Maxis is history :(

[lowietje123 0]

http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/04/ea-shuts-down-maxis-studio-sims/

[Abrams 1,744]

That's it Im done with you EA you are the worst company on the world

[dabadon5 295]

NOOooooooo 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

This is on the home page.  Don't get carried away with EA.  Maxis died when the original crew left some time ago.  EA simply conducted the funeral after the most recent set of zombies produced that failure to reboot the SimCity franchise.

 

That's it Im done with you EA you are the worst company on the world

Ah, ah!  Never say things like that on a public network.  You might want a job from them someday.

[Abrams 1,744]

Meh im'not good at programming.

[.anonyman 28]

How about marketing? That seems to be their core business.

[gviper 922]

This is on the home page.  Don't get carried away with EA.  Maxis died when the original crew left some time ago.  EA simply conducted the funeral after the most recent set of zombies produced that failure to reboot the SimCity franchise.

 

That's it Im done with you EA you are the worst company on the world

Ah, ah!  Never say things like that on a public network.  You might want a job from them someday.

LOL!

[Turjan 1,048]

It was an odd coincidence that this news came out just when the internet got swamped with Let's Plays of Cities: Skylines. I was literally just watching one of those videos, closed that browser tab and found those news about Maxis.

 

I know it must have been posted while I was watching the video, because I had been searching the net whether there was some possibility of importing buildings from one game to the other before I watched the video, and there wasn't anything there yet.

[Pepe The Great 227]

One more reason why I should pump more money into this forum! I just purchased the dream city collection DVD from this site. Still waiting for its arrival, I'm so excited!!

[Jasoncw 11,840]

It was going to happen sooner or later. It seems like Maxis kind of ran it's course. 

 

When it started it was very fresh and exciting and they did a lot of cool things, and they still did do cool things while being owned by EA.

 

But at this point who is still around at Maxis? I'm guessing everyone from the 90s is gone by now. And a few of the key people from the last 15 years (SC3K, SC4, Spore, etc.) quit after finishing the new SimCity.

 

There's also the issue that most of the innovation today is coming from simple dynamic games, and what types of studios are the best suited for being creative. In the past for a game like Mega Man you'd need a huge budget and a lot of technical expertise, but today a few teenagers are capable of making a Mega Man clone. It used to be that city simulator games were really expensive to make, but now we've seen a bunch of midsized studios making them too. Unless they want to do something like Spore again, I don't think the arrangement made sense.

 

Maxis will always have a special place in the history of games, but I think it's ok for it to end at this time. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Getting back to our overexcited friend, EA is a big outfit with lots of jobs in sundry fields.  What they need mostly is some good technical people in their marketing department that understand the principles of Quality Assurance and will steer the company into use of the ISO 9000 series of standards.  It is a lot of work to put this in, but the upshot of the whole thing is that "Quality is conformance to specifications".  This means that no matter what some jerk in marketing promised, if the Q.A. people don't agree, nothing gets on the market. 

 

Specifications for programming don't include a specification for bugs in the program.  I, personally, don't believe any program that is in release and not a release candidate should ever have a bug in it.  The quality goes in before the company logo goes on the box.

 

This kind of Q.A. was invented at NASA by Phillip C. Crosby and published.  The Japanese read the book, and started following it verbatim.  Most American companies ignore it and Q.A. principles in general then wonder why they lose business to their competitors.  There is a story that is told in Quality College sessions, one that I attended by the way:

 

Once upon a time an American firm placed an order for a large supply of microchips on a Japanese firm.  The contract specified that no more than 10% of the chips delivered could be defective.  The shipment arrived at the warehouse in two cases, a big one and a small one.  The receiver called the sales agent for the Japanese company and asked why they had shipped the order in two boxes when one would have done.  "Oh", replied the agent, "The small box contains your 10% defective.  The plant has asked me why you want them."

[Hellken 1,658]

[X] Poorly received products

[X] Employees being laid off

[X] Another company division being shut down

[X] No modicum of business sense

 

 

 

... just another day at the office at EA Headquarters. *sip*

[jmsepe 2,038]

Maxis died a long time ago when Will Wright left. Nothing to be shocked.

[Larks2242 251]

That's it Im done with you EA you are the worst company on the world

 

I can think of a few companies off the top of my head that are worse, On the bright side, they never killed anyone.

[Mr Saturn64 742]

[BlakeMW 84]

What they need mostly is some good technical people in their marketing department that understand the principles of Quality Assurance and will steer the company into use of the ISO 9000 series of standards.  It is a lot of work to put this in, but the upshot of the whole thing is that "Quality is conformance to specifications".  This means that no matter what some jerk in marketing promised, if the Q.A. people don't agree, nothing gets on the market. 

But that would be completely incompatible with EA's “Pillage and burn” strategy they use on game titles.

[Nevermore2797 112]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inlePGiKk9E

 

This music (even if it is in Japanese) will remember every great works.

 

P.S. **** YOU EA!! You've cancelled C&C: Generals 2, and now "disbanded" Maxis (same with Westwood (I think?))!

 

AND!!! WHEN IS THE TIME TO HAVE PHILIPPINE BAT INSTEAD OF MAPS? :| Just curious though.....

[mrsmartman 200]

Jack Welch is the king of corporate management.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

 

That's it Im done with you EA you are the worst company on the world

 

I can think of a few companies off the top of my head that are worse, On the bright side, they never killed anyone.

 

Unless you are a shareholder of long standing, what causes you to say that?  Never judge a company by its actions in one market sector, but only by the net worth of its shares.  The market opinion of a company is more important that any individual opinion in the consumer market.  Here is one of the records.

[Abrams 1,744]

 

 

That's it Im done with you EA you are the worst company on the world

 

I can think of a few companies off the top of my head that are worse, On the bright side, they never killed anyone.

 

Unless you are a shareholder of long standing, what causes you to say that?  Never judge a company by its actions in one market sector, but only by the net worth of its shares.  The market opinion of a company is more important that any individual opinion in the consumer market.  Here is one of the records.

 

Yeah but EA done lots of bad decisions

[Sabretooth78 808]

I don't think I've bought an EA title since NHL 06.  Needless to say I expect that trend to continue.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

 

 

 

That's it Im done with you EA you are the worst company on the world

 

I can think of a few companies off the top of my head that are worse, On the bright side, they never killed anyone.

 

Unless you are a shareholder of long standing, what causes you to say that?  Never judge a company by its actions in one market sector, but only by the net worth of its shares.  The market opinion of a company is more important that any individual opinion in the consumer market.  Here is one of the records.

 

Yeah but EA done lots of bad decisions

 

You have no way of knowing how many decisions they make, nor how many cause harm to the company.

[Major from Bajor 24]

As you may know it, we from Bajor excell at piloting, amongst other things.

So, as a major that's piloting in the free time to relieve stress of city management, I must say that this whole story with failure of last incarnation of Sim City is very similar to what Microsoft did with their Flight.

 

To those uninitiated, Flight Simulator is great out of the box, but fantastic with all the addons community produced. It's the whole friking world available to explore to those who care. Similar to SC and its community, but even far more huge, with absolute $%&^! tons of commercial and free add-ons.

 

But, one sunny day, after a night of especially good, or unbelievably bad sex, some genius decided they don't need the team of demigods who worked on this incredible achievement for decades. They decided they will produce...Flight. So after a world in a box with tens of planes included and hundreds of thousands available free addons, fans got this: one island - Hawai, and one plane (I think). All other content available for purches at competitive prices. 

 

Kind of like... small sandbox in latest sim city, but even worse, compared to what was before. And it's a trend with whole economy. Shite, if we produce a game that is too good, or to big, or too satisfying, or has too sexy ass... nobody will buy anything else for years. Me myself, dear audience, I'm stil on FS2004. The number is year. 2004. Yup. It's that good.

 

Needles to say, nobody plays Flight, similar to this situation with SC, where most real builders and enthusiasts still prefer to stay with ancient version 4. I guess you can fool some people, but only sometimes and only for a while. This kind of economic reasoning has its way to come from behind and bite its protagonists in the butt.

 

I could extend this to car industry, that produceas absolute crap ever since 2000, regardless of shitload of electronics that's only really good at emulating gremlins under the hood. The car that doesn't break down? It doesn't pay out.

 

The point being, I believe its temporary trend. They have to try to milk us dry for nothing. When the fail, they'll return to producing quality.

[SimEMS38 246]

As you may know it, we from Bajor excell at piloting, amongst other things.

So, as a major that's piloting in the free time to relieve stress of city management, I must say that this whole story with failure of last incarnation of Sim City is very similar to what Microsoft did with their Flight.

 

To those uninitiated, Flight Simulator is great out of the box, but fantastic with all the addons community produced. It's the whole friking world available to explore to those who care. Similar to SC and its community, but even far more huge, with absolute $%&^! tons of commercial and free add-ons.

 

But, one sunny day, after a night of especially good, or unbelievably bad sex, some genius decided they don't need the team of demigods who worked on this incredible achievement for decades. They decided they will produce...Flight. So after a world in a box with tens of planes included and hundreds of thousands available free addons, fans got this: one island - Hawai, and one plane (I think). All other content available for purches at competitive prices. 

 

Kind of like... small sandbox in latest sim city, but even worse, compared to what was before. And it's a trend with whole economy. Shite, if we produce a game that is too good, or to big, or too satisfying, or has too sexy ass... nobody will buy anything else for years. Me myself, dear audience, I'm stil on FS2004. The number is year. 2004. Yup. It's that good.

 

Needles to say, nobody plays Flight, similar to this situation with SC, where most real builders and enthusiasts still prefer to stay with ancient version 4. I guess you can fool some people, but only sometimes and only for a while. This kind of economic reasoning has its way to come from behind and bite its protagonists in the butt.

 

I could extend this to car industry, that produceas absolute crap ever since 2000, regardless of shitload of electronics that's only really good at emulating gremlins under the hood. The car that doesn't break down? It doesn't pay out.

 

The point being, I believe its temporary trend. They have to try to milk us dry for nothing. When the fail, they'll return to producing quality.

 

Ahhh yes the MSFS series! I'm very fond of FS2004 and FSX and even though I haven't played either or in a boatload of years, I still miss them badly! When I'm able to cough of some fluff for a new rig those two as well as SC4 and this new C:SL are gonna be the first and probably only games privlidged enough to be on my hard drive!

[Lost Realist 762]

[X] No modicum of business sense

 

 

 

 

... just another day at the office at EA Headquarters. *sip*

 

Not to be rude or anything and I understand your feelings about this whole maxis thing, but I highly doubt that you're in a position to judge the amount of business sense that these people possess, some of whom, it should be added, have become filthy rich off of their involvement in the company.

[mrsmartman 200]

Flight Sim is partly replaced by X-Plane developed by an independent studio. It is the outcome of the market competiton.

It is a big loss to Flight Sim fans and the for-profit custom content providers considering the compatibility across the series. You can fly an FS 2000 plane downloaded from the Internet in FS 2004. But the series suddenly stopped. And the development of Microsoft Flight also stopped a few years later.

 

In this sense, less damage is made by the closure of Maxis studio as there is no continuity for the latest SimCity series and we already have other viable replacement in the marketplace.

[JP Schriefer 5,590]

 

 

This guy was Maxis spirit. He left and Maxis deteriorated. 

EA said they can continue the games, but....c'mon, everyone knew that SimCity series was dead a long ago, and now with Maxis ending, I'm sure, SimCity ended in SC4, we will never have something better from EA, this awful company 

[Hellken 1,658]

Not to be rude or anything and I understand your feelings about this whole maxis thing, but I highly doubt that you're in a position to judge the amount of business sense that these people possess, some of whom, it should be added, have become filthy rich off of their involvement in the company.

I hardly have any feelings about this at all nor do I feel emotionally invested in this in anyway. (Then again, I am not a regular player by any measure these days. I come here mostly to observe people's works). To be honest, I am "glad" that this is just a video game company - something that has nothing to do with the overall welfare of human society.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

In one of Will Wright's interviews he said they had "programmed themselves into a corner" with SimCity 4 Deluxe and that further expansion of that game would be difficult if not impossible.  I do not remember if he gave any specific detail on this, but it is possible that this assertion has been overtaken by Moore's law.

 

You'd need a Tardis, but it would be interesting to bring the original Maxis crew into this decade to see if Will was still right.  Remember that at the time they were working with Pentium boxes and Windows 95.  It would be interesting to see how they would react to the open software environments available on most platforms now.

[Terring 6,473]

Cities: Skylines is the living proof that Maxis' legacy will always be with us! Thank you, Maxis, for the memories and the moments.