[1][2][3] The first computer game Wright designed was Raid on Bungeling Bay in 1984, but it was SimCity that brought him to prominence.

Wright continued to innovate on the game's central theme of simulation with numerous other titles including SimEarth and SimAnt.

His latest work, Spore, released in September 2008 and features gameplay based upon the model of evolution and scientific advancement.

[5] In 2007, he became the first game designer to receive the BAFTA Fellowship, which had previously only been presented to those in the film and television industries.

[6] When his father died of leukemia the same year, Wright moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana with his mother and his younger sister.

After graduating high school, Wright studied architecture at Louisiana State University for two years.

He then transferred to Louisiana Tech where he switched to mechanical engineering, with a particular interest in robotics, space exploration, military history, and language arts.

"[9] While living in New York City, he purchased an Apple II+ and taught himself Applesoft BASIC, Pascal, and assembly language in order to implement Conway's Game of Life.

Wright found that he had more fun creating the islands with his level editor for Raid on Bungeling Bay than he had actually playing the game.

The structuralist dynamics of the game were in part inspired by the work of two architectural and urban theorists, Christopher Alexander and Jay Forrester.

The architect Christopher Alexander, in his book A Pattern Language formalized a lot of spatial relationships into a grammar for design.

Although none of these games were as successful as SimCity, they further cemented Wright's reputation as a designer of "software toys"—games that cannot be won or lost, but played indefinitely.

Wright is known for his great interest in complex adaptive systems, with most of his games having been based around them or books that describe them, e.g. SimAnt: E.O.

After losing his home in the Oakland firestorm of 1991, Wright was inspired to turn the experience of rebuilding his life into a game.

He began developing an idea of a virtual doll house, similar to SimCity but with focus on individual people.

Themes such as carpentry, home construction, and bare ground in need of landscaping are common throughout the game.

It eventually surpassed Myst as the best-selling computer game of all time and spawned numerous expansion packs and spin-offs.

He designed a massively multiplayer version of the game called The Sims Online, which was not as popular as the original.

Trial and error, reverse-engineering stuff in your mind—all the ways that kids interact with games—that's the kind of thinking schools should be teaching.

His first post-EA venture was the Stupid Fun Club startup company and experimental entertainment development studio, with a focus on "video games, online environments, storytelling media, and fine home care products", as well as toys.

[21] In October 2010, Current TV announced that Will Wright and his team from Stupid Fun Club will produce a new show for the network.

[24] Stupid Fun Club ran for four years before closing down, with much of the team following Wright to found the social media app and graphic novel builder Thred.

[26] At GalaVerse on December 11, 2021, Wright announced a new project, in partnership with Gala Games, called VoxVerse.

Later that year, Wright earned the Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Progress and Service awarded by the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Wright is on the board of trustees of the X Prize Foundation, a non-profit organization that designs and hosts public competitions intended to encourage technological development to benefit humanity.

[30] Amid the 2008 United States presidential election, Wright donated to the campaigns of Rudy Giuliani and later John McCain.

Wright and Doherty drove a specially outfitted Mazda RX-7 from Brooklyn, New York to Santa Monica, California in 33:39, winning the illegal race.

[33] Since 2003, in his spare time, Wright has collected leftovers from the Soviet space program, "including a 100 pounds (45 kg) hatch from a space shuttle, a seat from a Soyuz ... control panels from the Mir",[33] and the control console of the Soyuz 23,[11] as well as dolls, dice, and fossils.

As of November 2006[update], Wright still had remnant bits of machined metal left over from his BattleBots days strewn about the garage of his home.