SimCity

SimCity, city creation and management simulation game designed and produced in 1989 by American game designer Will Wright and electronic game developer Maxis (now a division of Electronic Arts [EA]). SimCity is viewed as a quite original game, and it inspired an array of sequels, including the very successful series the Sims.

Inspired by his reading and by the map-building functions of other games, Wright originally called the game Micropolis. Because the first incarnation of the game did not have a final ending or a winning condition, many companies did not consider it marketable, and Wright had trouble finding a software company to develop his idea. He eventually teamed up with Maxis, and SimCity was released to critical praise in 1989. SimCity allows players either to start from scratch by making their own city with funds on a blank map or to solve the problems of managing real-life cities such as Boston and San Francisco. In the game, power plants are needed to provide electricity for commercial, residential, and industrial zones, and roads have to be built to connect all areas of the city. Most aspects of city government are controllable, from taxes to ordinances on gambling and smoking. Crime, traffic congestion, and even Godzilla are a few of the challenges that players face.

Several SimCity sequels were generated, as well as a plethora of spin-offs, including SimAnt (1991), SimIsle (1995), and SimCopter (1998). In Streets of SimCity (1997) players could drive a vehicle through the various cities built on SimCity, as well as through replicas of actual cities. After the release of SimCity 4 in 2003, the franchise lay largely dormant until its relaunch with SimCity (2013). Whereas previous versions of SimCity had focused on an open-ended single-player experience, the reimagined flagship title was designed with a social networking element that required an active Internet connection. As the game could be played only with approved content on EA’s servers, critics claimed that this was little more than an exercise in digital rights management on the company’s part. When SimCity became available to the public, a host of technical issues rendered the game virtually unplayable. Users vented their frustration online, with thousands giving the game a “one-star” review on Amazon.com, and EA responded by offering those who had purchased it a free game from the EA catalog.