Game publisher Electronic Arts has donated the original SimCity, Will Wright‘s groundbreaking 1989 computer game, to Nicholas Negroponte‘s One Laptop per Child initiative.

It’s a wonderful example of using games as tools for learning. As EA’s Steve Seabolt said in yesterday’s press announcement, “SimCity is entertainment that’s unintentionally educational.” Back in March, OLPC’s SJ Klein talked to game developers about how important games are to the OLPC platform:

“Kids without games can certainly learn,” confessed Klein, “but the first way children learn is through gaming… by seeing how things work and remaking their world… Let’s give them useful worlds to make.”

For more on the vision behind One Laptop per Child, watch Nicholas Negroponte’s TEDTalk, given in the days after he stepped down as chair of MIT’s Media Lab to work on OLPC “for the rest of my life.”

Contact One Laptop per Child here >>

Watch SimCity designer Will Wright’s 2007 TEDTalk to see a preview of his next game, Spore. Fresh details on Spore emerged in the UK press late last month, while Wright was in London accepting his BAFTA Fellowship: On the BBC’s Radio 5 Live, he said that Spore is now fully playable, and a release is only six months out.

Image is borrowed from the unofficial OLPC news blog, One Laptop Per Child News.