Ocean Quigley
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Ocean Quigley steps out of Will Wright's shadow (interview)

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 9 min

Ocean Quigley was heartbroken when Electronic Arts fumbled the debut of SimCity, the always-connected game that launched without adequate server support in March. Consumers couldn’t access their game for days, and EA’s reputation took a hit. For someone who labored over SimCity as the creative director, it was hard to take.

But that isn’t what pushed Quigley, a longtime EA veteran, out the door. Rather, he decided that he want to work on his own projects after three SimCity games. It was, he said in an interview with GamesBeat, time to step out of the shadow of Will Wright, the master game designer and creator of the original SimCity and The Sims.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.