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!
@Netflix drops Qwikster
Usually such a split is done if one of the divisions is doing bad (financially). If they dropped the plan, it means that the DVD rental was not doing that bad.
So, you announce a split that is not needed, then drop it. In Dilbert’s world, his CEO would get promoted 🙂
@Xbox 720 popping up on LinkedIn resumes
Here comes the DX11 console!
@320GB hard drive announced for Xbox 360
I see little point for that. I didn’t do any management for my games (on the PC) and I still didn’t piled up 250 GB.
@Bethesda: We were “forced” to sue Mojang
… Forced? Really? That’s the best apology they can come up with?
I personally liked how Mojang treated the issue: challenge them to a Quake 3 match.
Not publish in NA? That’s pretty hard now, considering that a lot of NA customers bought the game since in alpha stage. As I said previously, as an indie you can’t have both: IP ownership or money.
Jonah, your voice didn’t sound that bad.
I don’t have much of an opinion on the news this week so I’ll just say this: I miss hearing the voice of Paul whenever he’s not around, he makes the podcast so much better.
Just wanted to say that even without the great audio quality, it was still a great show. Just want to thank you guys for putting out a show every week, it is always entertaining, as well as informative, and I thank you for filling me in on the latest video game news. Now for the hate mail.
Paul, I was filled with joy when I heard you were gone for this recording. For one week I was able to avoid you and your whiny, pretentious attitude. They had said that you were at Disney World, but I assume that was to cover up your real reason for missing this podcast. Why you really missed the podcast must have been because you had grown tired of your miserable, meaningless life so you decided the only thing to do was go out with a bang. You grabbed a pair of stockings, threw them over your head, and guaranteed your mother that you would be home before ten. You drove to the nearest bank and handed the teller a note containing the chicken-scratch writing that kids made fun of you for in grade school. She took one look at it and asked what it said, which brought you back to grade school, and the time when you were giving a report on the Monarch Butterfly, which you referred to as Butterfree. You began to spell out the word “Monarch” on the blackboard, only to be stopped half way through by Molly Germain, the girl you had been “in love” with since Pre-K. She yelled out, “My baby sister writes better than you!” Obviously this insult wouldn’t affect most grown people, but your eight-year-old heart was shattered. Then, you were brought back to present day, where you were in the process of robbing a bank, now even more enraged with the memory in mind. You had told the teller to put the money in the bag, and she complied. You began to walk out, thinking that you were going to live a better life, and use this money to set your mother up with a better house, and maybe even find a wife to settle down with. However, you were unaware that the teller had pushed a silent button and alerted the cops, inconveniently located just a few blocks down. You pushed a young boy off of his bike and began peddling away from the police. After many warnings, they had no other option than to shoot out your training wheels. That’s when you remembered you never got passed the training wheels, and the fear rushed over you. You kept peddling and peddling, until you noticed something. You had finally learned how to ride a bike, and you finally felt free. But as soon as your luck came, it had left. They placed two well-aimed shots in your spinal cord. You tried moving, but to no avail. You were paralyzed. You now are spending four months in jail for two counts of robbery, one for the bank, and the other for the bike. You will remain paralyzed and nobody, not even your mother will take pity on you. You are a disgrace to your nation, and when you die, you will not be remembered as the amazing game-designer you see yourself as, but as a low-life scum that had nothing to offer to this world.
Or I’m pretty sure that’s what happened. Are you happy now Paul?
QOTW – I am only 17, so I do not remember too many controllers, but the current PS3 controller is horrible in my opinion. It’s too small and I feel like I could break it at any time.