SimCity Developers Quit, Set Up New Studio

As well as having probably the greatest name in the history of gaming, SimCity creative director Ocean Quigley has announced via his Twitter account that he has jacked in his jobs at Maxis and EA, and intends to set up his own studio.

The new venture will be known as Jellygrade and Ocean Quigley – whose name conjures a manly amalgam of George Clooney Las Vegas hi-jinks and Tom Selleck stepping out of his comfort zone in Australia – is taking two of his less-spectacularly named colleagues along for the ride, namely SimCity Lead Architect Andrew Willmott and the lead gameplay engineer Dan Moskowitz. Quigley stated on Twitter:

“We were lead developers on SimCity, SimCity 4, Spore and The Sims2. We love making simulations. We’re making a simulation about the dawn of life on earth; about lava, water, rock and the emergence of the first primordial creatures.”

Concept images from the game are available to view at a Tumblr page.

“We’re starting off on the iPad with a fundamentally new simulation engine. I can’t wait to start showing it off. We’re building the new simulation engine now.”