# SimCity (2013) 10 year anniversary
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simcity-2013-10-year-anniversary/980898
**Category:** The Game Room
**Tags:** video-games-e-games
**Created:** [March 9, 2023, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simcity-2013-10-year-anniversary/980898 "2023-03-09T00:07:32Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2023, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simcity-2013-10-year-anniversary/980898/1 "2023-03-09T00:07:32Z")
A decade ago, EA/Maxis launched their latest version of SimCity with much anticipation and fanfare. The launch was so disastrous that it killed both the franchise and the studio that birthed it. (The publisher EA, alas, still thrives.)
> **[SimCity launched a decade ago, and it was so disastrous it killed the series](https://www.pcgamer.com/simcity-launched-a-decade-ago-and-it-was-so-disastrous-it-killed-the-series/)**
>
> The launch of SimCity 2013 was cataclysmic, but it never really stood a chance.
We Dopers gave it a go way back when. I organized several shared regions with pretty good participation. But the problems with the game were so big that they rather quietly died as folks lost interest. And not just server problems; those were quickly solved within a week of launch. No, there were more fundamental problems with the gameplay itself. I remember trying to build a tourism-centered city, only to learn that casinos – upon which I built my economy – didn’t work as intended. I think landmarks in general were broken. The global market was frozen and real trading between players didn’t get switched on until months afterwards. Then there was the small city size and the general lack of anything to do once you filled it up.
Thankfully the debacle didn’t kill city builders in general. Paradox neatly stepped in and released Cities:Skylines to fill the void. They’ve just now announced Cities:Skylines 2.
> **[Paradox announce "revolutionary" Cities: Skylines 2 for later this year](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/paradox-announce-revolutionary-cities-skylines-2-for-later-this-year)**
>
> Paradox have announced a sequel to their hit citybuilder, Cities: Skylines 2.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2023, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simcity-2013-10-year-anniversary/980898/2 "2023-03-09T00:16:23Z")
I remember those SDMB games! They were fun. It’s a shame the game sucked.
A few years ago I reinstalled it and had another go. Still not fun. The requirement to build a bunch of interconnected cities just made everything feel too fragmented and stop n’ go. Bleh. What a shame.
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2023, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simcity-2013-10-year-anniversary/980898/3 "2023-03-09T00:22:58Z")
I _loved_ the earlier versions of SimCity but was really disappointed in that launch. And I’ve always been annoyed that The Sims seems to get all of the public attention and love.
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### Author:  [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2023, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simcity-2013-10-year-anniversary/980898/4 "2023-03-09T00:24:51Z")
The fiasco makes an excellent case study for how to mismanage a game franchise. It would’ve been better off for the company cancelling the game than releasing it in the state they did. But they did perfect how to prevent pirating: make a game so unplayable that no one want to play it.
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2023, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simcity-2013-10-year-anniversary/980898/5 "2023-03-09T00:26:35Z")
I noticed that after playing SimCity, I would look at a city block and imagine how it could be redeveloped. (Well, that’s just a 1x1 block, such as for a convenience store, so it can’t become a really big building.)
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### Author:  [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2023, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simcity-2013-10-year-anniversary/980898/6 "2023-03-09T12:46:48Z")
SimCity 4 is still going strong with lots of mods and custom content, twenty years after release. NAM is up to release 46 with release 47 around the corner.
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2023, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simcity-2013-10-year-anniversary/980898/7 "2023-03-09T18:35:59Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#):
>
> The requirement to build a bunch of interconnected cities just made everything feel too fragmented and stop n’ go.
The decisions they made were just so weird and baffling; it’s as if they forgot why people liked the game in the first place.
The best part of the whole fiasco was that Maxis claimed there was no way to make it so the game could be played offline, that it would take a huge amount of development. A player discovered that just altering one line of code allowed the game to be played offline. One wonders why Maxis and EA would insist you play it online. Hmmmm.
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### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2023, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simcity-2013-10-year-anniversary/980898/8 "2023-03-09T20:20:44Z")
I cautiously optimistic about Cities: Skylines 2. I still play the shit out of C:S but one thing I realized is that part of what makes it the greatest city game ever is the collection of mods and DLC that actually makes it playable.
At the very least, C:S2 will be huge. 150 playable squares instead of the original 25 (9 playable without a mod, 81 with an additional mod).
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### Author:  [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2023, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simcity-2013-10-year-anniversary/980898/9 "2023-03-10T01:06:37Z")
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> The best part of the whole fiasco was that Maxis claimed there was no way to make it so the game could be played offline, that it would take a huge amount of development. A player discovered that just altering one line of code allowed the game to be played offline.
Yeah, the only way that would have worked as they pretended it did was if most (if not all) of the game processing happened on the central servers and the only thing that was actually sent to your PC was graphics for rendering, i.e., cloud gaming a.k.a video game streaming. That’s arguably possible nowadays. Back then, not so much. I think that If they had tried it, those servers would have gotten slammed even more than they had.
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### Author:  [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2023, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simcity-2013-10-year-anniversary/980898/10 "2023-03-22T16:01:09Z")
Slightly off-topic, but I just discovered that the publisher of _Cities: Skyline_ is taking another cut at EA. They’ve announced _Life by You_, which will be a direct competitor with _The Sims_. They’re promising _Life by You_ to be extremely moddable, which is a high bar considering how moddable _The Sims_ is.
I’m a huge fan of _The Sims_, but not EA, and I’ll be following this development closely.
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2023, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simcity-2013-10-year-anniversary/980898/11 "2023-03-22T16:05:58Z")
Thanks! I just added _Life by You_ to my Steam wishlist.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2023, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simcity-2013-10-year-anniversary/980898/12 "2023-03-22T20:31:49Z")
> [@Pleonast](#):
>
> which is a high bar considering how moddable _The Sims_ is.
An identical level of moddability combined with Steam Workshop support would clear that bar with a mile or two to spare.
> [@Pleonast](#):
>
> the publisher of _Cities: Skyline_ is taking another cut at EA.
So it’s worth noting that this game isn’t being _developed_ by the _Cities: Skylines_ folks. It’s being developed by Paradox itself or, rather, a subsidiary that appears to have been created specifically to develop this game.
This is good because I like Paradox as a developer. Despite some very legitimate complaints about at-launch quality, they’re responsive and they support their games for a long time. Paradox - like EA - likes to release a great many DLCs for its games over several years. But their DLC also goes on deep discount and into deep-discount bundles fairly frequently. It probably won’t end up like _The Sims_ where ‘the game’ costs close to a thousand dollars.
It’s maybe not-so-good because Paradox doesn’t make pretty games. It makes pretty (and very entertaining) **spreadsheets**. This represents a significant departure from their oeuvre, and the fact that _Cities: Skylines_ took showed EA how to do a modern _Sim City_ doesn’t mean this game will do the same for _The Sims_. I’m a little worried that the more realistic graphical approach from the videos will make the game feel staid and sterile when compared to EA’s more vibrant style.
But who are we kidding? I’ll be buying it.
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2023, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simcity-2013-10-year-anniversary/980898/13 "2023-03-22T20:45:53Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#):
>
> So it’s worth noting that this game isn’t being _developed_ by the _Cities: Skylines_ folks. It’s being developed by Paradox itself or, rather, a subsidiary that appears to have been created specifically to develop this game.
Headed by [the guy behind _Sims 3_.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Humble)
\*Edited because apparently he didn’t have all that much to do with _2_. EA made him head of _The Sims_ team the year prior to _3_.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2023, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simcity-2013-10-year-anniversary/980898/14 "2023-03-22T20:59:03Z")
That’s a good get.
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2023, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simcity-2013-10-year-anniversary/980898/15 "2023-11-16T22:43:37Z")
_inZOI_ has entered the room
> **[The most ridiculously pretty Sims competitor yet is this life sim where you...](https://www.pcgamer.com/the-most-ridiculously-pretty-sims-competitor-yet-is-this-life-sim-where-you-can-become-a-convenience-store-clerk-or-k-pop-idol/)**
>
> It's got a forgettable name, but inZOI is an impressive-looking upcoming life sim.