SimCity Summary
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SimCity 2013’s creative director explains what went wrong with the game
In an interview with Game Informer, Ocean Quigley (creative director of SimCity 2013) explained some of the problems that occurred during the development of the game. Quigley explains SimCity 2013 was originally planned to be a single-player game, just as all the games before it. It was EA’s decision to push for an always online experience that would eventually go on to ruin the game. Our review was delayed in order to wait for the game to be fixed, but the fact that players had to wait for a fix in the first place was frustrating. When the game launched back in March 2013, players were forced to wait in queues with wait times lasting over an hour.
Laid-off Maxis developer starts Patreon for Cities: Skylines modding
Former Maxis developer Bryan Shannon, a member of the team that worked on the ill-fated 2013 SimCity, has been creating content for Cities: Skylines on the Steam Workshop since he was laid off in the studio's recent closure. Now he's set up a Patreon to continue his modding work, asking for donations for each building model that he creates for Colossal Order's excellent city builder.
EA shuts down The Sims and SimCity developer Maxis
In this industry it's not often that hearing a studio is being closed down genuinely surprises you, but I'm left fairly shocked by the news that EA is shutting the doors at Maxis Emeryville, the studio's main headquarters, for good. Well, maybe 'surprised' is the wrong word; despite the well-publicised disaster of SimCity and the negative response to the removal of several features from The Sims 4, I somehow simply assumed that Maxis, who've been around since before I was even born, would continue on regardless.
SimCity 2000 is free via Origin's 'On the House' programme
Why not take a trip way back down memory lane, a simpler time when mentioning the title 'SimCity' didn't cause everybody in the vicinity to shake their heads and scowl. EA is offering the classic city management game SimCity 2000: Special Edition for free on Origin, as part of its ongoing On the House initiative.
EA offer free trial for SimCity on Origin
Ah, SimCity. Once you were the king of city-building simulators, beloved by all. Now you're basically the slightly wonky-looking kid at the party that nobody wants to dance with. Perhaps recognising that even with an added offline mode (that should have been there from the start) most people aren't willing to forget the ridiculous mess that was SimCity's launch, EA is offering a free trial of the game.