THE SIM KING COMPANY Maxis, Game Designer AGE 39 E-MAIL wwright@maxis.com BIO Wright belongs on this list just on the continuing strength of his decade-old
SimCity franchise. This year alone, Electronic Arts, which owns the Maxis studio,
has shipped more than a million copies of SimCity 3000, the latest incarnation of
the game that casts you in the role of a city planner. Perhaps more noteworthy,
though, is the glimpse he gave us of a product that's supposed to come out early
next year: The Sims, a computer game that puts you in the truly scary position of
trying to find everyday happiness for ordinary men and women in a suburban
town. People opposed to violent first-person shooters like Quake and Doom,
rejoice!
Wright, who rides around the Maxis offices on a red electric scooter, has been
crafting simulations ever since he was a boy. He began playing with model ships
and airplanes while growing up in Georgia, and he's still playing with them, albeit
on a much grander scale. He's also been a regular participant (along with his
daughter) in the Robot Wars, a San Francisco event in which inventors send their
homemade creations of artificial intelligence into remote-controlled,
gear-crunching combat.
Which brings us to his other accomplishment: he makes being a geek fun. That's
why when a mind like his produces an ambitious product like The Sims, we can't
help being excited.
BEST LINE "What I like about The Sims is that after playing it for a while, you
realize how much of your actual life is a real-time strategy game."
FORWARD TILT The game is due early next year. You'll know it's a hit if people
start making real-life decisions based on the way things played out in The Sims.
