The future of Sim City

[Discord 8]

Well...

So it's here and I am both pleased and underwhelmed. However, my opinion on the current state of the franchise is not quite the point here. I am a sc4 fan and not shy about it. The last years of sc4 has been fantastic, and I wished that a successor would build on all the fantastic mods and wild discussions that's been made. That didn't really happen, but a Sim City game nowdays are more about upcoming possibilities in the future than mundane reality in the present.

And What greatly worries me is precisely the future.

It's got great potential for modding and expansion, that's obvious.

But said modding can be hampered by EA focusing hard on a mod store of their own. where you can buy thousands of simple things, but a NAM impossibly can be allowed to exist. And the expansions, oh the expansions: sim city seasons will add snow and a santas workshop, sim city nightlife will give you a party district and sim city wonka will let you to build a chocolate factory.

In short and to the point:

my worry is a loss of variety and quality of modding due to a focus on micro transactions and future content.

[Infinitum80 12]

100%

Its like finding out your girlfriend/wife cheated on you.

 

Do you forgive her or dump her?

 

And if you do forgive her, can you really trust her again and will you really love her the same?

 

 

Something tells me my own loathing of this whole situation will mean I will play it only when the cost is worthwhile (ie bargain bin at my local game shop) as at present I would rather stick the money into a SC clone kickstarter

[Discord 8]

I don't consider this to be game worthy of loathing, I reserve that for sim city societies.

And I have bought this game fully knowing that it lacks alot of features that's dear to me, but with the expectation that it will be corrected and expanded. By modders and Maxis employees that love the game and what it can do.

[Kabloosh 7]

The best thing they added to this game was the inclusion of specializations. Adds a whole other level of gaming. I like the resource gathering, and trading, and refining and all that goes along with it. I just wish the map sizes were a little bigger.

 

SC4 was amazing. I haven't played it in like 8 years but it simply had so much to it and the modding community with all the buildings to download really made for some fantastic skylines. I too wonder if player driven content will go the way of the dodo over DLC driven content.

[azxcvbnm321 17]

You can have both microtransactions and intensive modding as EA did with the Sims3.  However it seems that EA choose not to use the Sims3 model, perhaps because EA felt the mods were taking away potential sales?  I think there is room for both and that EA benefits a great deal from modders.  There are people who do not use mods because mods are not guaranteed to work or be updated after every patch.  There is no formal support for mods, though the best mods provide better support than EA, again there's no guarantee.  Yet the entire community of modders can do more work than EA's small development team relatively speaking.  There's simply no way a company can equal the sum of all the modders of a popular game like Sims3.  And the sheer amount of work, good quality work, really benefited EA and the Sims3.  The game would be nearly unplayable after three generations if not for mods.  Hopefully EA will see that both mods and microtransactions can exist side by side.

[nilssoa 2]

I can see that EA dont wnat to miss the possible profit thar modders are taking away. And then EA cant make as many mods as all the gamers. Why not make a store where you can sell your mods to other players. EA has a % on the salesprice and everyone is happy. That system would generate even more mods than sc4.

[Discord 8]

I can see that EA dont wnat to miss the possible profit thar modders are taking away. And then EA cant make as many mods as all the gamers. Why not make a store where you can sell your mods to other players. EA has a % on the salesprice and everyone is happy. That system would generate even more mods than sc4.

There is something about this that I like!

[macvirt 361]

I can assure you that such constructs have already been extensively studied and experimented with by EA. Unfortunately they are still struggling a bit with fitting it in with their strategic management goals. See, the idea of other people making money of you is something very averse to the investment format EA utilises. I know, there is a lot of irony in that situation when you think about it for a bit, but well, such is EA.