Maxis was bought by EA. The End.
this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2024
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Not exactly, Maxis was with EA for a long time, both SimCity 3k and SimCity 4 were published under them, and the Sims would have never happened if it weren't for EA.
However you're right that EA (or more specifically, John Riccitiello) did eventually fuck Maxis over. SimCity 2013 got fucked over by always-online drm and tiny cities, while The Sims 4 - which wasn't originally meant to be a mainline Sims game but instead a successor to The Sims Online - got cannibalized and made into The Sims 4 because Riccitiello wanted a new Sims game ASAP.
Why do I ascribe blame to Riccitiello and not EA as a whole? Because EA seems like they've improved since Riccitiello left. That's not saying much, but it honestly seems like the quality of their games has improved since he left the company.
I'm aware. It's not like you tank a company as soon as you buy it, but I'm certain Sim City 2013 would never have happened if it weren't for EA.
Neither would have Sim city 3k or 4
That still tracks though, Sim City 2000 was the Pinnacle of the series
Oh man, the maxis games were the best. I spent a few hours making a windows 98 VM and trying to get streets of sim city to run. I got close but it kept crashing. That and sim copter were my jam as a kid.
The series shit the bed with the online only bullshit with small maps, and then Cities Skyline came along shortly thereafter to steal their lunch.
Basically EA happened.
Well yes, ultimately that was the problem in the end. But they had 2 good releases under EA before that happened. Somewhere along the way EA went entirely to shit and Sim City was one of many casualties.
Thoroughly interested in this. But why can't I just read it? I wish this wasn't a video.
Like every meeting should have been an email, every youtube video should have been a blog post
I guess this is one area that AI can actually improve in our lives: https://www.summarize.tech/youtube.com/watch?v=jzQS9MmlEy8
This worked ok. I read through the summary in under a minute.
I would say that the article I linked in another comment was definitely a better read, though.
This. I’m usually listening to music and don’t want to stop the music so I can understand the video. I want to read damnit.
For those like me, I'm trying this: https://gamerant.com/simcity-franchise-history-2013-new-game-when-maxis-sims/
I feel the same way. There are so many interesting youtube videos posted here. But i do not want to sit down and watch them. If I could read them, then i'd be game. The problem is, is that you can legit earn money making youtube videos.
I think the people in this thread talking about cities' skylines are offbase. Cities skylines filled a vacuum, and simcity was already dead. Arguably, it was already dead before the reboot as their hadn't been a new entry in a decade.
Cities Skyline came out.
Before CS, Sim City 4 nearly destroyed all interest in the city builder genre. The brand "Sim City" also has left a bad taste in everyone's mouth despite 3 classic mainline entries that redefined the genre each time.
SimCity had great ideas (thinking of SimCity Societies in particular here) but as others have mentioned, piss poor execution.
Cities Skylines came in with good execution and stole their entire market share from them.
Two words, nuclear meltdown. Seriously though, city building games do still exist, although often the gameplay is part of a wider genre like 4X, kinda like stealth mechanics in action adventure games.
Cities Skylines happened. I still play the SNES version of SimCity every so often though.