9/28/09 12:01 am - wanted: SimCity 5SimCity Societies was released less than two years ago. At the time, EA and even Will Wright himself made the claim that while SimCity still appealed to die-hard fans of the series, it had become too complicated for new players to pick up and play, so they had to take the series in a new direction.
I first got onto this train of thought when I saw an NY Times article about how Apple is "looming" over the gaming industry with its iPhone App Store. This is clearly absurd - they're not "looming" over the movie theater industry because watching a movie on your phone is a fundamentally different experience from watching on a big screen, as is gaming on a phone versus gaming on a PC or console. So their armada of $1 games isn't going to break the back of the guys selling $60 games. This got me wondering, if some games like SimCity did have a diehard but limited fanbase, could they make money by selling these for a higher price? Would I pay $100 for a really good SimCity sequel? I might. This is still an interesting question in general, but I quickly realized it doesn't apply to SimCity. Societies came out two years ago, SimCity 4 came out six years ago. But in Amazon's PC Simulation Games category, Societies is #60 (with a bargain bin price of ~$5) and SC4 is #6 (and #4 in Strategy). The argument which basically distills to "gamers are too dumb for what SimCity has become" is bogus on more levels than I can count. Perhaps I should start with what may be most damning: it's awfully similar to what was said about the original SimCity when it came out 20 years ago, only now it's Will Wright himself saying it! I remember reading reviews back then that said SimCity was a great game and lots of fun but wouldn't sell well because gamers wouldn't "get it". But they got it big time and it was one of the best-selling games of all time. Now here's SC4 showing the same popularity even years after release. But even if the argument were valid, as it may be for some people, there's no reason why every layer of complexity must be always-on. Use difficulty settings or individual options to make them optional. Having "auto" options for a lot of this stuff would be simple to implement. If they truly feel they painted themselves into a corner, as Wright put it, then they should find a solution, not just drop the whole endeavor. This series was one of the all-time greats, and although EA might have saved SimCity 3000 when their acquisition saved Maxis from bankruptcy, what everyone feared did eventually come to pass. I actually found SimCity 4 to be something of a disappointment when it was released - not that it was bad, just that it was a much smaller step forward than either of the previous sequels had been. With Maxis having been totally absorbed into EA by now, and even WW apparently drinking the company Kool-Aid (I haven't even bothered to purchase Sims 3, since it seems like more of the same) I don't know that I hold out much hope for a proper SimCity 5 ever coming along. But you never know.... Tropico came out eight years ago, and was rapidly followed by Tropico 2 - again less a sequel and more a lame spin-off. Yet this all-but-forgotten gem gets a proper revision in Tropico 3 next month. So, until I'm sufficiently wealthy to found a software studio and buy the rights to one of the most popular series of all time, here's hoping.... |

