, with much of the team following Wright to found the social media app and graphic novel builder Thred. In October 2011, Will Wright became

1001-671: A particular interest in robotics, space exploration, military history, and language arts. Two years later, in the fall of 1980, he transferred again to The New School in New York City. During this time, he lived in an apartment in Greenwich Village , and spent his free time "searching for spare parts in local electronics surplus stores." While living in New York City, he purchased an Apple II+ and taught himself Applesoft BASIC , Pascal , and assembly language in order to implement Conway's Game of Life . After one year at

1078-431: A player's attention. A designer can then use these elements to guide or direct the player in a specific direction through the game world or mislead them. User interface (UI) design deals with the construction the user interactions and feedback interface, like menus or heads-up displays . The user interface also incorporates game mechanics design. Deciding how much information to give the player and in what way allows

1155-410: A research and writing process. Designers may oversee focus testing, write up art and audio asset lists and write game documentation. In addition to the skillset, designers are ideally clear communicators with attention to detail and ability to delegate responsibilities appropriately. Design approval in the commercial setting is a continuous process from the earliest stages until the game ships. When

1232-619: A space shuttle, a seat from a Soyuz ... control panels from the Mir ", and the control console of the Soyuz 23 , as well as dolls, dice, and fossils. Wright used to build competitive robots for BattleBots with his daughter, but no longer does. As of November 2006, Wright still had remnant bits of machined metal left over from his BattleBots days strewn about the garage of his home. Following his work in BattleBots , he has taken steps into

1309-540: A staff of producers or project managers to monitor the developer's progress, critique ongoing development, and assist as necessary. Most video games created by an external video game developer are paid for with periodic advances on royalties. These advances are paid when the developer reaches certain stages of development, called milestones . Video game publishing is associated with high risk : AAA game publishers produce and create games that are high budget and groundbreaking. They are advanced in technology and forward

1386-498: A sudden it's like da-da-da-da, and it's pelting them with balls. Wright was a former Robot Wars champion in the Stupid Fun Club, a Berkeley-based robotics workshop. "Kitty Puff Puff", one of Wright's bots designed with the help of his daughter Cassidy, fought against its opponents by sticking a roll of tape onto its armature and circling around them, encapsulating them and denying them movement. The technique, "cocooning",

1463-446: A tool so that they can create things. And then you give them some context for that creation. You know, what is it, what kind of kind of world does it live in, what's its purpose? What are you trying to do with this thing that you're creating? To really put the player in the design role. And the actual world is reactive to their design. So they design something that the little world inside the computer reacts to. And then they have to revisit

1540-447: A video game. This encompasses many different elements of the process. Writing in video games also includes the elements in which the literature is presented. Voice acting, text, picture editing and music are all elements of game writing. Level design is the construction of world levels and its features. Level design makes use of many different fields to create a game world. Lighting, space, framing, color and contrast are used to draw

1617-429: A wider consumer pool and have access to distribute to a big network. Although they have creative constraints within game development and marketing, they often focus and follow market trends. They have a higher demand to attain commercial success. Examples of AAA video game publishers are Electronic Arts , Ubisoft , and Activision . Indie game publishers are companies that work with independent developers. Their focus

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1694-406: Is a company that publishes video games that have been developed either internally by the publisher or externally by a video game developer . They often finance the development, sometimes by paying a video game developer (the publisher calls this external development ) and sometimes by paying an internal staff of developers called a studio . The large video game publishers also distribute

1771-433: Is a particular kind of designer, much like a graphic designer, industrial designer or architect. A game designer is not necessarily a programmer, visual designer or project manager, although sometimes he or she can also play these roles in the creation of a game. A game designer might work alone or as part of a larger team. A game designer might create card games, social games, video games or any other kind of game. The focus of

1848-579: Is an emerging discipline, we often borrow from other areas of knowledge — from mathematics and cognitive science; from semiotics and cultural studies. We may not borrow in the most orthodox manner, but we do so in the service of helping to establish a field of game design proper. A game designer is a person who designs gameplay , conceiving and designing the rules and structure of a game . Many designers start their career in testing departments, other roles in game development or in classroom conditions, where mistakes by others can be seen first-hand. In 2010,

1925-490: Is becoming more common among indie game developers, alongside alternative sources of funding. Alternatively, a game may be technology-driven , such as Quake (1996), to show off a particular hardware achievement or to market the game engine . Finally, a game may be art-driven , such as Myst (1993) and Journey (2012), mainly to show off impressive visuals designed by artists. In Rules of Play (2004) , Katie Salen and Eric Zimmermann write: A game designer

2002-406: Is making things. Out of whatever. It started with modeling as a kid, building models. When computers came along, I started learning programming and realizing the computer was this great tool for making things, making models, dynamic models, and behaviors, not just static models. I think when I started doing games I really wanted to carry that to the next step, to the player, so that you give the player

2079-611: Is on developing games that promotes creativity and originality. Developers have creative control over their games. These publishers implement intimate collaborations between the publishers and the developers. Often stand out in the video game market due to the more unique genres. Indie game publishers have restrict marketing budgets and have small audience reach and visibility. Examples of Indie video game publishers are Devolver Digital , Annapurna Interactive and Raw Fury . Mobile game publishers produce and specialize in video games on smartphones and tablet devices. They take advantage of

2156-406: Is started in earnest. There are various kinds of free 3D design software available to the public, from the mainly graphically focussed, such as Blender , to game engines and software development toolkits, such as Unreal Engine and Unity , that promote communities that self-educate as well as market 3D models and tutorials for beginners. Video game publisher A video game publisher

2233-422: Is the broker. What they are really exploring is the collective creativity of millions of people. They are aggregating human intelligence into a system that is more powerful than we thought artificial intelligence was going to be. In 1986, Wright met Jeff Braun— an investor interested in entering the computer game industry— at what Wright has called "the world's most important pizza party." Together they formed Maxis

2310-463: Is to start with a concept or a previously completed game and from there create a game design document . This document is intended to map out the complete game design and acts as a central resource for the development team. This document should ideally be updated as the game evolves throughout the production process. Designers are frequently expected to adapt to multiple roles of widely varying nature; for example, concept prototyping can be assisted with

2387-436: Is we've taken this kind of narrow, reductionist , Aristotelian approach to what learning is. It's not designed for experimenting with complex systems and navigating your way through them in an intuitive way, which is what games teach. It's not really designed for failure, which is also something games teach. I mean, I think that failure is a better teacher than success. Trial and error, reverse-engineering stuff in your mind—all

Will Wright (game designer) - Misplaced Pages Continue

2464-432: The 2008 United States presidential election , Wright donated to the campaigns of Rudy Giuliani and later John McCain . In 1980, along with co-driver and race organizer Rick Doherty, Wright participated in the U.S. Express, a cross-country race that was the successor to The Cannonball Run . Wright and Doherty drove a specially outfitted Mazda RX-7 from Brooklyn , New York to Santa Monica, California in 33:39, winning

2541-542: The BAFTA Fellowship , which had previously only been presented to those in the film and television industries. The son of a plastics engineer and an actress, Wright was born on January 20, 1960, in Atlanta, Georgia. He attended a Montessori school until the age of nine. When his father died of leukemia the same year, Wright moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana with his mother and his younger sister. He graduated from

2618-763: The Baton Rouge Episcopal High School at the age of 16. Wright's interest in game design began in childhood with the Chinese strategy board game Go . In his own words, the game has a "simple set of rules" yet "the strategies in it are so complex" and he was "fascinated with the idea that complexity can come out of such simplicity." As a teenager, Wright enjoyed playing board wargames such as PanzerBlitz . After graduating high school, Wright studied architecture at Louisiana State University for two years. He then transferred to Louisiana Tech where he switched to mechanical engineering , with

2695-528: The New School, Wright concluded five years of collegiate study without a degree and returned to Baton Rouge. While other game designers such as Bill Budge and Nasir Gebelli were producing Apple video games, Wright decided to develop for the newer Commodore 64 . His first game was the helicopter action game Raid on Bungeling Bay (1984). The gameplay involves the player flying over islands while dropping bombs. Wright found that he had more fun creating

2772-463: The amount of information to relay to the player. However, the UI in games do not have to be absolutely streamlined. Players expect challenges and are willing to accept them as long as the experience is sufficiently rewarding. By the same token, navigating or interaction with a game's UI can be satisfying without the need to be effortless. Audio design involves the process of creating or incorporating all of

2849-410: The boundaries of technology and creativity in the video game world. AAA game publishers often produce popular and blockbuster games. These publishers have the financial resource and means to fund large game development projects. These publishers implement and fund marketing and distribution to guarantee reach and exposure for their games. With their funds to market they are able to advertise and reach

2926-410: The box design. Some large publishers with vertical structure also own publishing subsidiaries (labels). Large publishers also attempt to boost efficiency across all internal and external development teams by providing services such as sound design and code packages for commonly needed functionality. Because the publisher often finances development, they usually try to manage development risk along with

3003-427: The course of a game's development about the game's design; it is the responsibility of the designer to decide which elements will be implemented. For example, consistency with the game's vision, budget or hardware limitations. Design changes have a significant positive or negative impact on required resources. The designer may use scripting languages to implement and preview design ideas without necessarily modifying

3080-470: The design and redesign it, or tear it down and build another one, whatever it is. So I guess what really draws me to interactive entertainment and the thing that I try to keep focused on is enabling the creativity of the player. Giving them a pretty large solution space to solve the problem within the game. So the game represents this problem landscape. Most games have small solution landscapes, so there's one possible solution and one way to solve it. Other games,

3157-466: The designer to inform the player about the world, or perhaps leave them uninformed. Another aspect to consider is the method of input a game will use and deciding to what degree a player can interact with a game with these inputs. These choices have a profound effect on the mood of the game, as it directly affects the player in both noticeable and subtle ways. User interface design in video games has unique goals. A conscious decision has to be made regarding

Will Wright (game designer) - Misplaced Pages Continue

3234-403: The development of concepts from simulations to games is to empower the players by creating what he dubs "possibility spaces", or simple rules which combine with game elements to form complex designs. All games that Wright had a hand in designing adhere to these design principles. Maxis went public in 1995 with revenue of US$ 38 million. The stock reached $ 50 a share and then dropped as Maxis posted

3311-414: The direction the game goes towards. System design is the creation of game rules and underlying mathematical patterns. System design is the enacted simulation of a game designed to interact or react with the player. The "experience" a player has with a game is attributed to how the game's system is designed. A complex system with depth leads to a more unpredictable strand of events to immerse the player into

3388-492: The emergence of the " metabrain ", stating: Any human institutional system that draws on the intelligence of all its members is a metabrain. Up to now, we have had high friction between the neurons of the metabrain; technology is lowering that friction tremendously. Computers are allowing us to aggregate our intelligence in ways that were never possible before. If you look at Spore , people are making this stuff, and computers collect it, then decide who to send it to. The computer

3465-504: The entire design team. This is the case of such noted designers as Sid Meier , John Romero , Chris Sawyer and Will Wright . A notable exception to this policy was Coleco , which from its very start separated the function of design and programming. As video games became more complex, computers and consoles became more powerful, the job of the game designer became separate from the lead programmer. Soon, game complexity demanded team members focused on game design. Many early veterans chose

3542-511: The essential features, polished well. Towards the end of production, designers take the brunt of responsibility for ensuring that the gameplay remains at a uniform standard throughout the game, even in very long games. This task is made more difficult under " crunch " conditions, as the entire team may begin to lose sight of the core gameplay once pressured to hit a date for a finished and bug-free game. Traditionally, game designers used simple tools like Word, Excel or just plain pen and paper. As

3619-422: The field has evolved and player agency and localization started to play a bigger role in game development, the need for professional tools has emerged for this particular field. Examples of software for narrative design and storytelling include articy:draft 3 and Twine . Tools like these often help to inform the earliest stages of the design and development process, before visual content and software development

3696-433: The field of human-robot interactions: We build these robots and we take them down to Berkeley and study the interactions that people have with the robots... We built this newer one that has a rapid-fire pingpong cannon. It will fire about 10 per second. So we give people this plastic bat and we say, "It's set up to play baseball. Do you want to play baseball? It's going to shoot a little ball and you try to hit it." And all of

3773-433: The first Easter egg in a video game. Funding, traditionally provided by game publishers , who may have specific expectations from a game, must be taken into account, as most video games are market-driven — developed to sell for profit. However, if financial issues do not influence designer's decisions, the game becomes design- or designer-driven ; few games are designed this way because of lack of funding, though it

3850-462: The first entry in 2000. The game spawned multiple sequels, including The Sims 2 , The Sims 3 , The Sims 4 and their expansion packs. His latest work, Spore , released in September 2008 and features gameplay based upon the model of evolution and scientific advancement. The game sold 406,000 copies within three weeks of its release. In 2007, he became the first game designer to receive

3927-590: The following year in Orinda, California . SimCity (1989) was a hit and has been credited as one of the most influential computer games ever made. Wright himself has been widely featured in several computer magazines—particularly PC Gamer , which has listed Wright in its annual 'Game Gods' feature, alongside such notables as Roberta Williams and Peter Molyneux . Following the success of SimCity , Wright designed SimEarth (1990) and SimAnt (1991). He co-designed SimCity 2000 (1993) with Fred Haslam and, in

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4004-402: The full implementation. These are referred to as the unknowns of the design and the faster they are uncovered, the less risk the team faces later in the production process. Outside factors such as budget cuts or changes in milestone expectations also result in cuts to the design and while overly large cuts can take the heart out of a project, cuts can also result in a streamlined design with only

4081-519: The game design path eschewing programming and delegating those tasks to others. Video game design starts with an idea, often a modification on an existing concept. The game idea will fall within one or several genres . Designers often experiment with mixing genres. The game designer usually produces an initial game proposal document containing the concept, gameplay, feature list, setting and story, target audience, requirements and schedule, staff and budget estimates. Many decisions are made during

4158-591: The game to include their own creation. The game is being developed by Gallium Games, a studio he co-founded with Lauren Elliott , and being created in the Unity engine. Wright was given a "Lifetime Achievement Award" at the Game Developers Choice Awards in 2001. In 2002, he became the fifth person to be inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Hall of Fame . Until 2006, he

4235-468: The game's codebase . A game designer often plays video games and demos to follow the markets' development. Over time, it has become common for a game designer's name to misleadingly be given an undue amount of association to the game, neglecting the rest of the development team. This is in stark contrast to the industries' origins, when creators were often given little to no recognition. Coincidentally, this lack of credit lead Warren Robinett to create

4312-489: The game, incentivizing creators through the ability to trade or sell their works as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) using cryptocurrency . Wright stated that the use of blockchain and NFTs are mechanisms needed to support the vision he has, but has no interest in selling NFTs directly to players as other blockchain games or NFT schemes have had done in the past. He likened it to early players in The Sims that found ways to modify

4389-600: The game. As the industry has aged and embraced alternative production methodologies such as agile , the role of a principal game designer has begun to separate - some studios emphasizing the auteur model while others emphasizing a more team oriented model. In larger companies like Electronic Arts , each aspect of the game (control, level design) may have a separate producer, lead designer and several general designers. Video game design requires artistic and technical competence as well as sometimes including writing skills. Historically, video game programmers have sometimes comprised

4466-596: The games that tend to be more creative, have a much larger solution space, so you can potentially solve this problem in a way that nobody else has. If you're building a solution, how large that solution space is gives the player a much stronger feeling of empathy. If they know that what they've done is unique to them, they tend to care for it a lot more. I think that's the direction I tend to come from. Wright has said that he believes that simulations, as games, can be used to improve education by teaching children how to learn. In his own words: The problem with our education system

4543-431: The games they publish, while some smaller publishers instead hire distribution companies (or larger video game publishers) to distribute the games they publish. Other functions usually performed by the publisher include deciding on and paying for any licenses that are used by the game; paying for localization ; layout, printing, and possibly the writing of the user manual; and the creation of graphic design elements such as

4620-467: The illegal race. Wright only competed once in the race, which continued until 1983. I'm uncollecting. I buy collections on ebay, and I disperse them out to people again. I have to be like an entropic force to collectors, otherwise all of this stuff will get sorted. Since 2003, in his spare time, Wright has collected leftovers from the Soviet space program , "including a 100 pounds (45 kg) hatch from

4697-407: The islands with his level editor for Raid on Bungeling Bay than he had actually playing the game. He created a new game based on this idea that would later evolve into SimCity , but he had trouble finding a publisher . The structuralist dynamics of the game were in part inspired by the work of two architectural and urban theorists, Christopher Alexander and Jay Forrester . I'm interested in

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4774-479: The kids using games. After building his reputation as one of the most important game designers in the world, Wright left Maxis in 2009. His first post-EA venture was the Stupid Fun Club startup company and experimental entertainment development studio, with a focus on "video games, online environments, storytelling media, and fine home care products", as well as toys. In October 2010, Current TV announced that Will Wright and his team from Stupid Fun Club will produce

4851-732: The meantime, Maxis produced other "Sim" games. Wright's next game was SimCopter (1996). Although none of these games were as successful as SimCity , they further cemented Wright's reputation as a designer of " software toys "—games that cannot be won or lost, but played indefinitely. In 1992, Wright moved to Walnut Creek, California . Wright is known for his great interest in complex adaptive systems, with most of his games having been based around them or books that describe them, e.g. SimAnt : E.O. Wilson's The Ants ; SimEarth : James Lovelock 's Gaia Theory ; SimCity : Jay Forrester 's Urban Dynamics and World Dynamics ; Spore : Drake's Equation and Powers of Ten . Wright's role in

4928-466: The pitch is approved, early milestones focus on the creation of a fleshed-out design document. Some developers advocate a prototyping phase before the design document is written to experiment with new ideas before they become part of the design. As production progresses, designers are asked to make frequent decisions about elements missing from the design. The consequences of these decisions are hard to predict and often can only be determined after creating

5005-417: The process and strategies for design. The architect Christopher Alexander, in his book A Pattern Language formalized a lot of spatial relationships into a grammar for design. I'd really like to work toward a grammar for complex systems and present someone with tools for designing complex things. In an interview with The Times , Wright expressed his belief that computers extend the imagination, and posits

5082-401: The sounds that are in the game, like music, sound effects or voice acting . This includes the theme song and jingles used in title screens and menus. The disciplines listed above all combine to form the discipline of game feel . It ensures that the flow of the game and the user interaction with the game elements are functioning smoothly. Numerous games have narrative elements which give

5159-442: The use of pre-existing engines and tools like GameMaker Studio , Unity , Godot or Construct . Level designs might be done first on paper and again for the game engine using a 3D modeling tool. Scripting languages are used for many elements—AI, cutscenes, GUI, environmental processes, and many other behaviors and effects—that designers would want to tune without a programmer's assistance. Setting, story and character concepts require

5236-421: The video game. Content design is the creation of characters, items, puzzles, missions, or any aspect of the game that is not required for it to function properly and meet the minimum viable product standard. In essence, content is the complexity added to a minimum viable product to increase its value. Game writing involves writing dialogue, text and story. This is one of the first steps that go into making

5313-416: The ways that kids interact with games—that's the kind of thinking schools should be teaching. And I would argue that as the world becomes more complex, and as outcomes become less about success or failure, games are better at preparing you. The education system is going to realize this sooner or later. It's starting. Teachers are entering the system who grew up playing games. They're going to want to engage with

5390-704: The widespread appeal and rise of mobile gaming. These publishers enhance games for touch based interfaces and devices. They are proficient in designing monetization tactics for mobile platforms. Mobile game publishers have a comprehensive understanding of the mobile gaming market. They have proficiency in strategies for engagement and user acquisition for mobile sites. For mobile gaming there is access through app stores for distribution channels. There are obstacles with monetization due to lack of in-app purchase and free-to-play(F2P) models . Examples of Mobile game publishers are Supercell , King , and Zynga . Numerous video game publishers are traded publicly on stock markets . As

5467-418: Was SimCity that brought him to prominence. The game was published by Maxis, which Wright co-formed with Jeff Braun. Wright continued to innovate on the game's central theme of simulation with numerous other titles including SimEarth and SimAnt . Wright has earned many awards for his work in game design. He is best known for being the original designer of The Sims series, of which Maxis developed

5544-688: Was also awarded the PC Magazine Lifetime Achievement Award in January 2005. Later that year, Wright earned the Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Progress and Service awarded by the Georgia Institute of Technology. He delivered a forward looking acceptance speech entitled "Stealth Communities". Wright lives in Oakland, California . He is an atheist. In 1984, he married artist Joell Jones, with whom he had

5621-516: Was eventually banned. Video game designer The video game designer is very much like the director of a film; the designer is the visionary of the game and controls the artistic and technical elements of the game in fulfillment of their vision. However, with very complex games, such as MMORPGs or a big budget action or sports title, designers may number in the dozens. In these cases, there are generally one or two principal designers and many junior designers who specify subsets or subsystems of

5698-454: Was impressed by Wright's work on SimCity and saw potential for the Sim franchise. EA published The Sims in February 2000 and it became Wright's biggest success at the time. It eventually surpassed Myst as the best-selling computer game of all time and spawned numerous expansion packs and spin-offs. He designed a massively multiplayer version of the game called The Sims Online , which

5775-618: Was not as popular as the original. By November 2006, the Sims franchise had earned EA more than a billion dollars. In a presentation at the Game Developers Conference on March 11, 2005, Wright announced his latest game Spore . He used the current work on this game to demonstrate methods that can be used to reduce the amount of content that needs to be created by the game developers . Wright hopes to inspire others to take risks in game creation. As for his theories on interactive design, Wright has said: Well, one thing I've always really enjoyed

5852-513: Was originally conceived of as an architectural design game called Home Tactics , though Wright's idea changed when someone suggested the home should be rated on the quality-of-life experience by virtual homeowners. Themes such as carpentry, home construction, and bare ground in need of landscaping are common throughout the game. The board at Maxis was not interested in the idea, but Wright found an unlikely publisher in Electronic Arts, who

5929-478: Was the only person to have been honored this way by both of these industry organizations. In 2007 the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awarded him a fellowship, the first given to a game designer. He has been called one of the most important people in gaming, technology, and entertainment by publications such as Entertainment Weekly , Time , PC Gamer , Discover and GameSpy . Wright

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