Will Wright
The designer who turned city-building into a global phenomenon.
Will Wright is the American video game designer who co-founded Maxis and created SimCity, the game that brought him to prominence. Born January 20, 1960, in Atlanta, Georgia, Wright attended a Montessori school until age nine, when his father died of leukemia. He moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and graduated high school at 16. After studying architecture at Louisiana State University and mechanical engineering at Louisiana Tech, he transferred to The New School in New York City, where he taught himself programming to implement Conway's Game of Life. He left after one year without a degree and returned to Baton Rouge.
Quick Facts
- Birth name
- William Ralph Wright
- Born
- 20 January 1960
- Birthplace
- Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.
- Occupation
- Game designer
- Alma mater
- Louisiana State University
- Louisiana Tech University
- The New School
- Children
- 1
- Known for
- SimCity
- The Sims
- Spore
Lore & Background
Wright's first computer game was the helicopter action game Raid on Bungeling Bay (1984) for the Commodore 64. He found he had more fun creating the islands with his level editor than playing the game, which evolved into SimCity. After struggling to find a publisher, he met Jeff Braun at what he called 'the world's most important pizza party' in 1986, and they formed Maxis the following year in Orinda, California. SimCity (1989) became a hit and is credited as one of the most influential computer games ever made. Wright followed with SimEarth (1990) and SimAnt (1991), and co-designed SimCity 2000 (1993) with Fred Haslam. His games are inspired by complex adaptive systems: SimAnt by E.O. Wilson's The Ants, SimEarth by James Lovelock's Gaia Theory, SimCity by Jay Forrester's Urban Dynamics, and Spore by Drake's Equation and Powers of Ten. Wright describes his design principle as creating 'possibility spaces'—simple rules that combine with game elements to form complex designs.
Reader's Guide
Wright's design philosophy centers on simulations as 'software toys'—games that cannot be won or lost but played indefinitely. SimCity (1989) introduced players to urban dynamics inspired by Jay Forrester's work, letting them zone land, manage budgets, and respond to disasters. SimEarth (1990) expanded to planetary-scale ecology, while SimAnt (1991) simulated ant colony behavior based on E.O. Wilson's research. SimCity 2000 (1993), co-designed with Fred Haslam, added underground layers and advanced infrastructure. The Sims (2000) shifted focus to individual lives, letting players build homes and control virtual people's daily activities. Spore (2008) took players from single-cell organisms to space-faring civilizations, using procedural generation to reduce developer-created content. Wright left Maxis in April 2009 to run Stupid Fun Club Camp, an entertainment think tank. In October 2011, he joined the board of directors of Linden Lab, creators of Second Life. At the Game Developers Conference in March 2018, he announced a new project called Proxi. On December 11, 2021, he announced VoxVerse, a blockchain game developed by Gallium Games using the Unity engine.
Did You Know?
- The Sims was inspired by Wright's experience rebuilding his home after losing it in the 1991 Oakland firestorm.
- In 2007, Wright became the first game designer to receive the BAFTA Fellowship, previously only given to film and television professionals.
Elsewhere in SimCity
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