Maxis

Maxis is an American video game developer and a division of Electronic Arts. Will Wright and Jeff Braun founded the studio in 1987, and Electronic Arts acquired it in 1997. It is best known for simulation games, a genre in which the player builds and manages a system rather than defeating an opponent. Its best known series are SimCity, The Sims and Spore, which between them made the studio one of the most recognisable names in computer game design and brought simulation games to a very wide audience beyond the traditional player base of action and adventure titles. The studio's role in the medium is as a developer of open-ended games that reward experiment and play over a fixed story, and its titles are widely discussed in game studies for that reason.