What kind of fanbase does SimCity 4 have today?

[ReshiramLover 49]

SimCity 4 was made more than 10 years ago, And now there are a lot more newer SimCity games out there. SimCity 2013, SimCity U build it, just to name two.

Today, what kind of fan base does SimCity 4 have after all the advances in technology, and newer games. How many people still play SimCity 4?

I got back into it when I got back into 3d models. With my Pokémon models and such.

Of the people who still play SimCity 4, why do you still play such an old game? Is there something SimCity 4 offers that newer games do not?

[AlphaCPS 18]

Even though I'm a new player myself, I find SimCity 4 very fun. Many people have considered it as the best city-builder. Yes, it is a very old game, but communities still support and make plugins for the game. SimCity 4 is also easier to run for people who want to play a city-builder with a low-spec computer. The fanbase isn't as large as it was years ago, but it's still enjoyable as it was in the past.

[CorinaMarie 29,856]

To me it matters not how old the game is. I start playing games when I'm ready for them. When I bought SC4 originally my comp just met the minimum requirements and that turned out to be woefully inadequate. I put it on a shelf for some day later. I picked up the Rush Hour patch when it was released and didn't even open it. My same comp couldn't handle the game, but I knew games tended to have a shelf life of about six months and so I wanted to have it on hand for later.

Later turned out to be many, many years afterward as I just started playing SC4 about a year and a half ago. I love it since there are many ways to play and be creative. There's so much to learn and it's so moddable which presents even more opportunities. During my first six months of play I had to ask Google some questions and most times I found the answer I needed here on Simtropolis. I started browsing here as a guest picking up more tips and tricks and finally decided to become a member.

Finding a large fan base right here in my computer room (well, on the screen here) adds so much more to playing the game cause we can share our stories and pictures and help each other.  SC4 is a niche game and if I would guess I'd say less than 1% of all game players play it.  Still that's enough to keep this community going. Peeps who play city-builders tend to be friendly and technically oriented. That's a group I enjoy being a part of.

So not only is SC4 fun in and of itself, the camaraderie enhances my experience.

[Fantozzi 4,068]

8 hours ago, ReshiramLover said:

Of the people who still play SimCity 4, why do you still play such an old game?

All entertainment does storytelling. Even if the forms of storytelling can be very different or rudimentary. But even the screen in the wheater forecast in TV does storytelling. A commercial does storytelling.

On storytelling age doesn't matter. 98% of the movies about love and crime in cinema are stories told tousands of years before an what changes are the elements. Once it was King Arthur and the Holy Grail, now it's indiana jones and the holy grail. Once it was Dante traveling through Hell, now it's Keanu Reeves entering the Matrix. What changes are the elements while the subjects stay the same.

So the questions is a bit similar to: why reading old books if there are newer ones? The question: are the newer better than the older can't be resolved for real. The main problem is: the oldest stories use langugages (techniques of storytelling) getting 'alien' through the times. We don't understand the original writings anymore we need a translation into 'modern' langugages, into modern techinques.

Basically that's what happens on games too. And mostly citybuilders failed if they didn't pick up the storytelling again of SC4. Regarding 'storytelling' of citybuilders Sc4 is the model for the genre. 

I think the lovers of SC4 are like the lovers of classic books, classic movies, classic cars etc. It's pleasant if you find someone who shares the same interest on this and has some knowledge and to talk shop if connaiseurs meet each other. Did you ever been on a classic car show? How they stick together and can talk about hours about how the old engines once were done and how they agree: engines like this aren't build anymore today?

It's something similar.

Around 2005 there were guys modding SC4 (before me) - doing Lua scripts, writing external applications for rendering. Sc4 modding has a quite intense history.

I think it's the way how you can fiddle things out - for the core of the fan base modding and playing has melted into one - they aren't SC4 players but SC4 hobbyists.

And you don't drop a hobby like you drop a game. It's not like with a book you read and then you put it away and read the next one. It's more like studing a book, writing essays about it. Again - like those guys on the classic motorshows. You know you don't have this cars to drive to the supermarket with them. You have them to spent most of the time laying beneath them on saturday and fixing the suspension. 

Playing is only a part - like driving is only a part of the fun for a classic cars enthusiast.

That's a metamorphosis only to few games happens. They become vertu.

That's what I think, happened to SC4. And the same with the community. They are ethusiasts and if you are new in the community they may sound like antiquaries and you may feel you got into a technology museum.

But well -if you turn on a 100 years old diesel engine and it makes this unique sound - if you don't feel excitement on your skin that it runs like nothing else does run - if you aren't amazed by the inventiveness of the long ago times - well than it doesn't matter much what you drive. You can drive an electric car the same as you drive a WWII Bugatti. Then it is hard to understand what SC4 is apart from being a game. 

 

 

[huzman 445]

@Fantozzi: You are either a philosopher or a romantic and I say, both. But I loved your last post.

[Terring 6,476]

There are many old games (like Civilization 4, Red Alert 2, and even the original Doom which released in 1993) which still have a fan base and modding support as strong as Simcity 4 has. If a game is that old and it still have a lot of fans and new mods that often, it means it was so good that passed the test of time. Also, the nostalgia factor is much stronger in older games than in newer ones. Don't get me wrong, I refuse to jump into the "all new games are bad and all old games are good" wagon. It's just more possible and much easier to have memories with older games. Memories, that will last forever.

[markussaage 762]

With this community at hand and all the custom content, that is available, SimCity 4 is not a game, it's a hobby! It gives us players creativity, satisfaction and joy... Just because you can do, whatever you want. And because there is no goal to reach, no end of the game, that's why it still has a huge community. Endless fun... And after all this years there is a solution to almost every problem, this game has. That's one big advantage of playing an old game. Experience...

Besides the fact, that do don't need to be online to play it! And it's violent free... No blood, no war...It's simply a nice hobby!

Kind regards!

[Socold 120]

1 hour ago, markussaage said:

And it's violent free... No blood, no war...It's simply a nice hobby

If the game crashes at the wrong time things can get violet and bloody.  

[Simoleman 34]

I still play it because I found SimCity 2013 to be awful, for the same reasons others found it so: having to be online to play, city areas being way to small, cartoonish graphics, and the game kept crashing. There's a realism about the look of 4 that's addictive.  I agree absolutely with an earlier post -- old or new matters not.  Quality is quality. 

I have downloaded NAM and some custom content, but I would dearly love to find someone else local (Washington DC/Northern Virginia area) who could sit down with me (Starbucks or some similar venue, the coffee and snacks are on me) and do some teaching about how to download and use more.  Anyone out there???  I'd also like someone to teach me how to make a city map similar to the one PaleTexan made of his city Civitas years ago.  (You can still find his old city journal online.)  I know there are instructions for various mapping methods online, but I'd learn much faster from an actual human being. 

Thanks!

Simoleman

 

 

[Propfam 2,295]

I'm played SimCity 2013 long time ago. But, the graphics isn't too realistic compared to SimCity 4. The critical features like terraforming couldn't be found on SimCity 2013. The gameplay is changing drastically. And, there is no NAM-equivalent mod (both in function and size) in the SC2013 community. UDoN isn't big like NAM. So, I think SimCity 4 is more better than the 2013 version. Old is gold, though. 

[HayleyRenaNemeth 465]

I think due to the endless region play , no other city builder game will surpass SimCity 4. Although, my dream is that the community here creates their own game and they call it SimTropolis. 

[Patricius Maximus 236]

Judging by how active this website along with SC4Devotion is I'd say the fanbase is quite large and is certainly far from moribund. As for myself the main reason I play it is that I adore city building games and no city-building game of more recent vintage has struck me as being better or more satisfactory than SC4 plus the mods I have; I wish there was such a game but alas the crown of the true heir to SC4 remains unclaimed. For me personally SC4 is still the high water mark of the genre, though it appears likely that at some point in the future that will no longer be the case (there have been some brave attempts in recent years). In that event I'll mainly be playing the newer better game, but even then I'd still play SC4 from time to time; there are simply too many memories for me to tinker with and try to improve upon for me to ever choose to stop playing it completely.

On 5/7/2017 at 4:14 AM, markussaage said:

With this community at hand and all the custom content, that is available, SimCity 4 is not a game, it's a hobby! It gives us players creativity, satisfaction and joy... Just because you can do, whatever you want. And because there is no goal to reach, no end of the game, that's why it still has a huge community. Endless fun... And after all this years there is a solution to almost every problem, this game has. That's one big advantage of playing an old game. Experience...

Besides the fact, that do don't need to be online to play it! And it's violent free... No blood, no war...It's simply a nice hobby!

Kind regards!

"Hobby more than game" is spot on.