John Seabrook has written an exhaustive 10,000 word profile of game design genius Will Wright. Seabrook has been working on this forever--we talked a bit about his planned piece at the GDC's annual Game Design Challenge this past March. The Game Design Challenge is a fascinating event in which the biggest brains in the industry are tasked with seemingly insurmountable design challenges. Wright was retiring from the event. He'd won handily in 2004 [Challenge: Design a game built around romance instead of violence] and again in 2005 [Challenge:Design a game built around the life and works of Emily Dickinson], and his repeated brilliance was removing all the drama from the competition.
Seabrook's piece will cover some familiar territory for regular gamers, but it's still a must-read. People hungry for more should check out this essay by Wright, which accompanied a package he guest-edited for Wired's April issue. Also, here's video of Wright and his buddy Robin Williams doing a hilarious demo of Spore at a Wired event from E3 this past May. Also also, here's an interview Wired did with Wright way back in 1994 in which he discusses the germ of an idea for a new game he had in mind:
Of course, "Doll House" became The Sims, which went on to become the most popular game franchise ever.
