SimCity leads leave Maxis to form Jellygrade Studio

does one own an ipad? no, does one want it to be a success? yes why because it be refreshing to see these guys go it alone and see how good they are. I hope they will kick ea butt too!

 

good luck guys!

I wasnt expecting that bomb too soon. But man..... leave SimCity to make mobile "ipad" games...i really dont know what to think about it.

 

I love simulation games, but i dont see them very good in mobile plataforms. Well..let´s see.

 

If a new simcity will possible be made (more 10 years), who would be on lead?

"I am pretty interested to see the results of what they will create" - Some random guy

 

Anyway, good luck to them! Though, I'm just a little sad that it's only for iPad

 

I hope it goes to android soon.

It sounds like it could be an interesting game.  I hope they will make it for the Android too.

There are many things wrong with Simcity 2013, Ocean Quigley is not one of them. I'm happy to see this. They may be making Ipad games now, but it's probably just to bring in some money so they can start making their own big simulation games like maxis.

It was largely Ocean Quigley's vision that gave us the turd that is Sim City 2013.  It's the game he intended to make when he was forced into making SC4.  Good riddance.  

 

That lava simulation game looks stupid, and if Ocean has anything to do with it, will undoubtably fail.

Would have been nice to see them build their own city sim to rival SC13 (by taking a SC4 clone to the next lvl) instead of jumping on the tablet banwagon.

 

It wouldn't even have to be a Sims game for me to want to play a city simulation, as long as a new more modern engine was built for a proper game.

Sounds like a mass defection to get out of the kitchen which was burning down around them.  Good luck, and keep that code portable.

 

I don't know how hard it is to have a game on both Android and IOS, but a computer is a computer, so unless it is somehow blocked by Apple, I can't see any barrier.

 

The problem will be supporting other functions if a serious simulation is also running.

True they made SC4, but like elavery said: their last work was SC2013. I despise this move to mobile gaming as it is not real, immersive gaming, it's just something people do when they're away from the computer and don't want to talk to their friends.

 

 

 

 

Imo these two just want to constantly experiment with simulations in the hope that one of them might take off (as the Simcity series did), rather than refine what they know works into an entertaining format. They're tinkerers and simulation builders, not game designers as let's face it, 'games' like Spore went nowhere.

 

That's not really a critism on my part but rather an acknowledgement that they won't be making any 'true' games anymore.

SC4 was a success partly because of Will Wright's influence and partly because of the technical/developmental limitations.  Ocean even said at the time that many compromises were made and that SC4 wasn't the game he wanted to make.

 

 

If you recall, Ocean wanted SC4 to be more about the sims in the game...interacting with them and whatever...and less about city building.  SC4 was a great city builder because Ocean didn't get his way.

I never understand why the Maxis studio is absolved from guilt while EA is taken to the cleaners. Maxis designers are not mindless drones following orders from some dark overlord, they created SC2013 as they wanted to and it failed miserably.  Ocean Quigley must be held partly responsible.

Just in:

 

Here's an article on his thoughts. Based on this, Ocean was planning to leave anyway, but apparently the disastrous release made his decision much easier.

 

"The stuff that I want to do now is to explore some new simulation themes and some new mechanics and do some stuff that EA is not well set up to do."

I wasnt expecting that bomb too soon. But man..... leave SimCity to make mobile "ipad" games...i really dont know what to think about it.

 

I love simulation games, but i dont see them very good in mobile plataforms. Well..let´s see.

 

If a new simcity will possible be made (more 10 years), who would be on lead?

By the time this game gets to the alpha and beta stages, there will be much more powerful computing devices than the current generation of ipads. So don't worry so much 

SC4 was a success partly because of Will Wright's influence and partly because of the technical/developmental limitations.

 

Will Wright has not had a design credit on a SimCity game since SimCity 2000 Network Edition in 1996.  He's merely listed under "Special Thanks" for SC4's credits, and under "Special Thanks", "Original Concept", and "Based On An Idea By" for SC3000.  He's provided a little bit of input, but largely left SimCity in other people's hands after '96.

 

As far as the "blame game", as we're not privy to the inner workings of EA/Maxis, it's not terribly productive, as there's nothing conclusive anyone can say.  We don't know the whole picture.  I wish Ocean, Dan, Andrew, and their former colleagues at Maxis the best.

 

SC4 was a success partly because of Will Wright's influence and partly because of the technical/developmental limitations.

 

Will Wright has not had a design credit on a SimCity game since SimCity 2000 Network Edition in 1996.  He's merely listed under "Special Thanks" for SC4's credits, and under "Special Thanks", "Original Concept", and "Based On An Idea By" for SC3000.  He's provided a little bit of input, but largely left SimCity in other people's hands after '96.

 

As far as the "blame game", as we're not privy to the inner workings of EA/Maxis, it's not terribly productive, as there's nothing conclusive anyone can say.  We don't know the whole picture.  I wish Ocean, Dan, Andrew, and their former colleagues at Maxis the best.

 

 

To some degree it's not terribly productive, I agree, because at the end of the day we're still left with a turd of a game.  For those who care about accuracy though, it's worthwhile to state historical events as they were.  Based on interviews, it was clear what happened.

We aren't privy to the inner workings of EA/Maxis, but when you have three incredibly high-profile team members leave like this, it gives you a small peak behind the curtain.

 

The survey they sent out gives us another glimpse behind the curtain, of areas that they have realized they botched or where they completely underestimated player response.

 

We can't conclusively say who made 100% of the decisions to do this or that, although we know where some of the blame on some features lies based on admissions by some on the SC team.

 

It is useful, albeit not very, to look at this kind of stuff though, so that we aren't blindly blaming the wrong people.  Initially I blamed a lot of things on EA, but it's become clear that many of the decisions were made by Maxis.

 

I almost wish I had not found out about the decisions made by Maxis, because it was so much easier, and it felt better, to just blame EA.  To have what was such a great studio put out such a misguided, and out of touch with players, game, is incredibly disappointing.