SimCity was released in 1989, was originally called Micropolis and was designed by the infamous Will Wright. For those that don’t know Will Wright, its suffice to say he’s one of the most popular and influential game designers of our time. SimCity, TheSims, SimAnt, SimFarm and Spore are a few of his hits and TheSims has taken many records since its original release.
Wright had trouble finding a publisher for a game in which you couldn’t really “win or lose.” Turned down by Broderbund, Wright eventually pitched the idea to Jeff Braun of Maxis. Maxis agreed to publish Simcity as one of its first two games.
When near complete, Wright and Braun took the game back to Broderbund to clear the rights for the game. Broderbund executives Gary Carlston and Don Daglow saw how addicting the game could be and signed Maxis to a distribution deal. Four years after initial development, SimCity was released for the Amiga and Macintosh platforms, followed soon after by the IBM PC and Commodore 64. On January 10th 2008, the SimCity source code was released under the GPL license as… Micropolis!
The objective of the game is simple, build and design a city. Though the player could focus on building a highly efficient city with an ever growing populace, it was by no means required. In a sense, open ended, the player was free to design the city as they chose.
Included in the city building experience was the possibility of natural disasters such as flooding, tornadoes and more. Pre-designed scenarios were also included in the game such as the Boston 2010 nuclear meltdown, or mass coastal flooding of Rio de Janeiro of 2047 … even a Godzilla attack of Tokyo in 1961.
In the years to follow, the SimCity franchise would continue to expand with greater detail as SimCity 2000 (1993), SimCity 3000 (1999), SimCity 4 (2003) and a host of other “Sim” games and until the release of “The Sims” in 2000, the SimCity series was the best-selling line of games made by Maxis.
In Fall of 2008, EA will release the next child in the SimCity family, SimCity Creator for the Nintendo Wii and DS systems. And thus, history continues!
Michael Pachter has a bad memory, because all Nintendo handheld titles started our $30-35 at each new console’s launch. Where’s he been?
Michael Pachter has a bad memory, because all Nintendo handheld titles started our $30-35 at each new console’s launch. Where’s he been?
PS. I love how Derrick forgets the Nintendo 64 and GameCube FAILED. (laugh)
PS. I love how Derrick forgets the Nintendo 64 and GameCube FAILED. (laugh)
@3DS games costing more:
Does Michael Pachter work for Nintendo? At some point he predicted that on-line MP games will all become subscription based, only to have Activision (of all publishers!) deny that.
Won’t his credibility get trashed?
@EA and microtransactions
EA had also an attempt at free browser based games, with Battlefield Heroes. It’s good that they’re experimenting.
However it does make you wonder: how comes that a company that people see it as earning a lot of $$ from the classic business model is now toying with free-mium and microtransaction based games?
@Wall Street Journal starting rumors:
Press always starts rumors. What’s new about that?
And since when the budget of Starcraft 2 is subject to this interest?
If Blizzard doesn’t recuperate their costs, they’ll take the hit. Probably go bankrupt. Or try to increase their WoW subscription fee to cover up their losses.
But the costs alone don’t mean anything, unless we’re talking huge amounts of money. And 100 million USD is not much, if you consider the sale numbers for Modern Warfare 2 (500 million USD in sales).
@Question of the week:
None of the above and all of the above.
Reviewers and reviews are easy to buy. Publishers do that.
When a game gets on my radar, I’m looking for in-game footage and trailers. If I like what I see, I buy it.
I can’t help it:
@listener comments: “First I was afraid … I was petrified!” 🙂
@3DS games costing more:
Does Michael Pachter work for Nintendo? At some point he predicted that on-line MP games will all become subscription based, only to have Activision (of all publishers!) deny that.
Won’t his credibility get trashed?
@EA and microtransactions
EA had also an attempt at free browser based games, with Battlefield Heroes. It’s good that they’re experimenting.
However it does make you wonder: how comes that a company that people see it as earning a lot of $$ from the classic business model is now toying with free-mium and microtransaction based games?
@Wall Street Journal starting rumors:
Press always starts rumors. What’s new about that?
And since when the budget of Starcraft 2 is subject to this interest?
If Blizzard doesn’t recuperate their costs, they’ll take the hit. Probably go bankrupt. Or try to increase their WoW subscription fee to cover up their losses.
But the costs alone don’t mean anything, unless we’re talking huge amounts of money. And 100 million USD is not much, if you consider the sale numbers for Modern Warfare 2 (500 million USD in sales).
@Question of the week:
None of the above and all of the above.
Reviewers and reviews are easy to buy. Publishers do that.
When a game gets on my radar, I’m looking for in-game footage and trailers. If I like what I see, I buy it.
I can’t help it:
@listener comments: “First I was afraid … I was petrified!” 🙂
QotW – I tend to pay attention to Gamespot, amongst others. I know that they do a podcast for each territory (UK / US / Australia etc) and that gives them some scope to tailor things to their target audience. They also involve game designers and publishers on their podcasts. They have even included tv show presenters. It just shows that they do some actual research in to their stories.
For me, newspapers aren’t specialist enough to point me in any direction I wasn’t already heading. If I see a review in a paper I’ll read it because I’ve noticed it, but I’d never actively seek them out, which I would do for a Gamespot / IGN / Joystiq review.
QotW – I tend to pay attention to Gamespot, amongst others. I know that they do a podcast for each territory (UK / US / Australia etc) and that gives them some scope to tailor things to their target audience. They also involve game designers and publishers on their podcasts. They have even included tv show presenters. It just shows that they do some actual research in to their stories.
For me, newspapers aren’t specialist enough to point me in any direction I wasn’t already heading. If I see a review in a paper I’ll read it because I’ve noticed it, but I’d never actively seek them out, which I would do for a Gamespot / IGN / Joystiq review.
@3DS games costing more:
It hurts to hear you pay $30 for a new DS games. New Release DS games are between 65 – 69 Australian dollars here or 58 – 63 US dollars. I guess that’s why everyone I know who owns a DS has an R4 chip.
@ Bethesda titles on Impulse:
The titles now on Impulse have been on Steam for a long time already.
@QotW:
Knowing that the information I’m getting is coming from a reliable and knowledgeable source is very important to me. Being more of a PC gamer I tend to avoid any of the generic gaming websites / blogs. Places like IGN, Gamespot, Joystiq and others often have little or sometimes incorrect coverage of things that interest me. The one exception would be Kotaku, who just have a butt-load of information about everything, so its easy to browse through the rss feed and find a few things of interest.
Instead I generally stick to more specialised blogs or podcasts to get the news that interests me. RockPaperShotgun is generally my go-to site, as it is arguably the best pc gaming site around. It covers news, rumors, reviews of big PC titles, indie games and some mods. Every now and again they also play through some interesting strategic or diplomatic game and writeup individual accounts of each turn, their strategies and how they backstabbed each other along the way. They make brilliant reads and are far more informative than a simple review.
If I am after more specifics I will just go straight to blogs/websites/forums dedicated to individual games, series or mods.
When it comes to podcasts there are so many that its easy to find general or game specific podcasts that are entertaining or interesting. A few standouts for me are:
– the TD gaming podcast 🙂
– the RPS Electronic Wireless Show
– Three Moves Ahead
– Jumping the Shark
– and the UK PC Gamer podcast
@3DS games costing more:
It hurts to hear you pay $30 for a new DS games. New Release DS games are between 65 – 69 Australian dollars here or 58 – 63 US dollars. I guess that’s why everyone I know who owns a DS has an R4 chip.
@ Bethesda titles on Impulse:
The titles now on Impulse have been on Steam for a long time already.
@QotW:
Knowing that the information I’m getting is coming from a reliable and knowledgeable source is very important to me. Being more of a PC gamer I tend to avoid any of the generic gaming websites / blogs. Places like IGN, Gamespot, Joystiq and others often have little or sometimes incorrect coverage of things that interest me. The one exception would be Kotaku, who just have a butt-load of information about everything, so its easy to browse through the rss feed and find a few things of interest.
Instead I generally stick to more specialised blogs or podcasts to get the news that interests me. RockPaperShotgun is generally my go-to site, as it is arguably the best pc gaming site around. It covers news, rumors, reviews of big PC titles, indie games and some mods. Every now and again they also play through some interesting strategic or diplomatic game and writeup individual accounts of each turn, their strategies and how they backstabbed each other along the way. They make brilliant reads and are far more informative than a simple review.
If I am after more specifics I will just go straight to blogs/websites/forums dedicated to individual games, series or mods.
When it comes to podcasts there are so many that its easy to find general or game specific podcasts that are entertaining or interesting. A few standouts for me are:
– the TD gaming podcast 🙂
– the RPS Electronic Wireless Show
– Three Moves Ahead
– Jumping the Shark
– and the UK PC Gamer podcast