Today, a bombshell of sorts happened in the gaming world as Will Wright leaves his cushy job at EA to join a fun club.  This is almost the equivalent of Will Wright pulling a 2D Boy and doing something different and somewhat outside of the EA corporate juggernaut, except that EA has a pretty big stake in Stupid Fun Club, the think tank Wright is now committing himself to full time.  So what happens to Maxis and my favorite PC franchise of all-time, SimCity?

Maxis, Wright's other baby, is pretty much just a name and a logo as far as I'm concerned.  The Sims is pretty much it's own separate entity, the SimCity series has taken some wrong turns, and Spore looks like it could go the way of The Sims if it proves successful.  What is left is very little and I sadly expect Maxis to simply fade into obscurity and be shattered into pieces spread throughout the EA neighborhood.  For someone who is waiting patiently for the announcement of SimCity 5, this makes me feel like the next game will be either bastardized a la Socieities or more Simsified... meaning expansion milkage and... ugh, don't want to think about it... building packs?  I know Wright isn't totally blowing off EA and can still do wonderful things at Stupid Fun Club, but I feel like he's abandoning the games that made him insanely rich and famous.  I guess Wright is now successful enough to just do whatever he wants.

So what happens to The Sims and SimCity?  In the case of The Sims, the core game proves to be highly popular and that division of EA is just going to stick to their guns.  But what about SimCity?  Right now, Maxis seems to be focused almost exclusively on Spore related expansions and games for the Wii, DS, iPhone, Saturn, Intellivision, etc.  SimCity as a franchise is currently dead.  SimCity Societies (a Tilted Mill production) never reached the success of previous SimCity games and was universally hated among the core SimCity gamer crowd.  Recent SimCity projects have been shipped off to other developers where the series has taken a more casual-oriented turn... which is fine, but if there's one thing core PC gamers want, that's another proper SimCity.  It's been over 6 years since SimCity 4 and I'm willing to switch alliances and give Cities XL a shot this year.  If you're wondering, the image on the left is from Cities XL, a very promising city sim from Monte Cristo.  I've blogged about it before so I won't get any deeper into the details.

So... will the departure of Will Wright hurt the SimCity franchise?  Maybe, but that depends on what EA wants to do with the SimCity franchise.  Wright had some influence on the core SimCity games even while EA and other Maxis cronies were doing all the grunt work.  However, we've already seen what happens when Wright's back is turned and EA takes SImCity for a walk into Tilted Millville and the Hudson Valley.  Then again, Wright is the kind of guy who is always looking for a challenge and is always exploring new things.  For all I know, Wright has zero interest in revisiting the game that made him the icon he is today.  And perhaps Maxis is devoting time to planning the hypothetical SimCity 5 and try to take back the people who are seriously looking into Cities XL as an alternative.  The question is whether Maxis and EA want to make a SimCity 5 for the core crowd or just mess with ports and casual stuff.

Oh yeah, for those interested in Cities XL, Simtropolis (I really should stop by and say hi sometime) has some detailed impressions about the city sim.  He seems pleased.  I am pleased, too.