News just came in that Will Wright, founder of Maxis and creator of games like Simcity and the Sims, is going to leave EA to focus more on his business called the stupid fun club.

Stupid Fun Club is an entertainment think tank developing new Intellectual Properties to be deployed across multiple fronts including video games, movies, television, the internet, and toys.

“The entertainment industry is moving rapidly into an era of revolutionary change,” said Will Wright. “Stupid Fun Club will explore new possibilities that are emerging from this sublime chaos and create new forms of entertainment on a variety of platforms.”

The SFC is owned by Will Wright and EA, both for 50%.

Read Will Wright’s post on the official Spore forums, or read the full press release here.

Today marks the release of a title a lot of Simphoni members have been looking forward to: Civilization IV: Colonization . The game is released first in North America, to be followed on the 26th of September in the rest of the world.

Sid himself says:

The decade-long groundswell of fan enthusiasm around Colonization was the driving force behind our decision to make a new version for today’s gamers. The terrific community support for the game, coupled with the opportunity to design a new edition using our Civilization IV engine, made it the right time to create this title for loyal fans and everyone else who loves great strategy games.

Colonization is a standalone game experience that adds an entirely new scenario to the ever-evolving world of Civilization. In Colonization, players lead one of four European nations on a quest to colonize and thrive in the New World. Players will be challenged to guide their people from the oppressive motherland, discover the New World, and negotiate, trade and fight as they acquire power and battle for their freedom and independence.

The first reviews out there are very promising with Game Informer giving the game a 9 out of 10, and PC Gamer 84%. If you have the game please let us know your opinion on it in the forums!

Simphoni member djVanDrake informed us that the official Civilization IV Colonization page has been updated. The page now amongst others contains a trailer and the system requirements. The latter appear to be the same as those for Civilization IV. This is of course not surprising as Civilization IV Colonization uses a lot of the original Civilization IV game engine.

During the final wait for Spore, we’re re-releasing one of the old Sporelings comics that debuted in 2006 each Tuesday and Friday. Today’s instalment is all about the Cell phase and the problems your minuscule organisms might encounter.

About a month ago Simphoni reported on the recreation of Colonization, due for release in the fall of 2008. Forumer usman has been very helpful in finding us more information on this exciting remake! He found an article on WorthPlaying, one at Gamespot, and one at 1Up. The last one made me feel particularly old:

Here’s a quick and easy test to see how old school a PC gamer is — check to see if they’ve heard of Colonization. Most people might think that you’re talking about the Civilization franchise or perhaps imagining some knockoff, but the truebred gamers of old will fondly recall Sid Meier’s interesting twist on his Civ formula from 1994.

This “truebred gamer of old” is still thankful for his friend Rijebreier introducing him to this game back in 1995, for I have spent many an hour playing it. One thing from the original game is that there is an equivalent of the Boston tea party in there. However, the game would randomly pick a resource to throw into a random city’s harbour. I remember I always thought the “the rebels in defiance threw 50 loads of horses into New Amsterdam’s harbour” variety a bit cruel. We’ll have to see whether PETA will allow that particular twist in this new incarnation.

Forumer djVanDrake shares the exciting news with us that Take Two Interactive will do a remake of the classic Sid Meier game Colonization. Colonization was a specialised version of Civilization released in 1994 allowing a player to colonize “a” or “the” new world in a replay of the settling of the North American continent. According to Sid Meier himself:

We’ve received many requests from fans over the years to bring back Colonization and now seemed to be the perfect time to do that. The Civilization IV engine provided a fantastic foundation for a new Colonization experience and allowed us to create something great for both new players and long time fans of the game.

Looks like the perfect new meat for our Empire Building Games forum! Forumer usman found an article over at WorthPlaying that contains some screenshots.

The title of this article might not be as far-fetched as you think, as Reuters reports Electronic Arts is currently trying to take over Take-Two Interactive. Firaxis, the company founded by Sid Meier, is a subsidiary of Take-Two. For now Take-Two has rejected EA’s offer, as they expect their stocks to rise dramatically after releasing ”Grand Theft Auto IV” on April 29. Take-Two Chairman Strauss Zelnick says:

We didn’t slam the door, we just said look, the price is not right and the time is wrong

If EA were to acquire Take-Two it would become the biggest game producer by far, in the process scooping up the producer of some of the most popular games around. In a Q&A with GameSpot EA CEO John Riccitiello says:

we love their studios and we like their intellectual properties

For now the deal is on hold, but EA states they keep “all options open” alluding to a possible hostile take-over. For now it’s impossible to say what this take-over will mean in terms of future production of games. If you have any ideas on this, the forums are open for discussion!

Over the last two months there has been a tremendous revival of interest in the game Civilization IV and its expansion packs Warlords and Beyond the Sword (BtS for short) here at SIMphoni. This has prompted us to create a new forum, where discussion is not constricted to just Civilization, but which is also a home to other Empire Building Games such as Age of Empires and the Total War series. Some of our members have started writing exciting game journals, along the lines of the well-known City journals: i.e. lots of eye candy and lots of storytelling.

Toroca led the pack by creating the fist Empire Journal. His currently active Civ Game is about the English Empire, where he’s currently engaged in a war of attrition with the Mongols. He is keeping his readers in suspense about how this will end though, as the Empire Journal is currently on hold while Toroca is engaged with another game called the Battle for Middle Earth. A journal about his exploits there can be found in the Empire Building Games forum as well.

djVanDrake is currently playing a Noble level game as Viking VanDrakar. This game is called Rise of the Norsemen, and it appears that beautiful Isabella is indeed getting a rise out of the scruffy Viking.

Douwe is willing to give his Kingdom for a Horse. He is a fresh convert to Civilization, and doing quite well as Syberen of the Greek. Read the journal to see whether he finds what he is looking for.

If you like a good story, lots of humour and the occasional war, be sure to check out these Civ Journals, and perhaps start one of your own!

Sid Meier is recognised by his peers as one of the greatest game developers ever. He will be receiving the Game Developers Choice Lifetime Achievement Award at the Game Developers Conference which is slated to take place 18-22 February 2008. Sid is well known for being the creator of games such as Civilization and Railroad Tycoon. However, his impact on the gaming industry goes far beyond that.  In 1982, long before creating Civ, Sid was one of the founding people of MicroProse, a company that brought hours upon hours of monochrome fun to early PC gamers (aah…the memories). Games to come out of this software house include Airborne Ranger, Pirates!, F-19 Stealth Fighter, and of course Civilization. In 1996 Sid left MicroProse to found Firaxis Games where he continues to make successful games to this day.

Sid is the 8th person to receive the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. Guess who was the first? His first and last names start with a W.