Does SimCity have a future if EA is acquired?

[Turnstyled 539]

I just posted this in a status and it didn't get any attention because it was a status. Microsoft just purchased Activision Blizzard. This has gotten many thinking "What if EA and Ubisoft were to be purchased as well?" In this thread, I'm going to be focusing on EA.

SimCity doesn't have a future that makes sense. Could that be changed if EA were to be purchased?

Gaming studios are made up of people. All the talented individuals who worked on previous SimCity installments no longer work at EA.

What if EA were to be purchased by Microsoft? At what point do regulatory bodies declare such affairs monopolies?

What if EA were to be purchased by Amazon? Apple? Sony? Disney? Google? Facebook? Those last two have different names now, but who uses them?

Here's my armchair speculation. Topics such as monopolies aren't a concern to me. (I'm starting to reword myself because when I say, "I don't care.", people take it the wrong way and it sounds off-putting. I don't care about most things, or rather, most things aren't a concern to me.)

Many here know "Embrace, extend, extinguish." Microsoft has shut down plenty of companies that it has acquired. As far as gaming goes, Microsoft has been no EA. I can't just blindly say that if Microsoft were to purchase EA, then SimCity could see a revival. These franchises don't interest me (It's not that "I don't care" about them! ); however, Banjo-Kazooie and Conker have barely seen anything since Rare's acquisition in 2002 and after many years of teasing, the new Battletoads game didn't make sense.

Would Microsoft's cloud-based solution for Microsoft Flight Simulator make sense for SimCity? I had followed flight sim games up until a few months ago. Someone had gotten Google Maps working in Microsoft Flight Simulator. I don't know whether Google has shut that down. You may wish to say that a cloud-based solution is temporary. Microsoft has been putting its games on Steam; however, Microsoft Flight Simulator has its own marketplace for custom content. All the content on it save for a few items is paid. I have seen many say that the flight sim community pays for much of its custom content. An in-game marketplace makes sense instead of Steam Workshop because the game is available for Xbox as well.

What are your thoughts? Do you have anything to say about what could happen regarding SimCity if EA were purchased? It doesn't have to be about SimCity. This is the Gaming Talk sub-forum! It also doesn't have to be about Microsoft.

[anonymous1234 216]

Sadly I don't think so. I would love to have a new SimCity but I think it became part of the past like many other good games. They messed up a lot with SimCity 2013. A lot. 

I know people younger than me that they had never heard of SimCity. But they know Cities Skylines, so I guess that's the future. Or atleast, the present. SC is the past. It has lost it's relevance. A lot of young people know about GTA Vice City for example. They weren't even born when it first released but they somehow manage to play it, even if they have to pirate it, or pay 60$ for the Definitive Edition. I don't see a lot of people trying to find ways to play the older versions of SimCity or even purchasing SC2013.

And it's sad because it's a pioneer, not only of the city games but all of the so-called "sandbox games". And also it's good, it's truly a fun and good quality game that's also educative because it provides a basic insight on how your local government works. A good game for both kids and adults. I plan to keep playing SC4 for a long time, but I think that SimCity as an active franchise is gone and it will never come back. Hope I'm wrong.

And also I don't think the FTC would be okay with Microsoft buying EA.

[Turnstyled 539]

Absolutely correct, @Cortana. I'm popping in here after a little bit of a break. I feel a little embarrassed to explain that I was feeling very overwhelmed when I typed all that up.

Just today, I haven't liked the news that my HP Reverb G2 VR headset is going to become a paperweight unless an open source solution becomes available by 2026. This is because Windows Mixed Reality has been deprecated.

[SRS 9]

Considering that Cities Skylines I wasn't a simulator and Cities Skylines II was released in terrible condition (poor QC) — and is still shallow on the simulation, there is clearly an opening for another SimCity.

The only thing that is required is a simple vision: Start with SimCity 4 and extend. This means simulation over graphics and depth/breadth over graphics. The high core count CPUs, cheap SSD storage, and cheap RAM of today all combine to make it possible to have a vastly improved game over SimCity 4, while having it be able to be run on systems that don't cost a ton.

For people who want a shallow "city painter," they can have Cities Skylines. I have not played it but even the kinder reviews I have read say much the same thing.

If EA is reading this, I am happy to work as a producer for a SimCity sequel. What we don't need is a "city simulator" that renders all of the teeth in a person's head in 3D.

The other thing that should be #1 in the direction department is to not view the base game as a hollow shell to fill with expensive DLCs. This has worked for The Sims but it failed with SimCity 2013. It was taken too far. The base game should be extremely good on its own. It's time to go back to the era when base games were full games, not shell games. Not everyone is going to fall for the tricks, as was demonstrated by SimCity 2013's failure. The Sims players seem much more tolerant of that strategy but some of us stopped playing after The Sims 2 because paying for the same content four times (plus the inferior quality of The Sims 4) wasn't going to fly.

[anonymous1234 216]

On 22/12/2023 at 9:49 PM, Turnstyled said:

Just today, I haven't liked the news that my HP Reverb G2 VR headset is going to become a paperweight unless an open source solution becomes available by 2026. This is because Windows Mixed Reality has been deprecated.

Hi! I read it recently. Luckily for me, I have such a hard time with those glasses that I've never thought about buying them. But like you, it bothers me a lot when you have something at home that cost you a lot of money and from one day to the next it only serves to gather dust on a shelf. I also have a lot of useless things in my house that are no longer useful for anything, and the worst thing is that you can't sell them, because if they are not useful for you, they are not useful for your neighbor either. 

 

On 23/12/2023 at 3:06 AM, SRS said:

Considering that Cities Skylines I wasn't a simulator and Cities Skylines II was released in terrible condition (poor QC) — and is still shallow on the simulation, there is clearly an opening for another SimCity.

The only thing that is required is a simple vision: Start with SimCity 4 and extend. This means simulation over graphics and depth/breadth over graphics. The high core count CPUs, cheap SSD storage, and cheap RAM of today all combine to make it possible to have a vastly improved game over SimCity 4, while having it be able to be run on systems that don't cost a ton.

It's also another way of looking at it. I like your way of thinking. What I do see very difficult (not to say impossible) is that EA (and their investors) think like that. In recent years they only think about money. To guarantee that money they need a safe bet. And reviving a game that has been dead for years because of their own fault is not part of that safe bet, it could go very well, it could go very badly.

 

On 23/12/2023 at 3:06 AM, SRS said:

The other thing that should be #1 in the direction department is to not view the base game as a hollow shell to fill with expensive DLCs. This has worked for The Sims but it failed with SimCity 2013. It was taken too far. The base game should be extremely good on its own. It's time to go back to the era when base games were full games, not shell games. Not everyone is going to fall for the tricks, as was demonstrated by SimCity 2013's failure. The Sims players seem much more tolerant of that strategy but some of us stopped playing after The Sims 2 because paying for the same content four times (plus the inferior quality of The Sims 4) wasn't going to fly.

Unfortunately, I see this as impossible. Micropayments are the new EA's drug. They are addicted to micropayments, and I don't think they can get rid of this addiction so easily. Their new "assembly line" video game model is clearly very profitable for them, and I don't think they're going to stop doing it just to give us a decent game. 

One thing I do agree with you 100% is that, unfortunately, we Sims players are (because I include myself in the group) much more tolerant of the strategy of buying a game by parts. In fact, I have to admit (and now, years later I'm ashamed) that I bought the whole game of The Sims 3. Absolutely all the expansions and even the content of the Store. Of course, that has not happened again. The Sims 4 I don't even like it very much, it's the first The Sims game I don't love.