With Maxis Closing, what impact does that have on SC2013?

[macscfan 117]

http://www.pcgamer.com/electronic-arts-closes-simcity-studio-maxis-emeryville/

 

 

"Today we are consolidating Maxis IP development to our studios in Redwood Shores, Salt Lake City, Helsinki and Melbourne locations as we close our Emeryville location. Maxis continues to support and develop new experiences for current Sims and SimCity players, while expanding our franchises to new platforms and developing new cross-platform IP. 

 

These changes do not impact our plans for The Sims. Players will continue to see rich new experiences in The Sims 4, with our first expansion pack coming soon along with a full slate of additional updates and content in the pipeline.

All employees impacted by the changes today will be given opportunities to explore other positions within the Maxis studios and throughout EA. For those that are leaving the company, we are working to ensure the best possible transition with separation packages and career assistance."

 

I'm guessing that active development will be confined to the iPad SimCity?

[Xenocity 343]

Maxis Emeryville is the main part of Maxis and was Maxis before EA saved them from liquidation (yes Maxis was literally out of cash when EA bought them).

 

Those who worked at Emeryville will most likely be laid off, though some will be transferred to other divisons within EA.

Though the Maxis brand isn't dead, the main studio is now.

The other Studio is the The Sims studio, which makes The Sims series starting with 3.

 

There will be a small contigency of employees from Maxis that will carry on supporting the existing products until end of life.

 

The Sims franchise had kept Maxis profitable and in business, allowing Maxis to work on other games.

 

Maxis was ulitimately brought down by string of high costs games (simulation games are expensive to make) starting with Simcity 4 and ending with Simcity Build It, that struggled to breakeven, lost money or made small profits (Simcity Build It was the most profitable Simcity title, not by much).

 

Maxis was also brought down by fighting with EA's management, Maxis wanted to do as they pleased and EA was trying to restructure them along profits.

 

In the end Maxis regulary lost money in the majority of the years they've been in business, including the EA years.

 

 

EA gave Maxis an 18 year stay of execution, but again it wasn't meant to last (The creditors planned to kill Maxis in 1996)

 

 

Maxis will still live on through the The Sims studio.

 

Simcity is effectively dead, due to it not selling enough to warrant the investment.

[London-b 90]

You can't really say it started with SC4. They were in trouble in the late 90's and made a number of questionable decisions which lead to them being bailed out. Nothing really changed after that. SC4's longevity was a fluke, Spore was disappointing, no one has ever heard of Darkspore, and SC2013 was...

 

The Sims was the only solid department but that's not going to last another decade the way they're going.  

[Xenocity 343]

You can't really say it started with SC4. They were in trouble in the late 90's and made a number of questionable decisions which lead to them being bailed out. Nothing really changed after that. SC4's longevity was a fluke, Spore was disappointing, no one has ever heard of Darkspore, and SC2013 was...

 

The Sims was the only solid department but that's not going to last another decade the way they're going.  Yo

That's debatable.

 

The Sims is ran by The Sims Studio, which is ran seperately from Maxis.

 

Also Lucy Bradshaw was promoted recently...

[rmjohnson144 42]

Well, update 11 should be out any day. I doubt they'll support the servers much longer.  Update 11 should move the whole game offline permanently.  Hopefully with all free DLC since we won't be able to buy it anymore.

 

Lets hope Colossal Order saves the day with Cities: Skylines.  Otherwise, we won't have much for city builders anymore.

[Panther6308 14]

Xenocity,

 

I read in your messages lately about SimCity and the gaming industry, you seem to be well connected to know what you are telling us.

 

One sentence catch me in the last one: "Maxis was also brought down by fighting with EA's management, Maxis want to do as they pleased and EA was trying to restructure them along profits."

 

EA force Maxis to implement Offline only and DLCs to a city simulator and the way they did it, they failed. People were shooting out loud to have Offline in the game 1 year before the game was out and they didn't listen. They didn't do a real Beta test (game playable for one hour only) and the servers crashed at launch.

 

As you said, the simulation genre cost a lot of money to produce for a smaller profit than a GTA, Call of duty or Battlefield game. But there are people who want to play that kind of game. 2+ millions copies of SimCity that's not bad for that genre. It could have been more with patches to get rid of all bugs and better support for modding. Since Offline one year ago, they did nothing. Only 3-4 people were working on SimCity. The news today, while being sad for the people working there, was the last nail to the coffin in that office.

 

Cities Skylines will be out in a week. For Paradox/Colossal Order, if the 2 Millions people who bought SimCity decide to buy Cities: Skylines, they will be very happy and make a big profit, even at $30/$40 a copy. They are also listening and talking directly to the gamers. No marketing or PR filtering the answers. And they are able to say when they do something wrong. People like their honesty and they still continue to support them. And right now, youtubers can produce let's play with a beta version of the game and prove the game is working and playable. It is not as beautiful graphically as SimCity but the core game is working. Better graphics can be deliver later. And they will support modders and give them tools to improve the game.

 

Like for any big company, EA, being a public company, need to make a lot of money for the machine to run and for the investors to make money. For them, a city simulator is now not the kind of project that can bring enough money for them. Also, Marketing is running the show. If the color of the day is blue, all games must be blue even if it doesn't fit the game genre.

 

For Paradox, being smaller and not being public (unless I'm wrong), they gave more liberty to Colossal Order to create a better game and make money out of this genre.

 

I will put here a sentence I read recently in the January 2015 PC Gamer edition on Star Citizen with producer Chris Roberts:

 

Being asked what's it's like being free from the traditional developer/publisher relationship, his answer was: "Every day we can just focus on what we think is going to be the best game. When you're working with a big publisher, a lot of energy gets expended on marketing and sales, and they determine what your budget is... the problem with that is they get a say in what you do with the game. I've had situations where marketing has said things like "Call of Duty has this, so you need to have this", and if we say no, they will mark the projected sales down by a million units, lowering the development budget. So you end up doing things you don't believe in so you get a good forecast.".

 

Pinky!

[ColdMoney21 2]

I don't think the SimCity IP is dead just yet.

 

"Today we are consolidating Maxis IP development to our studios in Redwood Shores, Salt Lake City, Helsinki and Melbourne locations as we close our Emeryville location. Maxis continues to support and develop new experiences for current Sims and SimCity players, while expanding our franchises to new platforms and developing new cross-platform IP."

 

I still believe we might get a new SimCity for PC, but not anytime soon. Some of Maxis employees might get transferred to those studios instead while others I guess decide to move on out of the Sims franchise. Or EA decides to get a new developer on board that can handle these types of simulations. I mean if a small team at Colossal Order can do it, I don't see why anyone else can't.

[Xenocity 343]

Xenocity,

 

I read in your messages lately about SimCity and the gaming industry, you seem to be well connected to know what you are telling us.

 

One sentence catch me in the last one: "Maxis was also brought down by fighting with EA's management, Maxis want to do as they pleased and EA was trying to restructure them along profits."

 

EA force Maxis to implement Offline only and DLCs to a city simulator and the way they did it, they failed. People were shooting out loud to have Offline in the game 1 year before the game was out and they didn't listen. They didn't do a real Beta test (game playable for one hour only) and the servers crashed at launch.

 

As you said, the simulation genre cost a lot of money to produce for a smaller profit than a GTA, Call of duty or Battlefield game. But there are people who want to play that kind of game. 2+ millions copies of SimCity that's not bad for that genre. It could have been more with patches to get rid of all bugs and better support for modding. Since Offline one year ago, they did nothing. Only 3-4 people were working on SimCity. The news today, while being sad for the people working there, was the last nail to the coffin in that office.

 

Cities Skylines will be out in a week. For Paradox/Colossal Order, if the 2 Millions people who bought SimCity decide to buy Cities: Skylines, they will be very happy and make a big profit, even at $30/$40 a copy. They are also listening and talking directly to the gamers. No marketing or PR filtering the answers. And they are able to say when they do something wrong. People like their honesty and they still continue to support them. And right now, youtubers can produce let's play with a beta version of the game and prove the game is working and playable. It is not as beautiful graphically as SimCity but the core game is working. Better graphics can be deliver later. And they will support modders and give them tools to improve the game.

 

Like for any big company, EA, being a public company, need to make a lot of money for the machine to run and for the investors to make money. For them, a city simulator is now not the kind of project that can bring enough money for them. Also, Marketing is running the show. If the color of the day is blue, all games must be blue even if it doesn't fit the game genre.

 

For Paradox, being smaller and not being public (unless I'm wrong), they gave more liberty to Colossal Order to create a better game and make money out of this genre.

 

I will put here a sentence I read recently in the January 2015 PC Gamer edition on Star Citizen with producer Chris Roberts:

 

Being asked what's it's like being free from the traditional developer/publisher relationship, his answer was: "Every day we can just focus on what we think is going to be the best game. When you're working with a big publisher, a lot of energy gets expended on marketing and sales, and they determine what your budget is... the problem with that is they get a say in what you do with the game. I've had situations where marketing has said things like "Call of Duty has this, so you need to have this", and if we say no, they will mark the projected sales down by a million units, lowering the development budget. So you end up doing things you don't believe in so you get a good forecast.".

 

Pinky!

I'm just fellow gamer and consumer.

 

It's no big secret that development costs have been skyrocketing over the past 15 years, while the PC market has seen it's revenue level below the 2004 mark.

It's hard to sell a full priced game on PC, in part due to Steam and Origin regularly have huge sales.

Right now Steam is having a huge sale as well.

 

Both console and PC gaming is consolidating around shooters, sports and other M rated games.

Since most gamers want state of the art graphics and stuff, it makes all games quite expensive to produce.

Shooters, sports and M rated games have the biggest market appeal, thus selling the best and making the most profit. 

 

The problem with the simulation genre is fans what top tier graphics, robust simulator, features, content etc...

This cost alot of money to build a game with all this stuff.

Most games today regardless of genre need ~5 million sales to make a decent profit.

 

This is causing publishers and developers to drop their lesser selling franchises.

For people like me, this means I have less games to buy (though maybe this is a blessing instead).

 

EA only two years ago was bleeding money and stuck in the 6th year of a 3 year turn around plan.

They were putting out decent games, but the development costs was eating them up.

The investors and shareholders revolted taking over the company.

They then launched the current restructuring program focusing on profit and cost cutting.

EA is now profitable again, though they shut down a lot of studios and lost a lot of employees.

EA also bows to public pressure if it big enough, hence what they did with Simcity 2013 offline.

 

Kotiack did something similar when he took over Activision 10 years ago, turning into the CoD company.

 

In short I've seen the data, the news stories, and other trends which have gotten the industry to this point.

 

As for Cities: Skylines, the most likely won't be seeing huge profits for these reasons:

 

1. They are probably using Unity Pro as their main engine development software, this costs a high monthly rate for developers
2. The PR/Marketing campaign isn't cheap
3. Steam takes 30% cut of the sales price.
   1. Standard game at $30, will see Steam taking $9 for each copy sold
   2. Deluxe at $40, will see Steam take $12 for each copy sold.
4. Steam also charges a fee to have your game on the front page
5. Paradox will take it's cut, leaving the rest for Colossel Order

Since Steam is the main platform, this means the bulk of your sales will come from the heavily discounted price during big Steam sales.

According to Valve and developers, most Steam users wait for a big sale before making a purchase.

 

I reckon a few hundred thousand gamers will pay full price for Cities: Skylines, while all the rest wait for a sale.

I've already preordered the deluxe version.

 

If Cities: Skylines reaches 2M+, it's due to a masive sales.

Samething happened to Simcity 2013.

 

@Coldmoney21

 

EA probably will comission a few more DLC packs/expansions for Simcity 2013 before ending all support.

The Sims 4 can go either way, depending on how EA fixes the game's preception.

EA will probably take one more shot at Simcity mobile riddled with microtransactions, if it becomes a hit then Simcity goes this route.

If this fails, Simcity is dead for good!

[minooble31 5]

If this fails, Simcity is dead for good!

 

EA will probably take one more shot at Simcity mobile riddled with microtransactions, if it becomes a hit then Simcity goes this route.

 

 

Hope it will happen even If I'm not happy of the lay-off.

[Turjan 1,048]

As for Cities: Skylines, the most likely won't be seeing huge profits for these reasons:

1. They are probably using Unity Pro as their main engine development software, this costs a high monthly rate for developers
2. The PR/Marketing campaign isn't cheap
3. Steam takes 30% cut of the sales price.
   1. Standard game at $30, will see Steam taking $9 for each copy sold
   2. Deluxe at $40, will see Steam take $12 for each copy sold.
4. Steam also charges a fee to have your game on the front page
5. Paradox will take it's cut, leaving the rest for Colossel Order

 

1. Hmm. Unity can actually be one of the cheapest solutions to make your game, which is the reason why many indie and recent games use the engine, like many of the successful Kickstarter projects. Unity Pro starts at $75 per month.

 

2. Right. But do they use any of the expensive marketing strategies, like TV or buying pages in magazines? All I see is videos made by the developer (Colossal Order) themselves.

 

3. A 30% cut is quite a cheap solution to sell your game. Store copies will cost you more, like about 65%. Also, the Paradox strategy to sell games is to sell the base game cheap and then bury you in lots of DLC, some of which is just cosmetic with the occasional nugget in between (just look at the Crusader Kings II page at Steam). They do this for many years for games that sell well. CK II was released in February 2012, the last $15 DLC got out in October 2014, a slightly cheaper one in December. All DLC for that game together is currently $194.49. You will get it considerably cheaper during sales, but it's still a lot of dosh even then.

 

4. Well, Cities: Skylines is at this very moment the best-selling game on Steam (I just checked). Steam also wants to sell things, which means they will do what it takes to move copies.

 

5. Paradox sure will take a cut to provide the marketing. Again, from what I heard from developers like Obsidian is that Paradox offers some of the cheapest publisher deals you can get, which are good for smaller developers. It's not the full service you get from a big publisher, but they will get your game into stores (Obsidian for example uses Paradox to get their store copies of Pillars of Eternity out, an RPG made with Unity). A small team of 8 or 13 people would have to hire several people to do this stuff anyway.

 

By the way, it's absolutely no problem to find Cities:Skylines for a good chunk off even at the moment at some of the smaller online key stores (€20.43 standard, €27 deluxe).

 

 

 

Regarding the SImCity brand, I heard the mobile branch (situated in Helsinki) was making profits. I guess you may see it again on your phone and tablet.

[Xenocity 343]

Actually the amount  retail takes from gaming is based on the size of the developer and publisher.

The bigger developers and publishers are able to have better agreements with retail.

 

Companies like Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, EA, Activison etc... have retailers taking between 25%-40% on most games.

Lesser tier franchises have bigger retail margins.

 

This only includes retailers, not costs of distribution, shipping and manufacturing.

 

Actually Simcity Buildit is profitable, but not as profitable as EA was expecting.

[Camlon 50]

I'm just fellow gamer and consumer.

 

It's no big secret that development costs have been skyrocketing over the past 15 years, while the PC market has seen it's revenue level below the 2004 mark.

It's hard to sell a full priced game on PC, in part due to Steam and Origin regularly have huge sales.

 

The problem with the simulation genre is fans what top tier graphics, robust simulator, features, content etc...

This cost alot of money to build a game with all this stuff.

Most games today regardless of genre need ~5 million sales to make a decent profit.

 

While it is true that development cost has been skyrocketing, it doesn't need to be that way. You don't need 5 million sales to make a decent profit. Paradox Interactive have made profit on games which has sold 300K copies.

 

And its not too weird if you think about it. To make cities skylines they have about 10 employees, and lets assume they get paid 100K dollars a year for 3 years. The total employee cost will then be 3 million dollars. 

 

But if you sell 2 million copies for a profit of 30 dollars each. (talking about simcity now) then you will earn 60 million dollars. The problem is not that city building games cost too much to develop, the problem is that EA is wasting resources. 

 

 

 

 

1. They are probably using Unity Pro as their main engine development software, this costs a high monthly rate for developers
2. The PR/Marketing campaign isn't cheap
3. Steam takes 30% cut of the sales price.
   1. Standard game at $30, will see Steam taking $9 for each copy sold
   2. Deluxe at $40, will see Steam take $12 for each copy sold.
4. Steam also charges a fee to have your game on the front page
5. Paradox will take it's cut, leaving the rest for Colossel Order

 

1. Not a significant factor compared to other factors

 

2. Actually it is cheap, I remember I saw advertisments in stores for sim city 2013. You won't find that for Cities Skylines. Their type of marketing is cheap, but also very smart. For instance they let a lot of youtubers play their games and upload videos. 

 

3. So, pretty much the same as what physical stores take from EA. They also don't need to think about production cost.

 

4. They are not among featured items, they are however in the top sales list. 

 

5. That is similar to many other game companies, and it doesn't really matter. It just means the profit will be shared among two organizations.

 

 

 

I reckon a few hundred thousand gamers will pay full price for Cities: Skylines, while all the rest wait for a sale.

 

Most people don't wait for a sale. 

 

And currently CIties Skylines is the top seller on steam. I expect them to at least sell one million. That will give them a decent profit and name recognition. 

[Panther6308 14]

Xenoxity,

 

You said the right thing here. most GAMERS want sports, shooter and M rated games. These games cost more on licences (sports), graphics, devs and marketing. They have a lot of action, are fun to play and the gamers are willing to pay for DLC to improve their character. So you need to sell more games at a high price. SimCity was $60 and $80 (deluxe version) at launch, the same price as a big shooter game. They make a lot money but now people are angry at them.

 

But it is not the majority of people who like theses kind of games. That is why they don't make as much money as in 2004. In that time, we had a better variety of games for everybody. Now with just that kind of games, a huge number of people move away (I don't know how many, but it is a good mass).

 

This mass of "others " players want to play "littles" games that are now not supported by the big publisher/producer. These games are now available on tablets and phones and they make their money there (if you have the right model). This mass don't have much time to play. They want game they can play while traveling for work or back home (in metro or bus), during lunch time and at home when the kids are finally in bed. They want to play games for the mind not just killing someone every second.

 

That is the problem now with big companies. As I said earlier, Marketing and sales ARE running the show now in big companies. They do forecast for just one slice of the market, the 18-35 who want action games and sports. And they are trying to bring the same model to the casual game and it did not work. 

 

Now EA is trying to this with SimCity Buildit and they are not making the number they expected. Sure, people don't want to spend money to build a city. I have a colleague at the office who is playing the game, his city is huge and he didn't spend a dime and he don't expect to spend one cent. People have the choice to buy right now or wait to get what the want to continue to play the game. 

 

EA noticed that and now they are modifying the game by lowering the numbers to force people to spend. It will not work, people will be angry (they already are) and worst people will stop playing the game. And at the end they will not make more money or meet the "Numbers" Marketing and Sales project and they will closed another Maxis office (Heksinki).

 

Devs will lose their jobs but the Marketing and sales guys will always be there to continue to do the same mistakes.

 

Pinky!

[McMurray02 55]

The SimCity BuildIt just updated, so while Maxis (or part of it) is down, SimCity will likely be kept and probably brought back to the market in the near future. Cities:Skylines will carry the torch for now, at least for me. Hopefully it proves to be successful and drives the genre where it needs to go.

[Xenocity 343]

@Camlon

 

Actually Simcity 2013 didn't cost as much as other game to make.

EA reported they had already made profit at the 1M mark, the game is currently nearing 4M.

The game ended up making a sizable profit, but not enough to justify it's existence.

EA is a publicily traded company with shareholders and investors, these people are the ones who are now running EA.

By law EA must maximize profits for the shareholders or prepare for court.

This is why nearly all publicly traded gaming companies are dropping lower selling franchises and focusing the high selling franchises.

Paradox and Colossal Order on the other hand are privately held and can get away with selling a few hundred thousand copies.

 

 

PC gamers, much like their mobile counter parts rarely pay full price for anything anymore due to constant sales.

Valve regularly publishes numbers on this, the best selling games typically are the ones that go on extreme market down.

GTAIV and GTAV being the rare exception to Steam.

 

 

@Panther6308

Investors and shareholders are running the show and by law they have the power.

 

I hate it break it to you, the best selling game every year since 2006 has been Call of Duty.

The best selling games on PC, consoles, and handhelds are typically Call of Duty, EA sports, 2K sports, GTA (if it is released), Just Dance, Skylanders, some M rated games, Pokemon (if a new game launches) in the U.S., UK, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, etc...

 

2014 best selling list is quite depression for the most:

 

 

 

On the mobile it is currently Candy Crush and whatever new game King makes that isn't Candy Crush and the Kim Kardashian game.

 

The Call of Duty/EA Sports/GTA crowd or market research firm NPD calls them real gamers/hardcore gamers/core gamers are the biggest spending group in gaming and they spend the most money and by the most by far.

The other major group is the mobile group who went crazy for Angry Bird (now essentially dead), Candy Crush/King and Kim Kardashian games.

They are catching up to the hardcore gamers in spending on gaming.

They should match them by the end of 2015.

 

Sure there are a small group of people who will by indie titles, mid tier games, and niche games but they aren't the majority.

Neither of the two biggest groups want indies, mid tier and niche games because they don't consider them "real games" or they consider them not "worth the money".

 

Call of Duty Advanced Warfare is the lowest selling title in  Call of Duty title in a decade at ~18M (it may have passed 20M now).

Each Call of Duty game typically sells between 20-28M copies each year.

Each Assassins Creed typically sells 10 - 20M

Each EA sports game typically sells 10-20M

etc...

 

Most fair sized to large companies will target big markets and ignore the smaller and niche markets in order to bring in the biggest profits possible.

This is what EA, Activision, Microsoft, Sony, Sega, Square-Enix, Capcom, and most of the others are doing.

 

Nintendo's own investors have expressed their disapproval with Nintendo developing and lower selling titles such as Captain Toad (it is nearing 1M) dispite it being decently profitable.

They are also unhappy that Pokemon is only pulling 12M+ sales instead of Call of Duty's 20M+ and Candy Crush pulling equal as strong numbers.

That's why they are pressing Nintendo's management to go mobile only.

Thankfully the investors have very little pull at Nintendo.

 

Apple's investors are unhappy that Apple is not profitable enough, even though Apple is worlds most profitable company by far.

They are literally calling for Tim Cook's and management to resign and put people in who will maximize profits to the extent shareholders demand.

They also wanted Steve Jobs to resign in 2007, because he was "holding profits back".

 

EA's investors and shareholders will force management out if they go back to making niche games including Simcity.

They ousted the previous management because they were unhappy with sales and profits, wanting the company to follow the Activison model.

 

The point is publicly traded companies have to do what their shareholders want or face legal consquences.

[catty-cb 4,412]

They have just put out an official announcement over on the EA Forums

 

 

Maxis Emeryville
As you may have seen last week, EA chose to close the Maxis Emeryville studio which developed and ran SimCity, Spore and Darkspore.

The Live Ops team responsible for keeping the ongoing services of these three titles running have been relocated to EA Redwood Shores and the servers will continue to run and support the players that use them as well as maintaining all the Maxis Emeryville titles.

What does this mean for The Sims/SimCity BuildIt
Maxis itself remains in operation as part of EA in multiple locations around the world and they will continue to develop and maintain their games including The Sims and SimCity BuildIt.

[wozzar 154]

I don't think the SimCity IP is dead just yet.

 

I still believe we might get a new SimCity for PC, but not anytime soon. Some of Maxis employees might get transferred to those studios instead while others I guess decide to move on out of the Sims franchise. Or EA decides to get a new developer on board that can handle these types of simulations. I mean if a small team at Colossal Order can do it, I don't see why anyone else can't.

 

I cant see EA walking away from the Sim city franchise. I think Cities Skylines will be a big wake up call for EA. EA had no competition before apart from CXL which wasnt a threat. But now EA do have some serious competition from CO.

[Panther6308 14]

 

EA is a publicily traded company with shareholders and investors, these people are the ones who are now running EA.

By law EA must maximize profits for the shareholders or prepare for court.

This is why nearly all publicly traded gaming companies are dropping lower selling franchises and focusing the high selling franchises.

Paradox and Colossal Order on the other hand are privately held and can get away with selling a few hundred thousand copies.

 

I hate it break it to you, the best selling game every year since 2006 has been Call of Duty.

 

EA's investors and shareholders will force management out if they go back to making niche games including Simcity.

They ousted the previous management because they were unhappy with sales and profits, wanting the company to follow the Activison model.

 

Xenocity,

 

Yeah yeah!, you are really just only a fellow gamer and customer ;-) BTW, Thanks for the numbers.

 

You didn't break any news for me and you are right about the way market and public company work. I know that all the first shooters and sports games and some others like GTA are the most popular games right now. You said that Simcity reach the 4 millons mark but for the EA shareholders is was not enough. They cut the support staff 1 year ago on Simcity and decide last week to close the office.

 

For the shareholders, like you just said, niche games like simcity are now out of EA library. They will continue to use the game name but they will never make another Simcity as the PC player want it to be. It is up to company like Paradox/CO to take the torch in the city simulator niche. For them 4 millions copies will be huge. For EA, it is not enough to continue in this genre.

 

I know that when a company is public, the shareholders and investors are the ones running the show. They also most of time a burden to inovation and creativity. They are using the Marketing and sales dept to push everything. They will use the name of a game until sales go down. Even if it is the wrong thing to do as long as they are making money, they don't care about what the customers want in the game.

 

They could kill the chicken just because she put out 11 eggs instead of 12. And if it is the only chicken they have, well, it will be game over and they will go to another public company to make money.

 

That is sad but it is the truth.

 

Pinky!

[MagicChicken19 43]

 

They have just put out an official announcement over on the EA Forums

 

 

Maxis Emeryville

As you may have seen last week, EA chose to close the Maxis Emeryville studio which developed and ran SimCity, Spore and Darkspore.

The Live Ops team responsible for keeping the ongoing services of these three titles running have been relocated to EA Redwood Shores and the servers will continue to run and support the players that use them as well as maintaining all the Maxis Emeryville titles.

What does this mean for The Sims/SimCity BuildIt

Maxis itself remains in operation as part of EA in multiple locations around the world and they will continue to develop and maintain their games including The Sims and SimCity BuildIt.

 

They used that "develop and maintiain" line just last week about SimCity. Now they used it for Built-It and TheSims. This could mark the end of ALL Maxis titles guys.

[macscfan 117]

 

I don't think the SimCity IP is dead just yet.

 

I still believe we might get a new SimCity for PC, but not anytime soon. Some of Maxis employees might get transferred to those studios instead while others I guess decide to move on out of the Sims franchise. Or EA decides to get a new developer on board that can handle these types of simulations. I mean if a small team at Colossal Order can do it, I don't see why anyone else can't.

 

 

I cant see EA walking away from the Sim city franchise. I think Cities Skylines will be a big wake up call for EA. EA had no competition before apart from CXL which wasnt a threat. But now EA do have some serious competition from CO.

 

 

A new SimCity from EA on the desktop after Cities: Skylines and after the last SimCity fiasco is much tougher to pull off than a new SimCity in 2013 was.  Much, much tougher, because the media and players will be extremely demanding and it would have to correct all of the deficiencies of the last SimCity PLUS exceed the areas of Skylines that people really like, and would likely have to match what people loved about SC4.  

 

That would be an extremely expensive endeavor, and should the pre-launch hype fall flat, it's liable to lose EA money out of the gate.

 

Because of the media bloodbath over the last SimCity, and especially because of the serious competition, EA will shy away from SimCity on the desktop/laptop for years to come.  

 

It's in EA's nature - they controlled the MMORPG market at one point (Ultima Online), then let it languish, occasionally adding additional MMORPGs and then closing those down, with the result that in 2014 they turned Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot over to a third party.   They controlled the space-flight sim market, then let it languish.  I could go on, but the point is, they have a habit of acquiring studios/competitors, and then letting them languish and/or shutting them down (do we need to list all of the studios and games that EA buried?).

 

UO and DAOC do raise an interesting point - would EA allow a third party to come in and take over the SimCity IP?  In the case of UO/DAOC, Broadsword  took over those two games, and presumably is paying EA some kind of fee.  It allows EA to continue making money, kept those games going, and it also denied the creators of those games access to those games (similar to Wing Commander) forcing them to go in different directions (which they have).

 

So if EA licensed SC out to a third party, it will not be anybody associating with Wright.

[Xenocity 343]

 

 

So if EA licensed SC out to a third party, it will not be anybody associating with Wright.

 

I hate to break it to you, Simcity 4 was the last Simcity game Will Wright had any say in and it was much smaller than the previous titles.

3000 was the last Simcity game that Will Wright had a heavy hand in developing.

He stated he was done with Simcity due to all the issues he had developing Simcity 3000 and Simcity 4, including the all the fans who constantly decried what did to 3000 and 4.

 

His goal was to eventually produce a full online Simcity game that had gamers work together in an online region, that fully evolved the concept from Simcity 2000: Network Edition (yes it is the first online Simcity title).

He also stated in 2005, that Simcity 4 was too complicated for most people and the next mainline Simcity was going to go back to the basics.

He quit Maxis in 2009 after Spores tanked and hasn't developed a game since then (he burnt out).

 

He does run and joint owns Stupid Fun Club Camp, an entertainment thin tank.

He also teaches and lectures part time at the university level.

Oh he does produces TV shows now as well.

 

He claims he's much happier since he quit developing games.

[wozzar 154]

 

 

 

So if EA licensed SC out to a third party, it will not be anybody associating with Wright.

 

I hate to break it to you, Simcity 4 was the last Simcity game Will Wright had any say in and it was much smaller than the previous titles.

3000 was the last Simcity game that Will Wright had a heavy hand in developing.

He stated he was done with Simcity due to all the issues he had developing Simcity 3000 and Simcity 4, including the all the fans who constantly decried what did to 3000 and 4.

 

His goal was to eventually produce a full online Simcity game that had gamers work together in an online region, that fully evolved the concept from Simcity 2000: Network Edition (yes it is the first online Simcity title).

He also stated in 2005, that Simcity 4 was too complicated for most people and the next mainline Simcity was going to go back to the basics.

He quit Maxis in 2009 after Spores tanked and hasn't developed a game since then (he burnt out).

 

He does run and joint owns Stupid Fun Club Camp, an entertainment thin tank.

He also teaches and lectures part time at the university level.

Oh he does produces TV shows now as well.

 

He claims he's much happier since he quit developing games.

 

I think he is much happier that he left EA. EA do own half of the stupid fun club so he hasnt totaly distant himself from EA.

[wozzar 154]

 

 

I don't think the SimCity IP is dead just yet.

 

I still believe we might get a new SimCity for PC, but not anytime soon. Some of Maxis employees might get transferred to those studios instead while others I guess decide to move on out of the Sims franchise. Or EA decides to get a new developer on board that can handle these types of simulations. I mean if a small team at Colossal Order can do it, I don't see why anyone else can't.

 

 

I cant see EA walking away from the Sim city franchise. I think Cities Skylines will be a big wake up call for EA. EA had no competition before apart from CXL which wasnt a threat. But now EA do have some serious competition from CO.

 

 

A new SimCity from EA on the desktop after Cities: Skylines and after the last SimCity fiasco is much tougher to pull off than a new SimCity in 2013 was.  Much, much tougher, because the media and players will be extremely demanding and it would have to correct all of the deficiencies of the last SimCity PLUS exceed the areas of Skylines that people really like, and would likely have to match what people loved about SC4.  

 

That would be an extremely expensive endeavor, and should the pre-launch hype fall flat, it's liable to lose EA money out of the gate.

 

Because of the media bloodbath over the last SimCity, and especially because of the serious competition, EA will shy away from SimCity on the desktop/laptop for years to come.  

 

It's in EA's nature - they controlled the MMORPG market at one point (Ultima Online), then let it languish, occasionally adding additional MMORPGs and then closing those down, with the result that in 2014 they turned Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot over to a third party.   They controlled the space-flight sim market, then let it languish.  I could go on, but the point is, they have a habit of acquiring studios/competitors, and then letting them languish and/or shutting them down (do we need to list all of the studios and games that EA buried?).

 

UO and DAOC do raise an interesting point - would EA allow a third party to come in and take over the SimCity IP?  In the case of UO/DAOC, Broadsword  took over those two games, and presumably is paying EA some kind of fee.  It allows EA to continue making money, kept those games going, and it also denied the creators of those games access to those games (similar to Wing Commander) forcing them to go in different directions (which they have).

 

So if EA licensed SC out to a third party, it will not be anybody associating with Wright.

 

I agree it will be much tougher for EA. The damage for EA was done when they brought out SCS and SC13 which both failed. However i still cant see EA walking away from it and be out done by CO a much smaller company than EA. The alternatives for EA are to walk away from it or build a new sim city like SC4. If they were to bring out a new sim city it will be a tougher sell for them as they have lost a big chunk of the user base to CO. However the reaL loser out of this isnt EA it is Foucus interactive with Cities XXL.

[Xenocity 343]

 

 

 

 

So if EA licensed SC out to a third party, it will not be anybody associating with Wright.

 

I hate to break it to you, Simcity 4 was the last Simcity game Will Wright had any say in and it was much smaller than the previous titles.

3000 was the last Simcity game that Will Wright had a heavy hand in developing.

He stated he was done with Simcity due to all the issues he had developing Simcity 3000 and Simcity 4, including the all the fans who constantly decried what did to 3000 and 4.

 

His goal was to eventually produce a full online Simcity game that had gamers work together in an online region, that fully evolved the concept from Simcity 2000: Network Edition (yes it is the first online Simcity title).

He also stated in 2005, that Simcity 4 was too complicated for most people and the next mainline Simcity was going to go back to the basics.

He quit Maxis in 2009 after Spores tanked and hasn't developed a game since then (he burnt out).

 

He does run and joint owns Stupid Fun Club Camp, an entertainment thin tank.

He also teaches and lectures part time at the university level.

Oh he does produces TV shows now as well.

 

He claims he's much happier since he quit developing games.

 

I think he is much happier that he left EA. EA do own half of the stupid fun club so he hasnt totaly distant himself from EA.

 

He has done many interviews over the years, his only real complaints about EA was the strict nature of enforcing budgets and release dates.

He was used to running his own company, which allowed him to do as he pleased, which is the reason why Maxis went under.

 

EA isn't even close to being the worst developer and/or publisher in the world and in the West.

Factually they haven't done near the crap that Activison, WBi, Ubisoft, Microsoft and others have pulled.

[macscfan 117]

 

 

 

So if EA licensed SC out to a third party, it will not be anybody associating with Wright.

 

 

I hate to break it to you, Simcity 4 was the last Simcity game Will Wright had any say in and it was much smaller than the previous titles.

 

 

I was more referencing how EA has treated other iconic games and the personalities that were closely associated with those iconic games - in recent years, Richard Garriott, Mark Jacobs, and Chris Roberts all wanted to work with the titles that they were most closely associated with, that EA owned (Ultima, Dark Age of Camelot, Wing Commander).  

 

In every case, EA refused, and all three ultimately went on to do new games (Shroud of the Avatar, Camelot Unchained, Star Citizen) that fans of the original games are very much interested in (Star Citizen raised $75 million).  The same could be said of Peter Molyneux, as he ultimately had to make a spiritual successor to Populous without using the Populous IP.  These were all solid opportunities (and there were others) for EA to have engaged with the creators of their iconic games, and some of the bad feelings between those individuals and EA had lessened/evaporated as they were older and/or certain management types at EA were gone.

 

In the case of Ultima (and DungeonKeeper), rather than engage the creators, they went with somebody named Paul Barnett, who ruined both franchises with some crummy free-to-play games, and forced the closure of Mythic Studios.  Barnett, like a certain person associated with SC2013, was promoted and survived the closure of the studio he ran into the ground.

 

The interesting thing is that rather than let Garriott or Jacobs buy/license the Ultima Online or Dark Age of Camelot games, they instead licensed them to an unrelated third party.

 

Which is why, even if Wright showed an interest, or if Wright would like somebody else to personally take over, EA would most likely ignore him.

 

If we get a SimCity, it won't be out of Maxis, and would likely be farmed out to a third party.

[Xenocity 343]

 

 

 

 

So if EA licensed SC out to a third party, it will not be anybody associating with Wright.

 

 

I hate to break it to you, Simcity 4 was the last Simcity game Will Wright had any say in and it was much smaller than the previous titles.

 

 

I was more referencing how EA has treated other iconic games and the personalities that were closely associated with those iconic games - in recent years, Richard Garriott, Mark Jacobs, and Chris Roberts all wanted to work with the titles that they were most closely associated with, that EA owned (Ultima, Dark Age of Camelot, Wing Commander).  

 

In every case, EA refused, and all three ultimately went on to do new games (Shroud of the Avatar, Camelot Unchained, Star Citizen) that fans of the original games are very much interested in (Star Citizen raised $75 million).  The same could be said of Peter Molyneux, as he ultimately had to make a spiritual successor to Populous without using the Populous IP.  These were all solid opportunities (and there were others) for EA to have engaged with the creators of their iconic games, and some of the bad feelings between those individuals and EA had lessened/evaporated as they were older and/or certain management types at EA were gone.

 

In the case of Ultima (and DungeonKeeper), rather than engage the creators, they went with somebody named Paul Barnett, who ruined both franchises with some crummy free-to-play games, and forced the closure of Mythic Studios.  Barnett, like a certain person associated with SC2013, was promoted and survived the closure of the studio he ran into the ground.

 

The interesting thing is that rather than let Garriott or Jacobs buy/license the Ultima Online or Dark Age of Camelot games, they instead licensed them to an unrelated third party.

 

Which is why, even if Wright showed an interest, or if Wright would like somebody else to personally take over, EA would most likely ignore him.

 

If we get a SimCity, it won't be out of Maxis, and would likely be farmed out to a third party.

 

EA isn't spotless, but Will Wright is his own worse enemy.

 

Will Wright ran Maxis into the ground, forcing them to find a buyer and the only buyer was EA.

Him and management spent money faster than they made it on dream projects that never came to fruition. 

They borrowed the money to fund those projects as well. 

 

Maxis already licensed Simcity out to other companies before EA took them over.

 

We have currently:

• Simcity (SNES) co-developed and mainly ported by Nintendo
• Other ports were done by other companies
• Simcity 2000 (Saturn) was done with the help from Sega
• Simcity 2000 (PS) was done with Sony's help
• Simcity 64 developed by Nintendo and HAL
• Simcity DS developed/co-developed by EA Partners and AKI co.
• Simcity 2 DS 2 (Creators in the West) developed/co-developed by EA Partners and AKI co. (never played this game)
• Simcity Creators (Wii) was made by Hudson (the original Mario Party studio)
• Simcity Societies was done by Tilted Mills (never played it)
• Simcity Social was done by Playfish (never played it)
• Simcity iOS was handheld by another studio
• Simcity HD iOS wasn't done by Maxis either

The bold ones are really Simcitys not developed by Maxis alone. 

 

The iOSs (might be on Android) are good ones, but are pain to play due to touch interface and big thumbs.

 

Maxis hasn't always produced good games either.

[macscfan 117]

 

 

I agree it will be much tougher for EA. The damage for EA was done when they brought out SCS and SC13 which both failed. However i still cant see EA walking away from it and be out done by CO a much smaller company than EA. The alternatives for EA are to walk away from it or build a new sim city like SC4. If they were to bring out a new sim city it will be a tougher sell for them as they have lost a big chunk of the user base to CO. However the reaL loser out of this isnt EA it is Foucus interactive with Cities XXL.

 

 

 

Agreed that Focus Interactive will be the real loser, but I can't feel sorry for them - they've known for years exactly what they needed to do in order to take over the city builder genre.  They had the assets and the community.  They had the time.  They had the feedback needed to take Cities XL to the next level and win over a lot of long-term SC fans.  All they needed to do was fix the memory and multi-core (or lack thereof) issues in Cities XL, improve the tools, and just fix a lot of the bugs that have been hanging around.  They didn't even need much in the way of new features, as long as they fixed the existing issues and polished up certain areas of the XL.

 

Their business model, in some ways similar, in some ways worse than EA, along with the history of the Cities franchise, prevents them from ever obtaining the success that was within their reach.  Their view of slapping on some multi-core support and Steam Workshop was simply not enough - Cities needed to be completely rewritten with modern computers (and modding) in mind.  If you told me it had 10-year old code from City Life, I would totally believe it.

 

I can see EA walking away from SimCity though.  In recent years, they are focusing more and more on either the mega-franchises (think sports, and FPS) that generate sequel after sequel on a yearly or near-yearly basis, or on small/mobile games that generate a lot of revenue for little cost, with licensed games (outside of sports) thrown in (Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG) or certain genres that are meant to compete with the other large game companies (EA wants a piece of the World of Warcraft pie, etc.).  

 

SimCity - you can't crank out a yearly sequel to it and it's not tied to a movie or sports franchise, but if you did it right, and took a very long-term approach to it, it should make a lot of money.  Release a very solid game with good modding tools, and then keep a small team around to keep cranking out DLC.  Given how much they are in love with so-called "Free to Play", it's a wonder they didn't release a free version of SimCity and then sold you DLC.

 

If they were to start on one now, they would be facing a tremendous uphill battle, going against their past reputation and C:S.

 

I think them basically retiring the Maxis name shows where things are headed.  I saw this with Mythic and a few other studios.  It will be years before they seriously reconsider, if they do at all.  SC just doesn't fit their current model.  They want safe profits.

[macscfan 117]

 

EA isn't spotless, but Will Wright is his own worse enemy.

 

 

Will Wright ran Maxis into the ground, forcing them to find a buyer and the only buyer was EA.

Him and management spent money faster than they made it on dream projects that never came to fruition. 

They borrowed the money to fund those projects as well. 

 

Maxis already licensed Simcity out to other companies before EA took them over.

 

 

In regards to the licensing, what I meant is that a third party completely takes over ongoing maintenance/management/development of the main franchise, and not simply being contracted out by EA or partnered up with EA to do spinoffs or other platforms - it was very unique that EA allowed Broadsword to completely take over Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot.  That's been extremely rare throughout EA's history - normally they will farm out a lot of things to third parties that we never hear about (especially in terms of artwork).  Those are unique games though, in that they are MMORPGs bringing in monthly fees.  I expected EA to shutter them since they were/are making so little, but there were some other things going on with them.

 

I'm totally in agreement with you that Wright is his own worst enemy, as is the examples I gave earlier.  The very things that made them all creative and innovative in their respective genres, also worked against them when it came time to make a budget - not thinking about distribution costs because you pushed the limits of technology (in the case of Ultima VII and its many floppies) or something else that they couldn't handle financially and that required them selling out.  A few little decisions made differently here and there could have kept them all in possession of their franchises.

 

On the other hand, when you start to distance yourself from those creative/innovative types, and you put people in charge who are in charge because they knew how to play the system, you get SimCity 2013, or you get Ultima Forever or the mobile Dungeon Keeper - projects that are lacking a certain "something" that earlier games had.  In a normal business, the people in charge of these projects would have went down with the ship - instead they were promoted and given other projects, because they know how to play the system.

 

With that said, in the case of Broadsword, the guy behind it was very much devoted to Dark Age of Camelot (and UO by proxy), and they are doing things that fans want with those franchises.  I would like to see a responsible third party, with a passion for SC, take over the SC franchise and see what they can do with it.

[Xenocity 343]

Simcity 2013 was hamstrung due to a rushed development and late downgrade of the engine to work on more PCs to maximize sales.

[wozzar 154]

 

 

 

 

So if EA licensed SC out to a third party, it will not be anybody associating with Wright.

 

 

I hate to break it to you, Simcity 4 was the last Simcity game Will Wright had any say in and it was much smaller than the previous titles.

 

 

I was more referencing how EA has treated other iconic games and the personalities that were closely associated with those iconic games - in recent years, Richard Garriott, Mark Jacobs, and Chris Roberts all wanted to work with the titles that they were most closely associated with, that EA owned (Ultima, Dark Age of Camelot, Wing Commander).  

 

In every case, EA refused, and all three ultimately went on to do new games (Shroud of the Avatar, Camelot Unchained, Star Citizen) that fans of the original games are very much interested in (Star Citizen raised $75 million).  The same could be said of Peter Molyneux, as he ultimately had to make a spiritual successor to Populous without using the Populous IP.  These were all solid opportunities (and there were others) for EA to have engaged with the creators of their iconic games, and some of the bad feelings between those individuals and EA had lessened/evaporated as they were older and/or certain management types at EA were gone.

 

In the case of Ultima (and DungeonKeeper), rather than engage the creators, they went with somebody named Paul Barnett, who ruined both franchises with some crummy free-to-play games, and forced the closure of Mythic Studios.  Barnett, like a certain person associated with SC2013, was promoted and survived the closure of the studio he ran into the ground.

 

The interesting thing is that rather than let Garriott or Jacobs buy/license the Ultima Online or Dark Age of Camelot games, they instead licensed them to an unrelated third party.

 

Which is why, even if Wright showed an interest, or if Wright would like somebody else to personally take over, EA would most likely ignore him.

 

If we get a SimCity, it won't be out of Maxis, and would likely be farmed out to a third party.

 

EA would be better off out sourcing Sim City to Crytek. If anyone has seen a city simulation using the Crytek engine it is awsome.