About simcity 2013, Cities: Skylines and so on.

swaty · January 20, 2015

About simcity 2013, skylines and so on. :bunny:

I just recently played simcity 2013 and I even though they did get certain issues completely wrong I still think it’s a good game. :wub: Needless to say that orion patch does improve it a lot more. I believe that if they trimmed/polished certain main issues it will "easily" be the game its meant to be. I think it failed (many reasons) but also because of certain company policies like they have with other games like fifa, nhl…. Which are short term projects (this games come out every year or so..) and they wanted to fit this title into that scheme..? dunno.. :ducky:

From what iv played iv tried to understand where they are coming from In the sense that when you want to build a city (“real life”) you have no call over the land resources (like water and wind). Personally I thought this was a good idea. Increases the “challenge” a bit.. The thing of having oil plants and so on kinda takes it to the next level. Its not really a bad idea, the problem I find here is the END GOAL with that irritating “great place to work”. Every time I see it I just want to say [$%&^!] :noway: and the objective is to fill in that Round area. Personally I think RCI potables are cool, and may be necessary in some occasions, but ruin the game. And the “great place to work” one is a big FAT plotable :boggle: . Other aspects of the game I think were spot on, like being able to increase firesattions, clinics, schools ( I do miss there coverage clarity though, in sc4 it was very clear how far they could cover), others not so much. Funnily enough i start playing the game, then stop after half an hour, I think “whats the point!!!”,,, and the later on in the day I feel the urge to continue building my city !!! :rofl: i think the game has many many great things.

Reading on about skyline, it looks very promising :thumb: , however if ea (they don’t even have to get it right) just don’t get it wrong come out with "Simcity 2015" or whatever most players will go for simcity hands down, no matter what other city simulators do im afraid.. :read: Sure there will be others but Simcity will be the trend and reference for some time

If they change things , obvious things like maps size, online registration and subways!.. the list could go on…

In the long run , once they have perfected the game and removed the stupid policies people will prefer one game from the others because of certain details like with other games vs other games of the same genre like football, tennis... Like racing game were some people prefer a more arcade race type and other a more simulator race type. These concepts obviously transcending into the the building city stategy… :???:

Just a thought o.O

Cheers!

Xenocity · January 20, 2015

I'd be surprised if EA allowed Maxis to build a new Simcity any time soon.

EA has finally been taken over by angry share holders who plan to make the company much more profitable.

They also plan to axe anything that isn't decently profitable and monetizable.

Despite Simcity 2013 on track to being the best selling mainline title, the profits are quite modest.

Though Simcity Buildit has past 15th million download and is more profitable thanks to mobile users and Smart Gamers (yes those who game on a mobile device non handheld are called smart gamers).

The key problem is City Simulators and City builders are together quite niche in the market, while being quite expensive to develop.

This is in part due nature of the games and their stigma of being kiddy, casual, and nerdy.

The real/true/hardcore gamer, you know the ones that play sports and shooters don't bother to with simulators of any sort (if you don't play those games, then you aren't a real/true/hardcore gamers according to market research).

Nor does the mass market.

Simcity (and some other issues) bankrupted Maxis in 1997, forcing them to find a buyer or liquidate (EA was the only one wiling to buy them).

Cites XL bankrupted the developer Monte Cristo in 2000 (or was it 2001).

Cities XXL, Skyline, and others may turn out to be decent games, but don't expect them to sell enough to make any real profit.

I for one see City Simulators and City Builders going away due to high development costs and low sales.

Peorth · January 20, 2015

In other words, there ain't enough nerds playing city simulators to make them profitable. After all, these kinds of games are more likely to bore people than just about any other kind of game:

city simulators -- requires patience (a lot of it), a lot of thinking/planning, a lot of micromanagement, NO action

real-time strategy games (e.g. Starcraft) -- requires thinking and planning, a lot of micromanagement, LOTS of action

first-person shooters (e.g. Call of Duty) -- requires some thinking and planning, some degree of management, LOADS of action

There you have it: the more onerous the requirements and less exciting it is, the lesser players you have and the higher the "nerdiness" required to play the game -- which IMHO makes the players of Simcity (and other simulators) somewhat special, in the positive sense of the word.

Xenocity · January 20, 2015

In other words, there ain't enough nerds playing city simulators to make them profitable. After all, these kinds of games are more likely to bore people than just about any other kind of game:

city simulators -- requires patience (a lot of it), a lot of thinking/planning, a lot of micromanagement, NO action

real-time strategy games (e.g. Starcraft) -- requires thinking and planning, a lot of micromanagement, LOTS of action

first-person shooters (e.g. Call of Duty) -- requires some thinking and planning, some degree of management, LOADS of action

There you have it: the more onerous the requirements and less exciting it is, the lesser players you have and the higher the "nerdiness" required to play the game -- which IMHO makes the players of Simcity (and other simulators) somewhat special, in the positive sense of the word.

Well not all action games do well :kitty:

Bayonetta 1 failed to sell at full price on PS3 and 360, barely shipped 1M globally, though we don't know how well it sold at $20 or less.

It could have stopped selling.

Bayoneta 1&2 on Wii U is nearing 1/3rd the sales of the original game, despite the ~7M Wii Us owned.

There are others action games and shooters that failed to do well too.

But yeah there is no point for any company to make a game that struggles to profit.

Robotica · January 20, 2015

Really Bayonetta did that bad? It was such an incredible action game, probably one of the best I have ever played, what a shame...

But, back on topic, I would hate to think that city builders will die out. I am not sure I agree with that since there is definitely a market, even if it is a niche one. Also, unlike other games, city building is more of a hobby than a game and because of that there are a lot of die hard city builders out there. The other thing is that there has not been a grand mesa for city builders since SC4, so it's over a decade now we have gone without a true successor. I feel like even if they do eventually give up on building new city builders it will happen at a time where we have new games out there that take the current place of SC4 and are able to support the players for a decade or two.

Also, there are some big city builders on the horizon. We all know of Cities Skyline, but check this one out: http://www.thearchitect-game.com/looks incredible, will we ever see it though, I have no idea.

PS: simcity build it is a piece of garbage I wouldn't even call a city builder, it's just a money grab.. a terrible piece of $%&^!.

crishy · January 20, 2015

They simplified SimCity because in this genre there are not enough hardcore gamers to warrant making an overly intricate and complicated game. It seems to be a mostly casual genre. SC2013 is a decent but very limited game that caters specifically to these casuals - very easy to play and decent catchy 3D gameplay and graphics, at the cost of limited creative control. Considering the financial success of SC2013 relative to its predecessors, I suspect any future games by Maxis will be similar to it. We could at least hope that advances in technology will allow bigger maps or at least inteconnected side by side cities, and terraforming.

SimCity did not cause Maxis' decline, it was mismanagement and the lack of other good selling games other than SimCity that did. Monte Cristo is similar but its main game Cities XL did not sell well as well. This is not restricted to the simulator genre - anytime a company relies in one or two products for operating revenue, for an extended period of time, it runs a bigger risk of going under, especially if said products do not sell well or if they use this revenue elsewhere without much planning. Maxis just happens to be one of the largest of them. Core Design (Tomb Raider), Cavedog (Total Annihilation), and Midas (Mortal Kombat) are similar examples in other gaming genres.

Robotica · January 20, 2015

I think the big problem here is that city builders are not your typical games. Unlike your normal games, with city builders your average enthusiast will dump hundreds and hundreds of hours into the game. I put upwards of 600 hours into the new SC13 and probably thousands of hours into SC4. I think what developers fail to realize is that for a good city builder that we can realistic foresee playing for over a thousand hours we are, for the most part, willing to also pay more. I would probably pay at least a hundred, if not a couple hundred, for a city builder if I knew it would sustain my creative endeavours because at that point it ceases being a game and instead becomes a tool.

crishy · January 20, 2015

Shh, do not give them any more ideas lol.

Seriously though, this is what modding is there for.

But yea, if a SC13 expansion that gives you more features other than just architectural or futuristic DLCs, I would be up for that.

Xenocity · January 20, 2015

They simplified SimCity because in this genre there are not enough hardcore gamers to warrant making an overly intricate and complicated game. It seems to be a mostly casual genre. SC2013 is a decent but very limited game that caters specifically to these casuals - very easy to play and decent catchy 3D gameplay and graphics, at the cost of limited creative control. Considering the financial success of SC2013 relative to its predecessors, I suspect any future games by Maxis will be similar to it. We could at least hope that advances in technology will allow bigger maps or at least inteconnected side by side cities, and terraforming.

SimCity did not cause Maxis' decline, it was mismanagement and the lack of other good selling games other than SimCity that did. Monte Cristo is similar but its main game Cities XL did not sell well as well. This is not restricted to the simulator genre - anytime a company relies in one or two products for operating revenue, for an extended period of time, it runs a bigger risk of going under, especially if said products do not sell well or if they use this revenue elsewhere without much planning. Maxis just happens to be one of the largest of them. Core Design (Tomb Raider), Cavedog (Total Annihilation), and Midas (Mortal Kombat) are similar examples in other gaming genres.

Actually hardcore gamers do not play simulators, especially city simulators and builders.

They make fun of people who do.

The main genre which hardcore gamers play are first person shooters, with it's flagship gaming being Call of Duty.

Simcity has always been seen as a casual/kiddy/nerdy game that hardcore gamers wouldn't touch if you paid them.

So if you play Simcity (or any other simulator and/or city builder) you are either a casual gamer, kiddy gamer, or nerdy (maybe all 3).

But you aren't a hardcore gamer/real gamer according to market research (yes market research is heavily used to determine what developers produce and to segment gamers).

Maxis literally broke the bank trying to make a full 3D city simulator in the late 90s according to Will Wright interviews.

This game was supposed to be Simcity 3000, but due to development hell and PC specs, Maxis was forced to develop Simcity 3000 as an isosymetric game to pull of psuedo 3D graphics.

The full 3D city simulator was delayed and was shifted to be come Simcity 4, but EA now in control of Maxis and canned the project due to costs and sales projects.

Maxis by this time had spent the better part of 8 years and countless millions making a full 3D city simulator.

EA ordered Maxis to develop a traditional Simcity, which became Simcity 4.

Simcity 4 and Rush Hour both sold so badly, Rush Hour selling only to 1/3rd of the Simcity 4 base, prompted Maxis to cancel all the expansion packs they were working on.

Maxis also stopped development of all patches they were working on and let modders fix Simcity 4.

EA and Maxis then employed market research to find out why majority of the people who bought Simcity 3000/3000U didn't even bother to buy Simcity 4.

According to Will Wright in his last interview before he left Maxis stated majority of the responses stated Simcity 4 was too complicated for the majority of Simcity fans.

He claimed that plans were in the works to reboot Simcity franchise into a much simplier game to meet majority of the Simcity fans who refused to purchase Simcity 4.

Simcity 3000/3000U sold over 5M+ according to EA, Simcity 4 struggled to hit 1M in 2005 at the last sales update.

EA has not updated numbers since then and will only mention Simcity 3000/3000U, because it is currently the best selling mainline title.

As much as it pains me to say this, EA is best off making Maxis a Sims only studio and killing all other simulation based projects.

There is very little money in making a simulator of any sort.

@Robotica

Bayonetta sold so bad with the orignal game, that Sega canned the sequel and the other games Platinum had in development.

No publisher was willing to Bayonetta 2 or any other canned games until Nintendo came along.

The question is did Bayonetta sell better or worse than Simcity 4?

MushyMushy · January 20, 2015

EA ordered Maxis to develop a traditional Simcity, which became Simcity 4.

Simcity 4 and Rush Hour both sold so badly, Rush Hour selling only to 1/3rd of the Simcity 4 base, prompted Maxis to cancel all the expansion packs they were working on.

Maxis also stopped development of all patches they were working on and let modders fix Simcity 4.

Kinda funny how it sold so badly, yet of all of the SC games I own (2k, 3k, 4, 2013), I find it by far the most creative and enjoyable (not to mention it is also capable of having the nicest looking graphics). '13 probably sold so well because people nowadays are sheeple who gravitate to shiny 3D graphics and GUIs with big shiny buttons (can thank mobile devices for that). SC4 probably had the most potential of all of them, but the fact that it appeals to only a small niche of gamers (those with a creative mind) probably limited its success.

I have high hopes for Skylines, but I don't really think SC4 can be beat. There are so many benefits to a full gird-based system (as far as aesthetics go), that I don't think a full 3D game will beat it for a while.

Peorth · January 20, 2015

Well not all action games do well :kitty:

Bayonetta 1 failed to sell at full price on PS3 and 360, barely shipped 1M globally, though we don't know how well it sold at $20 or less.

It could have stopped selling.

Bayoneta 1&2 on Wii U is nearing 1/3rd the sales of the original game, despite the ~7M Wii Us owned.

There are others action games and shooters that failed to do well too.

But yeah there is no point for any company to make a game that struggles to profit.

You're missing the point though, because there will always be bad games regardless of what genre it is, and it only proves making a successful game is no easy task. Rather, in the overall scheme of things a person is more likely to go for something less cerebral and/or has a higher or more immediate fun/action factor like FPS games over calm and arguably boring games like city simulators.

I think the big problem here is that city builders are not your typical games. Unlike your normal games, with city builders your average enthusiast will dump hundreds and hundreds of hours into the game. I put upwards of 600 hours into the new SC13 and probably thousands of hours into SC4. I think what developers fail to realize is that for a good city builder that we can realistic foresee playing for over a thousand hours we are, for the most part, willing to also pay more. I would probably pay at least a hundred, if not a couple hundred, for a city builder if I knew it would sustain my creative endeavours because at that point it ceases being a game and instead becomes a tool.

Indeed, I think most games (especially FPS ones) have limited replay value because once you're done with it then that's that. Simcity certainly has great replayability factor because of the nature of the game, though honestly I think SC2013 has the least (well at least compared to SC4) mainly because of the frustratingly small city size.

Regarding games where you can dump a lot of hours in (and pay more for that fix), it actually reminds me of another game of a completely different genre: Skyrim. Several DLCs help Skyrim's replayability and longevity, but I believe a major factor supporting this is the huge modding community. It allows people to tweak the game in a tremendous number of ways and alter the vanilla version significantly. I guess if we related it to the SC series the closest would be SC4.

crishy · January 21, 2015

I do understand the concept of market research. That has nothing to do with my original post. Games do not bankrupt a company, it is the company's actions that do. SimCity 3D was a failure because Maxis decided to pursue an overly ambitious project without - ironically - planning well about it. EA was smarter and hence SC3000 did well. Had Maxis had the benefit of hindsight and pursued something like that since the beginning it would likely have been just as profitable.

Without detailed financial information released by the company no one can verifiably claim whether a game was or not profitable. This information is not posted in the company's annual financial reports (the electronic versions of which are terrible, not user friendly, maybe not surprisingly). You can say SimCity 4 fell short of company expectatives but we do not know whether the game was in fact profitable. Sales and profitability are different things that depend on other financial numbers as well (i.e. cost of develpment and marketing, overhead, etc.). For a smaller company with a smaller payroll and decent management, even 50k copies may be a nice profit for them.

City simulator is not the best selling genre out there but there is definitively a decent market for it. The fact that EA managed to sell 2 mil copies of SC 2013 shows that. Of course, 2 mil might or might not be big enough for Maxis but that is another matter entirely. Although I strongly suspect yes. Demand wise, new versions (excluding DLCs) in any specific plataform every couple of years no, but a mild investment in a new project every 5 to 10 years maybe. However, I agree that an updated game similar in scope to SC4 is out of the question, at least from Maxis.

Xenocity · January 21, 2015

EA did state back in the day that Simcity 4 failed to breakeven.

Simcity 2013 is actually closer to 4 million now.

It already blew past the 3 million mark at the last EA financial report.

Simcity 2013 has been modestly profitable for EA, but is not as profitable as EA hoped.

With development costs doubling every few years in the West, most games struggle to sell enough to breakeven.

crishy · January 21, 2015

"EA did state back in the day that Simcity 4 failed to breakeven."

"Simcity 2013 has been modestly profitable for EA, but is not as profitable as EA hoped."

References for both? Especially the latter statement. Each Dragon Age (another EA controlled game) installment sold about 3 - 4 mil copies yet the franchise still has new releases so between these figures and SC 2013's there seems to be a little discrepancy. Though the nice SC 13 launch and its fallout might have something to do with that.

Even assuming they are true, in the first case the company is still ultimately responsible for making it too complicated, and in the second case, the launch was horrendous which may have turned customers off.

swaty · January 21, 2015

Interesting info on the companies’ numbers! thx i didnt know... :thumb:

Yea i agree City sims have a special audience, But i think its much broader than what it might appear. Personally my self i dont like simulators, but simcity is defenetly one of my 3 fav games. And to start getting you city going, its not that hard... i consider this game to be more of a management, and dont forget strategy game. And many many people like strategy games. :lol:

People like manegment-strategy games... look at farmville and many many others, ok, there is a big difference but there are similarities, i think no one could have predicted that people would have liked that type of game so much.. :???:

What you commented on

"I for one see City Simulators and City Builders going away due to high development costs and low sales"

maybe not…. the fact that these games are popular and simpler on the mobile platform may be a way to introduce them to a more complete and sophisticated version. They may be used as a trampoline, many people who like a game later want the same game with a different challenge and more options. :idea: You must take into account that most of us that come from other sc versions know the main requirements for a city for someone new its one step more! The problem I see here is that i really don’t see this game on consoles even if you have a mouse… its more of a PC oriented game… and that also goes against this type of game. A close example of this is plants vs zombies. The best thing that game had was the infinite waves challenge, due to limited resources on ipad, mobiles and so on it was taken off. In PvsZ 2 there option isn’t there either… hence to say that the last time I checked, this game isn’t on pc anymore :uhm:

I understand what you mean when you say nerd, but i don’t think this is such a restricted audience. Whats really make this game (this type of game) different from the rest is that you set your own goal (at least it should be) of creating the city you want. So there is no really end goal, some people are not comfortable with that. :kitty:

I partially agree that its may not be that profitable, but that may depend on your take on a profitable title. Its clear that this game when it comes to sales it cannot be released on a yearly basis (or maybe so.. but it would be sad) in that sense it isn’t. Also if you want to compare it to other titles like COD or Medal of honor, obviously no. How ever i do think his type game has its unconditional followers and alot of potential for others to like it and make it profitable. :bunny: After all, who hasnt visited a beutifull part of any city and said i wish i`d made that! :party:

I do see some light and the end of the tunnel (even though also thought the same of virtua tennis 3, and they [$%&^!] that title too in the next relase :dead: )

Cheers!

Edited January 21, 2015 by Cyclone Boom
Language please.

Gregorfp · January 21, 2015

There are some things I will never understand. Why in the world EA would join projects like SIMCITY and FIFA MANAGER just to quit after some a few releases?

There is no reason to believe that a product like this can draw the attention of much more consumer than it already has. Only if you change the nature of the game.

Also, to believe that sc4 was a game too hard to play according to some research is a very good excuse to make a simplier game due to the lack of commitment and competence of designing and programming teams. Simple as that.

On the sales side, there is nothing to compare here. Different times, with different markets and even different products. Of course a nice product could be very proffitable. That's not sc13 case at all.

When you do the same things over and over again, you can always expect the very same results. EA/Maxis doesn't know that I guess.

swaty · January 21, 2015

The future maybe be an open source sim city?... o.O

Xenocity · January 21, 2015

There are some things I will never understand. Why in the world EA would join projects like SIMCITY and FIFA MANAGER just to quit after some a few releases?

There is no reason to believe that a product like this can draw the attention of much more consumer than it already has. Only if you change the nature of the game.

Also, to believe that sc4 was a game too hard to play according to some research is a very good excuse to make a simplier game due to the lack of commitment and competence of designing and programming teams. Simple as that.

On the sales side, there is nothing to compare here. Different times, with different markets and even different products. Of course a nice product could be very proffitable. That's not sc13 case at all.

When you do the same things over and over again, you can always expect the very same results. EA/Maxis doesn't know that I guess.

EA has gone through three different CEOs and top management since 1997.

The new managment at EA is put in place by shareholder revolt to increasse profits and restructure the company around products with the most profit and micro transactions.

EA also had to abide by the terms of acqusition when they acquired Maxis and Bioware.

This is why Maxis until recently had a free hand in doing what they wanted.

Bioware was able to make 5 Dragon Age games, with Dragon Age Inquistion bombing spectacularly in every territory.

FIFA on the other hand is widely popular because outside of North America because it's the official soccer game.

Though it's sales have been trending downard every year for the past few years now.

Simcity 1 - 4 ran on the statistical engine to power the games.

The stastical engine in simple terms is a glorified Excel Spreadsheet.

Simcity 4's problems are caused mainly by the stastical engine being dated and not usable for a massive city simulator.

Simcity 2013 decided to use a Glassbox engine, which used real time agents to power the simulation.

The problem with Simcity 2013 and the Glassbox engine was the fact they downgraded the game to prevent Simcity fans from needed to upgrading their PCs.

Maxis learned their lesson from Simcity 4, when they were given a massive backlash from Simcity fans when they couldn't run Simcity 4 on their existing rigs.

If Maxis would have kept Simcity 2013 and the Glassbox engine targeting the original specs, we would have had a better game.

" 'SimCity' kind of worked itself into a corner," Wright said. "We were still appealing to this core 'SimCity' group. It had gotten a little complicated for people who had never played 'SimCity.' We want to take it back to its roots where somebody who had never heard of 'SimCity' can pick it up and enjoy playing it without thinking it was really, really hard."
Will Wright- 2004

The future maybe be an open source sim city?...

There are multiple open source City Simulators based on Simcity.

They just aren't popular.

Micropolis is the open source version of the original Simcity.

As for your mobile question.

People who play on smart devices didn't console or PC game.

They have shown very little if any interest on gaming on other devices, because they like the pick up and play factor of their phones and don't like having to pay any real money for games.

Akeem J Lenoir · January 21, 2015

Sadly, as EA is profit-driven, SimCity Buildit may become a more supported platform than SimCity 2013, simply because profit potential is greater. Looking at this from a pure business standpoint, the only way EA would possibly support games like SC2013 is if they're able to make it profitable. At this point, the only way to do that, other than SC Buildit, is to change their model in favor of subscription-based gaming.

So, let's say some new installment of SimCity were to be released. Instead of charging an average, one-time price of $20... already accounting for the cost of units sold... to presumably 2 million gamers, which is about $60 million in profit, they may option to require an ongoing, $5 monthly subscription. In theory, the lower price tag would entice many more gamers. Even at, say, 4 million gamers at $5 per month, they'd make on average $20 million per month, surpassing the previous profit potential in just 3 months.

That must be their angle with SC Buildit. At already 20 million downloads, if they could get gamers to spend just $1 on a monthly basis, they'd make more money on that game than SC2013. Why wouldn't they follow the money? It just makes perfect business sense.

As they always say, "money makes the world go round'" ... well... at least it dictates the gaming world.

rmjohnson144 · January 22, 2015

I think the only reason SDimcity has been considered a failure is simply just a badly coded game they could fix. There are just too many major unfixable bugs. If this game had zero major bugs then I tihnk it would have been profitable. Maybe not as much as FPS games, but profitable enough to continue the franchise.

I mean, look at Civilization. It has even less action than Simcity and they are doing well. It had a rough launch from is rebooting the series, but it was faily bug free and with a couple of expansion has regained most of it's loyal player base. Sadly simcity just dumped an expansion which made game bugs worse instead of fixing the game properly. Now we may never see another true simcity game again.

All I see is BuiltIt for the near future as we wait dfor for more powerful handhelds that can handle games like Simcity. In fact I play Civ5 on my laptop convertible (in tablet mode) and it plays very well. although it is a turned based game and doesn't stress the graphics much.

mutton noir · February 14, 2015

I held out for so long but caved recently and finally bought SC2013 at knockdown price of £9. I'm glad I didn't pay more. What a HUGE disappointment after SimCity 4. I have spent endless hours playing SC4 which I love. The reboot has some cool elements but overall the inane simplicity has destroyed a classic. If they had stayed true to the philosophy of SC4 and its core elements then overhauled the graphics the game could have been awesome. I feel that I've been sold a "pig in a poke"

London-b · February 17, 2015

They simplified SimCity because in this genre there are not enough hardcore gamers to warrant making an overly intricate and complicated game. It seems to be a mostly casual genre. SC2013 is a decent but very limited game that caters specifically to these casuals - very easy to play and decent catchy 3D gameplay and graphics, at the cost of limited creative control. Considering the financial success of SC2013 relative to its predecessors, I suspect any future games by Maxis will be similar to it. We could at least hope that advances in technology will allow bigger maps or at least inteconnected side by side cities, and terraforming.

SimCity did not cause Maxis' decline, it was mismanagement and the lack of other good selling games other than SimCity that did. Monte Cristo is similar but its main game Cities XL did not sell well as well. This is not restricted to the simulator genre - anytime a company relies in one or two products for operating revenue, for an extended period of time, it runs a bigger risk of going under, especially if said products do not sell well or if they use this revenue elsewhere without much planning. Maxis just happens to be one of the largest of them. Core Design (Tomb Raider), Cavedog (Total Annihilation), and Midas (Mortal Kombat) are similar examples in other gaming genres.

Actually hardcore gamers do not play simulators, especially city simulators and builders.

They make fun of people who do.

The main genre which hardcore gamers play are first person shooters, with it's flagship gaming being Call of Duty.

Simcity has always been seen as a casual/kiddy/nerdy game that hardcore gamers wouldn't touch if you paid them.

So if you play Simcity (or any other simulator and/or city builder) you are either a casual gamer, kiddy gamer, or nerdy (maybe all 3).

But you aren't a hardcore gamer/real gamer according to market research (yes market research is heavily used to determine what developers produce and to segment gamers).

Maxis literally broke the bank trying to make a full 3D city simulator in the late 90s according to Will Wright interviews.

This game was supposed to be Simcity 3000, but due to development hell and PC specs, Maxis was forced to develop Simcity 3000 as an isosymetric game to pull of psuedo 3D graphics.

The full 3D city simulator was delayed and was shifted to be come Simcity 4, but EA now in control of Maxis and canned the project due to costs and sales projects.

Maxis by this time had spent the better part of 8 years and countless millions making a full 3D city simulator.

EA ordered Maxis to develop a traditional Simcity, which became Simcity 4.

Simcity 4 and Rush Hour both sold so badly, Rush Hour selling only to 1/3rd of the Simcity 4 base, prompted Maxis to cancel all the expansion packs they were working on.

Maxis also stopped development of all patches they were working on and let modders fix Simcity 4.

EA and Maxis then employed market research to find out why majority of the people who bought Simcity 3000/3000U didn't even bother to buy Simcity 4.

According to Will Wright in his last interview before he left Maxis stated majority of the responses stated Simcity 4 was too complicated for the majority of Simcity fans.

He claimed that plans were in the works to reboot Simcity franchise into a much simplier game to meet majority of the Simcity fans who refused to purchase Simcity 4.

Simcity 3000/3000U sold over 5M+ according to EA, Simcity 4 struggled to hit 1M in 2005 at the last sales update.

EA has not updated numbers since then and will only mention Simcity 3000/3000U, because it is currently the best selling mainline title.

As much as it pains me to say this, EA is best off making Maxis a Sims only studio and killing all other simulation based projects.

There is very little money in making a simulator of any sort.

@Robotica

Bayonetta sold so bad with the orignal game, that Sega canned the sequel and the other games Platinum had in development.

No publisher was willing to Bayonetta 2 or any other canned games until Nintendo came along.

The question is did Bayonetta sell better or worse than Simcity 4?

You need to stop peddling this rubbish. I remember you doing it ages ago. You weirdly mix unspecified "market research" judgments on gamers with other gamers judgments on gamers, with liberal use of the English language.

Xenocity · February 17, 2015