Will, I love you, you know that.  I have been a fan of your work since I was a little lad, but I don’t have high hopes for your new television series.  I just can’t…

Official PR release:

CURRENT TV TO HARNESS THE CREATIVE POWER OF TELEVISION AUDIENCES WITH NEW ORGINAL SERIES

30-Minute Episodic Series to Serve as Sims Creator Will Wright’s First Launch into Television

Viewers Can Register at www.current.com/barkarma

New York, NY – October 6, 2010 – Current TV announced today that world-renowned video game designer Will Wright, creator of The Sims and SimCity, the most successful gaming franchise of all time, will bring his unique talents to television for the first time with a multi-episode series that will give audiences the ability to create and control the show’s storylines and plot developments.

Anchored by technology that Wright has developed exclusively for Current TV, the series, tentatively titled Bar Karma, will enlist viewers to join an online global community at a special web destination entitled, “Current TV’s Creation Studios.”  At this virtual television studio, users will participate in the development of all creative and technical aspects of production and communicate directly with the producers of the show.

Current has also signed Albie Hecht, former President of Spike TV and President of Entertainment at Nickelodeon, who has served as Wright’s co-creator on the project and will executive produce the series, with his digital entertainment studio Worldwide Biggies serving as the show’s production company. David Cohn, former General Manager of MTV2, will serve as executive in charge for the network.

“Bar Karma is a culmination of over a year’s work and I am very excited to see the results as we join together not only gamers and television viewers, but actually create a community that will be empowered with a professional production team,” stated Will Wright.  “To develop and lead an initiative like this fulfills a long held passion for television, and I am thrilled that Current would provide the resources and creative support to bring this to air.”

“I have always been excited by innovation and what we are creating is unlike anything on television,” stated Albie Hecht of Worldwide Biggies.  “The technology that Will has invented empowers viewers to participate, but also provides direct communication to me and my production team.  We will be taking our cues from the viewers, working with them and then quickly producing high quality, original content.  This is truly a paradigm-changing project that will showcase the creativity of the general public in shaping a television series.”

“Current is taking original programming to a new level.  Bar Karma will fuse the power of television, the internet and mobile devices and provide viewers the ability to truly create and control a television series,” stated Mark Rosenthal, CEO of Current.  “Will Wright is a phenomenal creator and we are thrilled he came to Current to launch his first television series.  Together, we hope to move television storytelling beyond passive participation and allow viewers to become true programming partners.”

Bar Karma will be comprised of four key production stages:

STEP 1 – JOINING – Viewers will log on to “Current TV’s Creation Studios” at

www.current.com/barkarma through their computers and mobile devices and join the online community.

STEP 2 – CREATING – Viewers will submit potential story ideas on an ongoing basis.  Each week the show producers will provide the viewing community with a rough outline for the upcoming episode.  Viewers will then have the ability to create various storyboards of unlimited plot possibilities.

STEP 3 – VOTING – Viewers will browse, comment and merge various ideas for the episode.  Final proposals will then be reviewed and voted on.

STEP 4 – PRODUCING – After the final storyboard is selected by the community, Hecht and Worldwide Biggies will adapt, shoot, produce and edit the winning storyline into a 30 minute television episode.

Bar Karma is scheduled to premiere on Current TV in 1Q11.  Specifics regarding the launch of the online community site, the production and casting of the show, as well as exclusive advertising sponsorships are to be announced in the coming weeks.

About Current Media

Current TV is an award-winning media company committed to exploring the world’s most important, interesting and entertaining stories. With a fully integrated television and online platform, Current connects its audience with what’s going on in their world through its blend of bold and unique original and acquired productions. Current is available in the U.S., U.K., Italy and Ireland in 70 million households through distribution partners Comcast (Channel 107 nationwide); Time Warner (nationwide); DirecTV (Channel 358 nationwide); Dish Network (Channel 196 nationwide); Verizon; AT&T; BSkyB (Channel 183); Virgin Media (Channel 155) and Sky Italia (Channel 130). More information is available at www.current.com.

About Will Wright

Will Wright, widely acknowledged for creating the simulation video game genre, unveiled the highly anticipated SporeTM in September 2008. Spore is a “universe in a box” that allows players to create a species and guide it to sentience, help it build a society, develop its culture, and explore an infinite cosmos of worlds created by other players. Fans eagerly embraced the creation tools in Spore and have created over 100 Million pieces of user-created content, as of Summer 2009.

Spore has been distinguished with such honors as Popular Science’s “Best of What’s New Award,” Popular Mechanics’s “Breakthough Award,” PC Magazine’s “Technical Excellence Award,” Time Magazine’s “50 Best Inventions of 2008,” and the Jim Henson Technology Honor.

A true gaming industry legend as a result of his pioneering contributions to video games, Wright has been the recipient of several prestigious awards and honors. Rolling Stone named Will Wright “One of the 100 People who are Changing America,” in March 2009, placing him among artists, leaders, scientists, and policymakers who are “fighting every day to show us what is possible.” IN 2008, Will received the first-ever Gamer God Award at the Spike Video Game Awards as a testament to his revolutionary work. In 2007, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts recognized an individual in the Video Game Industry for the first time when it named Wright a fellow. He also received the Producers Guild of America Vanguard Award that same year.

Wright first rose to prominence when he developed SimCityTM, the acclaimed, nonviolent, open-ended sim game. Wright then followed up the success of SimCity with a string of popular simulation games throughout the 1990s. Titles such as SimEarth: The Living Planet (1990), SimAnt: The Electronic Ant Colony (1991), SimCity 2000 (1993), SimCopter (1996), and SimCity 3000 (1999) introduced simulation games to hundreds of thousands of new fans, demonstrating the genre’s true potential.

Wright’s next groundbreaking game came in the form of The Sims (2000), which has gone on to become the best selling PC game franchise of all time, being available in 22 languages in 60 countries. Wright, who studied architecture in college, originally conceived of the game as an architectural design simulator. To “score” the quality of the design, he added tiny people who would inhabit the buildings. These simulated people quickly stole the spotlight, and Will realized that watching the lives of the Sims unfold was the real entertainment. The Sims franchise has now sold over 100 Million units around the world.

About Worldwide Biggies Inc.

About Worldwide Biggies Inc.is a digital entertainment studio producing and creating interactive IP for the digital family and designed for additional distribution across all platforms including film, TV and licensing.  This year, Biggies announced a development deal with Syfy for Worldwide Biggies’ first-of-its-kind transmedia property entitled Dr. What, a multi-project first-look deal with EPIX, and is gearing up for the introduction its latest character franchise, Bigby, initially as an iPhone game application to launch later this Fall.  The company has also launched two separate virtual worlds for kids, and is in development on a robust slate of iPhone/iPod Touch games, as well as a feature film called Swift with Sony Pictures.