Will Wright, Creator of SimCity and The Sims, Goes All-In on His Next Game, Preferring a "Glorious Failure Over Mediocre Success"

Will Wright is the visionary developer who co-founded Maxis and brought us iconic titles like SimCity, its sequel, the original The Sims, and the life simulator Spore. After a period of relative quiet in the industry following Spore, Wright has dedicated the past decade to an ambitious, yet low-budget, AI-driven psychoanalytic project. He describes it, in his own words, as a "Frankenstein." This project is Proxi: Yesterday’s You Tomorrow, initially unveiled by Gallium Studios at the 2018 Game Developers Conference, though the concept had been brewing in his mind since 2016.

Eight years on, Wright has poured millions of dollars into the venture, both his own funds and investor capital. In 2024, resources ran dry, leading to staff layoffs. Currently, a dedicated few developers continue to work on the project without remuneration, driven by the desire to see his vision realized.

Gallium's website provides a glimpse into the world of Proxi, showcasing avatars, or "Proxies," engaging in activities like getting married, dining at a picnic table, and even a bizarre scene of a fish flying from a grill only to be caught by an alien UFO beam. The game's core mechanic revolves around "experiencing and sharing memories" through simulations—Proxies of real-life individuals—with the goal of "uncovering hidden connections between your memories." This could range from finding a link between a pleasant spring day in the park and that time you swear you were probed on Mars.

To aid players in thoroughly analyzing these often hazy recollections, Proxi employs an AI algorithm to generate and categorize their memory inputs. Players also earn points for adding memories that demonstrate conceptual connections.

Investors remain somewhat perplexed by the concept. Even Wright himself, a decade into its development, isn't entirely certain what Proxi ultimately should be. His primary focus lies in "nested memories"—multiple recollections created in the same location—and the ambitious idea of importing one's Proxy to genealogy websites to communicate with ancestors via AI. The creator of The Sims seems to have pushed the boundaries of life simulation even further, arguably into a realm of "absolute chaos."

"I prefer a glorious failure to a mediocre success," states Wright.