William Ralph "Will" Wright (born January 20, 1960, in Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...

) is an American video game designer and co-founder of the game development

Video game developer

A video game developer is a software developer that creates video games. A developer may specialize in a certain video game console, such as Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3, or may develop for a variety of systems, including personal computers.Most developers also...

 company Maxis

Maxis

Maxis is an American company founded as an independent video game developer in 1987. It is currently a subsidiary of Electronic Arts . Maxis is the creator of one of the best-selling computer games of all time, The Sims and its first sequel, The Sims 2...

, now part of Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...

. In April 2009, he left Electronic Arts to run "Stupid Fun Club", an entertainment think tank in which Wright and EA are principal shareholders.

The first computer game Wright designed was Raid on Bungeling Bay

Raid on Bungeling Bay

Raid on Bungeling Bay was the first video game designed by Will Wright. It was published by Brøderbund for the Commodore 64 in 1984 and the NES and MSX computers in 1985...

 in 1984, but it was SimCity

SimCity

SimCity is a critically acclaimed city-building simulation video game, first released in 1989, and designed by Will Wright. SimCity was Maxis' first product, which has since been ported into various personal computers and game consoles, and spawned several sequels including SimCity 2000 in 1994,...

 that brought him to prominence.