![]() ![]() That got Wright thinking about artificial intelligence in games and how far it could really go.Īt the same time, Wright was also tinkering with a concept that he named Doll House. While Wright was designing SimAnt, he was somewhat amused to realize that the game’s ants were seemingly smarter than the lumbering humans who sometimes threatened to step on them. SimCity resulted in a number of spin-off titles for Maxis, including SimAnt, which allowed players to oversee a prospering ant colony in a residential backyard. But in order for that to happen, his house apparently had to burn down. ![]() As successful as SimCity was, though, it was Wright’s next project that would make him a gaming celebrity. By 1992 it had sold an estimated 1 million copies and was the vanguard of an entirely new genre of computer game, designed around building something rather than destruction or battle. But the game started picking up steam thanks to word of mouth, and in June of that year, it was featured in The New York Times with professors of urban planning praising the game and pledging to introduce it to their classrooms. For months, Wright was reportedly doing all the tech support out of Braun’s apartment. While at a pizza party thrown by a mutual friend, Wright and Braun hit it off and later co-founded the Maxis software company, which released SimCity in 1989. Fortunately, Wright had a chance encounter in 1987 with Jeff Braun, an entrepreneur who made font software and wanted to get into the video game industry. They wanted to market games that people could win-games that featured helicopters launching missiles. Wright took the idea to Broderbund, the company that had released Raid on Bungeling Bay, but they weren’t interested. Occasionally, an unforeseen occurrence like an earthquake or meteorite shower disrupted things. If you had a rise in crime, for example, your population would go down. They could adjust over 100 variables, but those adjustments would each have a consequence. The game, which he called SimCity, allowed players to build roads, erect schools, and fret over crime rates. Wright was inspired by works like Urban Dynamics, a 1969 book by MIT professor Jay Wright Forrester that argued urban development would be better suited for artificial intelligence than humans so it wouldn’t be compromised by intuitive biases. That got him thinking about a simulator that would allow users to erect buildings and then entire cities, acting as a kind of virtual urban planner. While the airborne attacks were fun, he was much more interested in writing the code for the buildings that players would destroy. It was while programming all this mayhem that Wright discovered something about himself. ![]() It was a big hit, selling well in the PC gaming market and even moving over a million Nintendo Entertainment System cartridges, mostly in Japan. The result was Raid on Bungeling Bay, a helicopter simulation that tasked players with destroying enemy strongholds on an island. Coupled with his knowledge of economics and military history, Wright’s eclectic background was laying the groundwork for a singular career in gaming.Īfter getting married and moving to Oakland, California, Wright decided to try his hand at programming a game on his Commodore 64. A clever strategy, but one also quickly banned in competition. He entered robot fighting tournaments and won by having his robot wrap the other combatants in gauze, rendering them immobile. Wright started attending Louisiana State University at the age of 16, transferred to Louisiana Tech, dropped out, and eventually studied robotics at the New School in Manhattan. He was also fascinated by architecture and engineering. ![]() He didn’t just want to suit up for NASA, though-he wanted to colonize outer space to relieve overpopulation problems on Earth. Growing up in Atlanta, Will Wright dreamed of becoming an astronaut. ![]()
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