The Life and Times of Maxis, Part 1: SimEverything
The article begins a multi-part history of Maxis Software, the company founded by Will Wright that revolutionized gaming with simulation titles like SimCity. It explores Maxis's origins and the creative philosophy behind their early "Sim" games, emphasizing Wright's fascination with complex systems and emergent gameplay.
Background
- Filfre.net is the domain of Jimmy Maher, a respected writer who produces deep, book-length retrospectives on classic video games and the early gaming industry — this is part of a multi-part series on Maxis.
- Maxis was the software company co-founded by Will Wright (creator of SimCity) and Jeff Braun in 1987. It pioneered the "software toy" / "system simulation" genre — games with no win condition, where players build and manage complex systems (cities, ecosystems, etc.).
- Will Wright later went on to create The Sims (2000), one of the best-selling PC game franchises of all time. The Maxis story explains how that genre was born.
- This first installment likely covers how Wright's fascination with systems thinking (e.g., the "cellular automata" theories of John Conway's Game of Life, and the work of urban theorist Jay Forrester) led to the development of SimCity — a revolutionary game that let players design and manage a living city.
- Maxis was eventually acquired by Electronic Arts (EA) in 1997; the studio was later shut down by EA in 2015. The series will trace that arc.