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EA games takes over SimCity
xsidekick409
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
"One of the more stunning announcements in PC gaming this year came when EA announced that Maxis would not be developing the next version of SimCity."
http://pc.ign.com/articles/822/822069p1.html
Maybe its just me, but the vision and humor of maxis is what made its games so popular. I really haven't seen any unique vision beyond advertising and the "if you can't beat them, buy them out" business strategy to come out of EA since EA sports. To quote Jon Stewart, "Oh billions of dollars, is there no dispute you can't settle?" Money won't buy true success, but it will get you really freaking far.
The reticulating of splines surely came out of the minds of maxis developers with a drive to create a fun and funny game that would, as a consequence, make them money. I believe that EA games analyzed maxis' games, worked out a formula, and has decided to take over, eliminating the problem of paying another company for the rights to their games. Similar to how an artist might look at Monet and try to replicate his style of impressionism only to end up with a canvas full of mud colored hues. Seriously, SimCity is maxis' roots, their blood. I'm willing to bet five bucks maxis has just been trampled, and people have lost their jobs. I doubt EA will allow them to build the next Sims (you know there will be another. So long as they profit from it they will run their titles into the ground, and further).
I'm aware that this kind of thing happens all the time, and I'm not crying over maxis employees losing their jobs. What gets to me is the fact that one of my favorite game developers is being eaten alive by one that I detest. That vision that I loved and looked forward to is disappearing and being replaced with a corporate money machine. Even if maxis itself was a corporate money machine, they weren't as bad as EA and they still had unique style to their games. The more EA grows, the less flavor I see in games. To me its the difference of going to buy apples at your grocery store instead of buying some fresh picked from your local farm. If you haven't had the experience of taking a fruit right from a tree and eating it, I apologize, but you really have to try it.
Can anyone see how this new game is going to actually work? SimCity is maxis, its not EA. When you remove maxis you remove the entire flavor and atmosphere that made the game so popular. Read the preview, its not even freaking SimCity anymore! They turned it into a roller coaster tycoon of city building. I take back what I originally said, after writing this paragraph I realize they took TWO equations for success and tried to set them equal to eachother to find if X, which represents their profit, will be greater than it was before. I'm predicting the outcome will be somewhat similar to a botched Schrödinger equation. The elements are there, but something went horribly wrong and all you are left with is an unorganized mess. They'll cover all of that up with add-ons and online downloadable packs, which make you think they are adding something new to the game, but inactuality, they just left that out of the original packaging.
Maybe this game will be entertaining, maybe it will be addictive, but it surely won't have its original charm. If they were going to cut a game up, rip out its insides, replace said entrails with the entrails from another game, and then get rid of the original creator, they could at least ditch the name, because we're not that stupid.
This comic may serve as a visual reference. Thank you Gabe and Tycho.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/05/07
-Sidekick
http://pc.ign.com/articles/822/822069p1.html
Maybe its just me, but the vision and humor of maxis is what made its games so popular. I really haven't seen any unique vision beyond advertising and the "if you can't beat them, buy them out" business strategy to come out of EA since EA sports. To quote Jon Stewart, "Oh billions of dollars, is there no dispute you can't settle?" Money won't buy true success, but it will get you really freaking far.
The reticulating of splines surely came out of the minds of maxis developers with a drive to create a fun and funny game that would, as a consequence, make them money. I believe that EA games analyzed maxis' games, worked out a formula, and has decided to take over, eliminating the problem of paying another company for the rights to their games. Similar to how an artist might look at Monet and try to replicate his style of impressionism only to end up with a canvas full of mud colored hues. Seriously, SimCity is maxis' roots, their blood. I'm willing to bet five bucks maxis has just been trampled, and people have lost their jobs. I doubt EA will allow them to build the next Sims (you know there will be another. So long as they profit from it they will run their titles into the ground, and further).
I'm aware that this kind of thing happens all the time, and I'm not crying over maxis employees losing their jobs. What gets to me is the fact that one of my favorite game developers is being eaten alive by one that I detest. That vision that I loved and looked forward to is disappearing and being replaced with a corporate money machine. Even if maxis itself was a corporate money machine, they weren't as bad as EA and they still had unique style to their games. The more EA grows, the less flavor I see in games. To me its the difference of going to buy apples at your grocery store instead of buying some fresh picked from your local farm. If you haven't had the experience of taking a fruit right from a tree and eating it, I apologize, but you really have to try it.
Can anyone see how this new game is going to actually work? SimCity is maxis, its not EA. When you remove maxis you remove the entire flavor and atmosphere that made the game so popular. Read the preview, its not even freaking SimCity anymore! They turned it into a roller coaster tycoon of city building. I take back what I originally said, after writing this paragraph I realize they took TWO equations for success and tried to set them equal to eachother to find if X, which represents their profit, will be greater than it was before. I'm predicting the outcome will be somewhat similar to a botched Schrödinger equation. The elements are there, but something went horribly wrong and all you are left with is an unorganized mess. They'll cover all of that up with add-ons and online downloadable packs, which make you think they are adding something new to the game, but inactuality, they just left that out of the original packaging.
Maybe this game will be entertaining, maybe it will be addictive, but it surely won't have its original charm. If they were going to cut a game up, rip out its insides, replace said entrails with the entrails from another game, and then get rid of the original creator, they could at least ditch the name, because we're not that stupid.
This comic may serve as a visual reference. Thank you Gabe and Tycho.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/05/07
-Sidekick
xsidekick409 on
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Posts
This sucks.
Command and Conquer was Westwood Studios, not EA.
Yet I'm quite happy about the way it turned out.
Old news.
Wrong forum.
Shogun Streams Vidya
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
edit: pm a mod they'll do it for you
Shogun Streams Vidya
I just think SimCity Societies will be more like that game City Life, or whatever it was called, and won't hold true to the aspects that keep me playing.
Also EA isn't developing it themselves; the guys behind Caesar IV are.
No offense but they pay real people real well to do those jobs because they are BORING :P
But I will agree with you, EA does tend to ruin all it touches...
damn you EA, damn you :evil:
That is why I couldn't really get into the Sims. Once I realized that all the frustrations of the real world are emulated inside the game I couldn't get over that.
I think I liked SimCity mostly because I'm more of a mathematical player, and all of the balances inside the game interested me. I'm a scientist at heart and the ability to experiment with different layouts really drew me in. It was the mystery of what building would be built by the AI that captured me. Trying to figure that out and reproduce it was fun to me.
Completely agree. I never wasted any money on the expansions or the sequel so I don't know how much they improve the experience, but I'm a micro-manager at heart.
Sim wakes up, Sim eats, Sim goes the bathroom, Sim goes to work, Sim comes home, Sim eats, Sim has time for ONE activity, Sim goes the bathroom, Sim goes to bed. Repeat. EVERY DAY.
I know I should have just did the money cheat and said screw it, but I TRIED playing it right, just wasn't worth it.
Well, I found it was kind of fun, ONCE, to get your guy to the top of his job or whatever. But it's exactly the same thing all over again if you want to do it with another Sim, it's just like a different house layout or something.
And next year, SimCity 2008.
The buildings will be different colors, you see.
The last shining beacon of humanity has been extinguished.
Shogun Streams Vidya
Or circular roads of any diameter.
Because shit isn't always square.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I never played the original Sims but Sims 2 really does expand upon that premise. They still take a terribly long time to eat their dinner, but now they can raise families, die, pass on their genes, and, with the expansions, start up a business, go to college, etc.
The main draw of The Sims 2 is the build tool, though. It's fantastic and produces some wonderful buildings - and all 3D, of course. Produces a better result with an easier interface than most proper CAD programmes.
But yes, this doesn't sound like good news, at all.
Yes, curse Maxis for having no choice in what type of game they were forced to make!
I thought I already did.
I know games development may seem like a trivial thing but "I was forced to do it!" is a rarely-valid excuse, and never when the justification is economical rather than mortal, at least in my opinion. I doubt EA literally put a gun to Maxis' collective heads. And losing one's job is not analagous to having a gun put to one's head.
In short, though, I do not believe that Maxis had absolutely no say in what they produced. That'd be akin to a patron forcing Van Gogh to only paint pictures of elephants. I think Van Gogh would have burned off his patron's ear or something. I'm not necessarily equating Maxis and Van Gogh, but games development is, at least in some large part, an artistic pursuit.
Furthermore, can't believe this thread has gone on this far without someone bringing up exactly who is making the new Sim City. It is being made by a studio called Tilted Mill ( http://www.tiltedmill.com/ ). These are the guys who made Caeser IV: a very good city building game.
Those of you of a certain age certainly have known, many times, the pain of seeing a beloved game franchise killed in the transition from 2d to 3d engines. It is nearly always dreadful. In the case of Caesar IV, Tilted Mill managed to keep all gameplay and good featues of the later Sierra City Building games (Zues, Emperor) in a very pretty 3d engine. It is a very good sequel; maintains the feel of the series and adds or improves features and graphics where appropriate. (as an interesting side note, they also created this game in C#.NET with managed DirectX)
Based on this track record, I am betting this will be a very well executed game. They have experience in the genre and working with established properties in a way that adds value to the franchise.