http://www.thestupidfunclub.com/home.html
and creates a think tank? i’m not sure i follow
I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a bit pissed about how EA handled Spore. I suppose starting a ‘think tank’ backed by EA is a way for him to leave the company and continue working within the industry while not getting hit with a non-compete clause.
I might be completely wrong here, though.
I can’t help but think this is another nail in Riccitiello’s coffin, no matter how they try and spin it. I doubt the board and major investors are going to be happy to hear that the guy who has been behind a lot of EA’s success is no longer focused on making games for them.
Sounds to me like he’s set it up so that he gets to do the stuff he finds interesting, and leave behind the day-to-day drudgery of making publishable, finished products.
Color me envious :)
Stupid Fun Club - a think tank where they talk game concepts all day long and obsess over the details of what makes games fun.
Will Wright just totally formed his own QT3! Tom, you should sue! ;-)
You are.
He quit EA to work for EA anyway?
More with than for. 50/50 partnership. It’s like quitting your job and marrying your boss, from what I can tell.
He started his own little quasi-indie dev studio with EA’s backing, EA has exclusive publish rights, and if the new company creates a popular new brand but doesn’t want to exploit it themselves, EA has the right to do so. That’s what it sounds like to me.
SFC has been around for a while.
here is an article from 2004 about an entity with that name involving Will Wright, though it is described as being mostly about robots. They also appear to have a web page that links to various press clippings. A Flash-based website.
The webpage links to an article from 2002 from Newsweek that includes this precious quote: