Pre-E3: Will Wright Developing Smartphone Game Based On Sci-Fi Short Story

Respected game designer and Stupid Fun Club founder Will Wright has revealed he is working on a game inspired by one of science fiction author Bruce Sterling's short stories. Based on Sterling's 'Maneki Neko' story, the game is likely to be released on smartphones, tablets and Facebook in around a year's time, according to news site Eurogamer. Explaining his inspiration, Wright said, "[Sterling] describes a karmic computer that's keeping a balance of payments between different people, and causing them to interact with each other in interesting ways to improve their lives even though they're strangers." "They earn karmic points that are redeemed by having somebody else help them," he continued. Regarding the short development cycle planned for the game, Wright said that he doesn't believe it makes sense to go through long development cycles anymore. "Unless you can get something to market within a year, at least an initial version within a year, you're hosed," he noted. "So that's the new model for development, which has totally changed my thinking." "Almost any project I want to work on is going to be something I can at least get some version out there in about a year and then iterate from there." Wright left Maxis back in 2009 to create his own development team, Stupid Fun Club, co-owned by himself and EA, with the aim to focus on developing new cross-media IP for games, movies, TV and toys.