macvirt

Reviews are always useless. Those from specialty sites because the majority of them are paid for following marketing trends and those from individuals simply because people as individuals always have different perspectives. It's always a case of getting your own information, matching that against your own expectations and making your own validation and decision. Right now SC2013 is having a lot of issues similar to when 2K Games released the Civilization V game by Firaxis. Both the SimCity and the Civilization franchise had a flagship title that developed a lifecycle beyond its supported lifecycle, because it was nurtured by fans of the flagship title who took the release version to places the developers never did. But that "power" of users to nurture a commercial product to a life of its own is both an amazingly positive thing, and a high potential bane of challenge for any new title in the same franchise. Predominantly because through all that nurturing people take a flagship title to a new definition, a title as extension of their own expectations. Something that carries a damn high impact scenario particularly for those types of games where we get to play the dice of destiny without the constrictions we face in real life and with almost divine tools that enable us to create and replicate as deep an immersion as we individually may seek. Maxis had a bit of an issue in the case of SC2013. They have learned from the issues that Firaxis faced with Civ V, unfortunately however they still had to use the instrument of marketing to use that existing nurturing base as an exposure catalyst for the next franchise title. The problem with the marketing campaign is that it did so a bit too much, it reinforced patterns of expectations even though the differences between SC4 and SC2013 should have been made clear. This was the biggest failure in the 2K Games / Firaxis / Civ V case: a) they did not make clear that the common denominators were genre and franchise but that b) the product was developed for a different audience of a different time for different targets. Maxis fell in to that trap a bit as well. That is a shame, because any decent marketeer should be able to see the trap. Take the example of moddability as a marketing topic. Highly advocated, highly exposed, structurally used as a selling point, until the buzz was enough to a point where it could be guided in accordance with market targets. Moddability after release is a feature element missing by design, subject to study and potential development depending on commercial targets being met and the developers themselves feel it is a good idea to now say that "input is always welcome". It is such discrepancies which create a gap between expectation patterns (of user types who were the target for SC4 but who are not the target for SC2013) and the reality of release. It is that which causes disappointment, and there Maxis should have taken in to account that such user types in scenarios of disappointment are historically much more likely to seek exposure than those who are the target, plus that the media utilised for expression tend to be very different among these different user types. The first are more likely to leave reviews, the latter are more likely to just blurb on social media. Fortunate for Maxis the first constitutes a more limited market volume than the latter. Which is also why the SC2013 game was designed to cater to the latter. None of this diminishes SC2013. As a game it is well made, has a clear scope of entertainment, and is tailored very professionally to the strategic directives from EA to its studios and to the commercial targets set prior to feature & content specification. It is not the next version of SC4, it is simply just another SimCity title. It is a different beast, made in a different time, under different directives and for a different audience. Whether or not to buy is an individual decision. If someone has worries about EA's influence or its use of Origin, I can imagine people seeing that as a valid reason to not buy. I can also see how for other people such principalities would not be relevant. If someone does not want to be forced to play online, I could very well understand that. Same for when someone else does not care about that. Even on a feature level I can see the different perspectives, for some terraforming absent is terrible, others just want to get in quick and have a fun casual game. Some people are fed up with EA's control over how long you can play the game you bought, others simply accept that EA has announced to move to a strict microtransactions business model where in their view your purchase only constitutes renting access for a period under their control. The list goes on and on. It's an individual decision. One should never simply discard anyone's individual perspective, but respect it, and do their own homework to make their own decision.

Heh, Red Dawn is actually a textbook example of propaganda instrumentation. From idea to script to funding. Incidentally, originally the enemy in the script was the Chinese. That was changed however as it was considered too antagonistic at the time. Not that the conceptualisation is original in any form, it is basically an adapted reboot of an originally Australian script long ago. But back on topic, I find it interesting to observe that North Korea step by step is managing to put the US more and more in a corner which it cannot afford finding itself locked in to, the corner of having to face a choice of doing nothing but paying a lot under the table, finding ourselves more isolated in a futile quest for coalition or giving a public confirmation of imperial doctrine. It's as if somehow North Korea has found a bunch of Marketing Men smarter than our State Department. Every step taken is perfectly aligned with North Korean regional and Chinese global interests, and consistantly averse to US regional dependancies of interests. What amazes me most is that North Korea takes its steps both in positive and negative manners, a very impressive balancing effort which completely avoids all the requirements for the US to enable itself in a coalition and/or conflict quest. As for economies, let's be honest. NK has no economy. SK has enterprises which are of interest but the majority of them is independant of the local economy except for the dependancies of legal grounding and labor provisioning. And increasingly the footprint of those two dependancies is decreasing. At this point in time integrating a South and North Korea would be painful for their peoples, but humans do not matter anyway so to speak, but that is really it. Sure, it would spook investors and governments in a bunch of places, ultimately though it would have little more impact than the loss of a societal economy. Companies like Samsung maintain only a very small footprint. To be blunt, the US seeks a new conflict, but it has to be one of limited scope where dependancies can be controlled. A Korean conflict is not that. It's a loss/loss situation for us. At best it could serve as a potential enabler of a containment conflict, involving China, in the scope of reaffirming dominance of the US. Something China is clear on, and it is not in the interest of China to allow that. If it came to conflict, the US would find itself even more a pariah among nations, further in economic turmoil and dependancies and destabilised as a society. Not the war we're looking for, in a nutshell. That's why our best case would be a quick takeover before the US can "react", then a long political drama of how to make a cocktail of two fundamentally corrupt societies without risking a media image of how terribad it is under the surface. For North Korea the "better" prospect would be to establish its own nuclear umbrella, and migrate from a military logistics business model to a guided interest economy supported by China. Something that in the long run would present an enormous strategic threat to US economic interests.

It is true that people in the US compared to in Europe have a tendency to be, shall we say, gluttonous when it comes to food. Some will blame this on marketing by the food industry... and it'd be foolish to think that that has had no effect on things. But the real problem is that in our current environment, eating healthy is both more expensive and takes more effort than not eating healthy. Going to the store, buying ingredients, and preparing your own home cooked means is something many Americans have neither the time nor the conviction to do. It is much faster and easier to buy frozen food and get take out. This ties directly into how the average American works more hours per week than the average European - "fast" food appeals to us so much precisely because it is fast. Going beyond all that, culturally, you have a phenomenon where in many social circles, eating healthy is not "cool", and people who make a point of doing it are dismissed as hippie health nuts. The whole issue extends beyond sodas, and indeed well beyond the food industry. So from there, what do we have in a regulation on sodas? Well, for one thing, we have a direct attack on a symptom rather than a problem. You are going after people's tendency to go out and drink lots of soda without addressing why they do it. And soda of course is but one thing. You can still order as large of an order of greasy fries as you want and no regulation will stop you. But for another, and what is key to people who oppose this sort of thing, is that the belief generally prevails that an adult should have the responsibility to decide for themself what goes in their mouth and how much of it, and that any attempt by the government to interfere with that is an infringement on their rights. And there is definitely something to that: McDonalds wouldn't sell 32 ounce sodas if no one was buying them. But people buy them... and indeed they seem to be the most popular size. So clearly there is demand. People want them. Tell people they can't have something they want and it will never go over well. You can tell kids what to do and it's expected since they aren't mature enough to make responsible decisions. But most adults will not be please when you tell them that they aren't responsible enough to make that decision for themselves - and indeed, it is downright offensive. As an adult, if I want to drink a gallon of soda in a day, why should anyone have the authority to tell me I can't? I hurt no one but myself by doing so. The last thing you have to remember about this regulation is that while it does have its supporters, it is not particularly popular and would never have passed had it gone through a normal legislative process - but it did not. It was conceived by mayor Bloomberg himself, and passed by the board of health as a regulation rather than by the city council as a law. And whereas city council members answer directly to their constituents, the board of health is populated entirely by people who were executively appointed - and since Bloonberg has at this point been mayor for 11 years, they were almost all appointed by him, and are going to rubber stamp anything he wants them to. This regulation was essentially passed at the behest of one man. There was no check on power involved. There is a lawsuit afoot calling foul on that, but I don't see it going anywhere since the board of health does explicitly have the authority to regulate how restaurants prepare and package food, and the courts have upheld that before (see: NYC's already extant ban on the use of trans-fats in frying). Well, intruiging. You know, I once thought the same. Then I travelled the world, learned to adapt my perspectives and found out that my valued american convictions were for the most part just that, convictions. Concept taught over time through exposure to the marketing of ideas rather than reality. That may come across a bit cold, it is however as it is. 1. Healthy food does not have to be more expensive than unhealthy food. This is not a case of the myth of supply & demand. Healthy food here is less expensive than unhealthy food, because the commercial networks prioritise healthy over unhealthy*. Quite simply because people prefer to buy healthy food as opposed to unhealthy. Even in the worst areas surrounding Paris you are not going to find zones where supermarkets do not sell fresh produce. There is a set of conscious commercial choices in these matters. Our American companies simply remain in line with our general liberal economic thinking, an extension in these matters of the perception that people are unable to make their own decisions and that here is a role for business to fill in the perceived gap. Even if that were accurate, it is interesting to observe that our companies make a different choice than for example European countries and make the effort to ensure trends where they do not have to make other choices. Is that evil? Depends on your individual perspective ofcourse, that it has resulted in strengthening the division of society and culture alike is a given however. By the way, the average American works equal hours when compared to the average European. Never confuse myth with reality, always first find out whether something taught is actually accurate. Also, for the same amount of working hours, the productivity indexes of Europeans are more than double that of Americans. The only economic sector that offsets the curves is our financial sector, but that is a sector which does not generate production either way and the virtual assets it creates are only for a very small portion part of our American economy. We just like to include them in our figures because it looks better that way. It is painful to see how such tricks of statistics are normal for us in our corporate accountability, but usually illegal in even the worst of banana republics globally. Hilarious also, but mainly painful. * Fun bit of research there. Stateside those who decide on the environmental and conditional stimuli for consumer groups (to instigate consumptive behaviour) generally buy not from the same places or even sources as the target consumptive groups. In Europe they share the same paths and sources of consumption as the consumptive groups. The oh so funny consequences is that this generates an awareness of prioritising healthy over unhealthy, because - so to speak - they both eat the same, from the same places, from the same sources. There is little to no divide between selective and general interests in these matters. Logically, ofcourse. But note how stupendously different this is compared to back home. Couple of weeks ago I was present at a guest teaching session at the university in Heidelberg where cultural patterning as point of interest for economics was the topic. Most of what was put on the table offended the few Americans present, exactly because of such observations. Understandable, considering how it upsets our worldview, but we really should be offended by the division in our society that has created such a divide between society and economics. 2. Cooking yourself does not take more time than eating out. It is quite funny, that argument of "we live fast and are more productive and eating is part of a work ethic concept". It is a perfect example of how we are taught to believe, well, bullshit. When we look at American demographics, behavioural patterns, work ethics and other statistics it becomes clear that we really do not live or even work fast. On the contrary. And it shows in our statistics on production and demographics alike. We have pretty much the lowest productivity indexes of the western world. On a global scale even I can't get myself to look at what place we're at. It's terrible. We have to recognise something. People are creatures of habit, more specifically creatures of patterns. It is very hard for us to adapt behavioural patterns, especially when they are taught to us through everything we are exposed to. I once could not cook. I once ate outside all the time. These days I not only eat healthier, I also save stupendous amounts of time by cooking myself. Yes, it takes a different pattern, but that is just planning. The same concept of planning we use to fill in our oh so supposedly fast lives. 3. The idea that demand is what fuels corporate initiatives is funny. Corporate initiatives creates demand, I realise that is hard to wrap our heads around, mostly because this is part of economics never taught stateside. But it is reality. Corporate interest dictates to invest in the creation and continuation of conditions that generate and grow demand. That great parts of our population buy supersized (so to speak) is a result of limits of information, upbringing (which is a format of delayed information transfer as well), and so forth, but primarily it is a consequence of artificial conditions created to generate behavioural patterns above the individual level. We at home are brought up with the idea for example that advertising targets the individual. It does not. Well, some of it does. But smart advertising and smart product development targets the group dynamic, it does not magically seduce you to buy something, it creates conditions for your environment to be exposed to stimuli that lead to behaviour which results in buying. The difference may be subtle, but it is of extreme importance. Interesting bit of irony, this is an integral element of our American society, but illegal in most parts of the world - because it manipulates people on a population level. Get it out of your head that there is a demand from people. People have no idea that their circumstances are directed for them to follow patterns of consumption. That is not what demand is. What we call demand is an artificial construct of consumption. And demand even in our liberal ideology is not artificial. Demand is an instrument of exchange of production, not of wealth, even our liberal ideology recognises this, it simply decides to ignore the core definitions because the system we have created concentrates wealth more efficiently when we make use of the vulnerability of the behavioural patterning of demand to the concept of scale. I have to admit it sometimes drives me a bit mad. Perhaps I should never have started living in other countries Honestly though, the debates we have at home are so inherently gimped by our convictions and by limited information that it is just utterly insane. At home we are serfs, and we have no idea of it. And every time we try to think something through, it is limited by the information available at home, guided by artificial patterns of stimuli dependant on strict economic interests and always derailed by this amazing trap of using great principles to maintain an imbalance between the individual and the group. Look at how we use the concept of freedom. Look at how we use the concept of law. Look at what we are taught to believe without question, and then ask the eternal basic question of human interaction: who benefits. Not our society. Our economics has seperated itself from our society a long, long time ago. We the people, is we the sheep, and we the resource. I realise this upsets our worldview. I can't help that our worldview is an artificial construct, and not reality. It is because our worldview is artificial we fall on our noses when confronted with things that do not fall in line with it when trying to do business outside of our little economics. Why do you think do big American enterprises behave so fundamentally different outside of the states as opposed to inside the states. We all continue our artificial worldview, mainly because we never question. In truth, we are discouraged to question, because our economics is a system of dependancies, and we *must* believe. If we do not believe, we are taught that everything will collapse. Ironic, our human history teaches us that people who do not believe in a system tend to create new systems which are generally more adapted to different or changing times. But we Americans must not adapt! By the way, for a country which such an inherent focus on the inalienable rights of people, we sure fool ourselves in our insistance of never balancing the good of the many to the good of the few. There is no such thing as inalienable rights if we do not invest in balancing interests. That is what history shows us, no matter how grand the principles if we do not invest in ourselves as both individuals and as groups we always become nothing more than the next historic incarnation of serfs. Look at how we treat the concept of individual responsability versus the concept of infringement of rights. We always look at governance there, because that is what our ideology teaches us to look at. The reality however is that our governance instruments do not make the decisions that lead to confrontations like these. At best they sometimes try to create balance, but usually with bad methods and without a real chance of ever succeeding - because everyone is taught to think that governance is always too much because the individual has rights. Well, let's suck it up. Our rights are no longer relevant. Our duties are. Our first duty is to consume for if we do not consume we go bankrupt. Our second duty is to point our noses the same way for if we do not we cannot compete. Our third duty is to not ask questions for they might put us in danger. Reality check. We are worse off than bankrupt. We have not been able to compete globally for more than half of a century. We are under constant threat because we create threats because it makes money. As Americans we are taught that form is more important than function, that we must believe and that the individual is more important than the group. Textbook elements of internalisation dependancies of volume marketing.

I get the idea people are forgetting something here. Instigating awareness is something that tends to work better than artificial constructs such as laws or regulations on the individual consumer level. At least as long as there is a consistent approach in exchange of information a) not influenced by special interests and b) in existance for at minimum a cycle of transfer between one generation and the next. That is how healthy trends are internalised above the individual and on the group level (family unit, educational circles, and above). The problem is that these efforts are generally in stark conflict with vested commercial interests. In the US there is a bit of a unique phenomenon, the belief that the market is a magic medium that fixes itself with supply and demand being inalienable forces of balance. The reality however is that this is merely a belief, admittedly one in service of ideology and economics alike. Unfortunately it is a belief that does not have roots in reality. Our corporate reality is that we have internalised forces such as supply and demand as instruments of corporate ecosystems, which stand seperately and above group dynamics. In a nutshell, it is an artificial and easy to manipulate system resting solely on convictions taught to people rather than realistic interaction models of human interaction. That translates to the unfortunate reality where we have to deal with the simple situation of being forced to artificially constrain corporate interests back to a format where it is in line with the general interests of our group dynamics, and not continue to enable the situation where our group dynamics exist solely as an instrument in service of selective interests of our corporate economics. This is where laws and regulations come in to place. There are natural limitations to incentivising corporate adaptation to changing trends in group dynamics, particularly stateside where it is stupendously easy to continously put the group dynamics in service of selective and not general interests. It sucks, so to speak, because it clashes with our worldview. We tend to forget how unique we are in these regards. In Europe, where I live these days, laws and regulations actually follow shifts in public awareness. I have to admit though, information exchange here is on a completely different level than stateside. Plus, you will be hard pressed to find places here where you can not find supermarkets with fresh food. To be blunt, it is shocking to see fastfood chains here that - as an example - offer a breakfast service where the produce is delivered fresh each morning from local or regional biological farms. Boggles the mind. Ofcourse there are exceptions, and in different member states such trends are at different points than in others, but it is remarkably different from the US. I have to be honest though, with the exception of bankers I have yet to meet people in business here who see the general public as a resource. They just don't seem to differentiate themselves from the rest of society, something which enterprises stateside pride themselves on in their quarterly reporting. So here's a fun question to counter, is it not significant perhaps that it is required to actually engage in legal frameworks to instigate and channel shifts in trending for corporate interests ... Equally, is it not interesting that people are more prone to see everything as aimed at the individual rather than something that is of import for the group level of our human dynamics ....

What people call "leadership" stateside is irrelevant, but more importantly it is a distraction. People could be as united as possible, as long as one focuses on something for leadership which is not that which rules, it is diverted energy at best. We're not an exception I should add, this is part of a global trend. It's just been easiest to insert in to US societies because that really is where it originated far sooner than anywhere else. Most western countries have an implementation of governance based on the concept of trias politica, or at minimum division of power. The US was the first to allow a 4th pillar to arise, that of economic interest networks. And over the decades that instigated shifts in trends that have landed us where we are now: that which we know of trias politica is nothing but an administrative element at best, and a distraction in the practicality of rule. These divided powers of our society have become instruments of that originally 4th pillar. In its own right it is a logical evolution of the distribution of power. Logical in the sense of human psychology. Remove the buffers against excesses in behaviour and you create the foundations for a structuring of dependancies in support of excesses in behaviour. That does not make it right ofcourse, or even a useful shift. But it is as it is. It is often said that politicians are self serving, often it is said that politics is where the dumb with charm and a talent for hustling end up. Regardless, the simple given fact alone that not a single politician recognises that shift is quite a big red flag. Do they see it, but accept a role? Do they not see, but can't or will not look beyond their own noses? In a practical sense it does not even matter anymore which case it is. What matters is that the politics we know is defunct. The people in it have no potential for positive contribution, the system itself is in service of something entirely different. Something outside of the influence of society itself.

I strongly feel a distinction should be made. The points of democracy and freedom have been selling points in what essentially boils down to instruments of propaganda. That being said, the focus has largely been internal. Towards other countries it has been rare to see examples of such selling points used in negotiations or conflicts. The use as pretexts has been used quite often actually, but as part of internal propaganda, not towards the external party or parties. A great example is the US interventions over the decades in central and south america, where at home freedom and democracy were heralded as part of reasoning why advisors were sent, why economic programs were instigated, and so forth - including why guerilla and deathsquads were trained and funded and why political and social leaders were targeted for killing. Whereas the realities of those interventions were unilaterally without any aspects of freedom or democracy in any way or form. Frequently interventions took place to remove democratic trends from countries. Usually on a basis of reasoning along the lines of "we cannot allow people to control their own destiny because they might choose to become communist". That cooperation, proper aid programs, education and leading by example would have fortified democratic principles at far lesser cost and with far greater results for stability is a given. But well, trusting people to vote? My goodness. How terrible.

To be blunt, the US is rather unlikely to have any sort of evolution of society or even revolution. There is hardly a middle class left that is not caught in the dependancies of not having ownership, and growing portions of internal economics are directly tied to the polarised networks that have risen from what used to be a mere political divide. There's no ground for any momentum to develop. I should note though that the economy has not failed. It still functions, concentrates wealth and distributes debt. That is the model of it, and it continues to operate quite well within the limitations of that model. What people perceive as failing really is normal symptoms of the shift from economic forces as instruments in service of (governance, society, etc) to self established networks, where control points like governance and society are in service of it. That leaves gaps, for example in ownership, but also in employment, because the model requires such gaps. What we perceive as crisis is really on the delay in governance and society in picking up the bill for the system's gaps.

Blatant "tag-yer-it" messaging manipulation attempt.

Exactly. Betas test different things, and the best way to do that is to create the conditions necessary to test the things you need to test that week. Most MMO closed betas bump the testers up to a certain level, and provide them with level-appropriate equipment, simply because it does the developers no good to have the testers keep running the low-level content over and over. And that's for a game where you could, realistically, beta-test long enough to achieve those levels for yourself. We had an hour to test, and as I said before, think back to what you would have achieved in an hour of SimCity 4: in one hour, is it even possible to run out of starting money in that game? Not exactly a good testing environment. And even if you consider this to have been a "demo" instead of a "beta", what then? What'd be the point of a demo (a marketing tool) that wouldn't give you enough time to get to the point where you could even build a school, a police station, a fire station, et cetera? If all you had time to do was place a few zones and watch them slowly develop, how many copies of the game would THAT sell? You should not approach those few questions from a perspective of someone who likes to go deep, who wants to puzzle and explore. At the risk of being rude (not my intention) that is not the target user. That is the average Joe the Plumber who can be guided in to a leisure format of gameplay with high messaging trending. A broad set of categories of user types which for the most part simply do not go deep enough to warrant a beta which would not function as a limited demo. Look at the marketing buzz created by the reception of the demo/beta round. Yes, in existing specific communities people ask questions and wonder how beneficial such a form of beta really is, regardless of for the purpose of marketing or the purpose of QA. The majority of messaging generated by it is what we tend to call "buzz". It does not matter what is said, as long as it looks positive, spreads out a lot, has exclamation marks and so forth, you get the idea The ideal consumer for the most efficient commercial models in our industry is one who shouts a lot without speaking much, who has a focus on lower tresholds to enter an entertainment challenge, who is stimulated more by form rather than function and who can be guided not to think too much cognitively about sequential purchases of functionality and content concepts which are sold seperately from the main title release. These types of consumers are just far easier to reach, simpler to guide and hook up and they buy more than those types of users who really go deep in a gaming experience in a focus of create / replicate / puzzle mindsets. I fully realise that this sounds almost illogical. But it is fully logical. This sort of approach is what enables you the cheapest furthest reach for marketing supported sales. That is why we do these things in these ways. Technical and/or QA elements are completely secondary. At such a stage it is mere tuning, under the duress of decreasing resource allocation. That too is normal. It may not be nice, very often especially for those who work the hardest on a title release, but it is as it is. That is an entirely individually determined case. At best we can look at it from a theoretical viewpoint of game design. I'm sure at some point people following such trainings and education will find it was a case of study on their desks (the same as how Civ V became such an intruiging point of study for both game design, marketing, communication and business development). But that is still a very limited perspective. It is also rather cold. On the consumer level, everybody has a different perspective for your question. Pointless to ask as such Besides, on that consumer level we cannot compare the two. Different beasts, for different markets, for different times, for different targets.

Call it whatever you want but SC 2013 is the evolution of the SC series, once we have contiguous city tiles, terraforming and larger city tiles, SC4 will become a relic just like that of SC2000 and 3000. But sadly that will not be avaiable in the new game. I have one message for all the people here saying that Sc4 is dull and boring. Simcity isn't a game made for you and Simtropolis isn't the place for people like you. Don't you all think that Simcity will be quick fun like games as Cod Black Ops 2, TES: Skyrim,... If you think that Simcity 4 is hard. You will encounter the same problems soon enough in simcity, why? because the people who think it's hard want too much right from the start and don't build up their town and then start big things. And that's again an example of the demand to quick fun games started with games as Farmville etc. on Facebook. Sometimes a good game needs a little more time and effort to have a dozen times more fun then those quick fun games. So i advise everybody who doesn't like Simcity. Please buy yourself Skyrim and all it's DLC's and go on rampage trough Skyrim to kick a bunch of dragons and other bastards. Or buy yourself Call Of Duty Black Ops 2 and go on rampage trough multiplayer. But please keep your opinions about something you guys don't know anything about yours. I actually wonder how people like you would have talked about Simcity 4 if there wasn't any new Simcity coming up... The irony is that SC2013 is *not* and evolution of SC4. It is a flagship title reboot project. Something entirely different. Underneath that approach is the same type of commercial mindset that (as example) takes something like a Star Trek universe and reboots is, resulting in something well, let's say with less depth plus a change in entertainment focus. Easier reach into global volume market, easier to sell, builds on top of existing market, easier exposure and buzz because of existing userbase, and so forth. It's not a debate of good or bad, pro or con, it's just an individual choice to buy or not buy, which can still mean having seperate opinions on it.

Well, to be fair, it was much more demo than beta. It's how such things are integrated in to marketing first and foremost, and on the side there's a few poor grunts trying to reach some other targets set. By the way, we do have such a thing as unrepresentative beta in our industry, but to be fair that is usually you see tied to a different format of sales & play, that of f2p online play models. Still, it is worth to keep in mind that anything that Quigley says is marketing. Pure and simple.

Fluff indeed, but that is normal. Until release it is all marketing either way.

I have not seen many posts in reply with sources I must admit, maybe what is right for one is not right for the other, that would be a very human thing. Nonetheless, this is an internet forum, a degree of flexibility should not be surprise to be required. Especially not when anyone with a little time can dig a little bit and verify the exchange. Religions are more prone to doing less good than bad, that is a common impression. It's an organisational issue however. The longer the distance in informative and communicative processes between parts of any organisation the more likely the occurrance of excesses in behaviour of the group as well as individual of the group. That is why for example business entities invest in guarding against such traps. Because it is in the interests of the goals they set themselves. If they do not establish such structures and buffers, they fall prey to the same excesses in human behaviour that religions who make the same mistake fall prey to. Religions however tend to grow and extend organisation over far longer time than businesses. Yes, religions are prone to issues because of being institutionalised organisations that class people as part of instrumentation, but they are not necessarily something that will do more bad than good. As sad as it is, it still comes down to people making choices. Those missionaries had a brain, the ones who sent them had brains, and so forth.

The individual case is a topic in its own right, but no person or organisation with responsability and power should ever be excluded from accountability. Not following such basic principles is counterproductive to any human dynamic. It is what leads to institutionalised corruption on one end of a scale, and the Neurenberger Trials on another end of the scale.

Heh. Yalta did not give half of europe to the soviets :-) Far from actually, it secured the soviet required post war buffer they sought, but they compromised a hell of a lot at the table. And for a very long time the soviets stuck to these accords even though we did not. It was not until we came up with a series of balance of power policies for what was to become west germany that the soviets responded by extending a buffer by several countries but still not extending their sphere of influence. It may be hard to believe, but it is quite possible to find out, but our image of the soviets as the evil expanding empire is for the most part a created myth. If anything, of both major parties in the cold war we as a modern world owe more to the restraint of the russians than we owe to us americans. But don't believe me, do the research I'd say. History is written by the victor, the victor is determined by either he who lives or he who writes the book on it (modern version, he who exports the most movies on it). That is not reality. But, getting back to the main topic indeed. America needs a leader all can trust? Absolutely. But that is never going to happen. Truth be told, it has never occured before, why would we expect some magical leader we all revere and trust to make an appearance? Even the very few presidents who did have a major influence on the US prevailing in times of conflict (often of our own doing) were not trusted or even loved by all. Dear Teddy was in the proverbial sense pissed on day by day. Most of his team had even worse troubles beyond the political because of pure and simple hate resulting from differences in world view. Poor Wallace, to name but one. But even when we look at more modern times, Reagan was not a loved president. He is that today, because that is the image our propaganda has created. He was deeply mistrusted by a very divided country and an even more divided society. He had an advantage in having an easy external threat variable to use, but most american presidents have had that advantage. Reagan was just instinctively better at using it in his acte de presence to the public which already in those days had virtually no real access to non-controlled information networks left. Statements like "we need a leader we all can trust" are nice. But they are impossible to really make. Especially when we then add a comment of "this or that person is not it", that is an argument coming out of our own perspective. Pure and simple. It is as much part of the problem as anything else, that kind of statement in combination to the other statement. There is never going to be a leader everyone can trust. For the simple reasons that a) people are individuals, b) people do not share each other's circumstances or even environment, c) anyone who actually places trust in any leader is not only rather shortsighted but also forgets the lessons of the founding fathers and really declares himself a serf, d) leaders are but mere symbols, they are decision points but never a guiding hand because they themselves are as much victim to the trouble of special interests as any point of power in our society today. To be absolutely blunt, I may not like his worldview, but Obama is the first president since Roosevelt to try and reach a balance point between special and general interests. I'm fully serious here. It has been that long since we have had a president who not only recognised the realities that structure our nation but who still tried to reconcile that which really rules us with that which we all need to think about and act on. Ofcourse, differences in ideology are a point of debate. But never should ideology be a deciding element in its own right, that crosses a line which turns ideology in to religion and sidesteps even the traps of convictions & beliefs versus verification & validation. We have this notion that we all somehow magically go stand behind our leader. That is what we are taught. The reality is that this is horseshit. It is propaganda. We have not done so in a long, long time, and even then we continuously made severe efforts to pull the carpet away from underneath each other's feet. Remember the election between McCain and Obama? Remember that speech from the first mentioning the usual blurb on standing behind the duly elected leader? The irony is that McCain was pretty much the only one to mean it. The rest of our party swallowed a few nuclear weapons just to build up steam. Yes, we need a leader we can all trust. It just is never going to happen, it is completely impossible. And even if we found such a leader in a magic fairy land, we still should not trust him. We give him a mandate, not the other way around. And he comes with luggage, with others who payed and paved the way. Trust is never to be given to those who are granted a mandate of power by the people. Trust, like respect, is a matter earned between we the people. The difference between these two cases should be clear to all. Ofcourse it pains me that Obama is on the wrong side of partylines. Truth be told he is much more balanced between parties than anyone else. But the label is nothing but a flag, a stamp, a perception. The reality of our society is that it only matters when someone stands between the networks that divide our country, and that is what the guy does. I can fully understand why our engines of propaganda will declare him the Reagan of the Democrats for the course of history But he is and remains a missed opportunity because we as a people did not stick to our own beliefs. We elect a leader and should stand behind him? Sure, but only if he has our button on his suit. Otherwise he is a bad person. In terms of practical opportunities, understanding of how our dependancies and weaknesses have grown, he's literally the first since Kennedy who got the root issues, and who tried to meet in the middle. Instead we decided that there can be no supporting of leaders, no compromise that places the needs of the many over the needs of the few, no vision that looks beyond the quarterly numbers. We decided that it does not suit us if anyone thinks outside of the box. So before we make statements like "we need a president we can all trust but xyz is not it", we should first examine why we say the first part, why the second, and where in the world we get the idea that any of it has any basis in reality in the first place.

The decline of cohesion of the Roman empire was indeed what allowed the precursor sects to spread the belief system, to a point where across those territories it had reached a cultural penetration that resulted in Constantine selecting these precursors as the best candidate for a new state religion because it had such a wide spread and such a deep penetration. When complex group dynamics decline in cohesion there will always be room thus created for something else, often something new but more often something old, to fill in the gaps. Not in a sense of new glue, but in a sense of guidance of the fragmented dynamic. The remarkable situation was not how the Roman empire declined and how christianity rose in the same time, suggesting some sort of causal relation, but that after these matters that which became christianity was consciously and deliberately selected to instigate the creation of a new group dynamic. That had not really happened since the time of Zoroaster once upon a time long ago and the brief attempt by a Farao to publicly instigate a monotheistic state religion. Kind of ironic actually, that all these sun cults (which also applies to our christianity from its origins) that are all in direct line of giving way to each other share that historic phenomenon. Now there might be something to find a grand instigator perhaps Apologies, could not resist that one. Either way, it was a perfect feeding ground for christian sects and cults, the declining Roman empire. It allowed to create foundations that people slowly but increasingly internalised on a cultural level. It helped ofcourse that what we now call christianity was far more tolerant than it is today. It was able to incorporate many aspects of other belief systems facilitating the transition from them towards itself, sometimes as a result of calculated choices but for the most part out of a very open tolerance towards beliefs embedded (in itself but also in Roman society, an important contributor to the spread of the cults) and a very sophisticated symbology that allowed for finding commonality between the various mythologies of beliefs. Conditions for growth were perfect. Conditions for seeds taking root on an organisation level were far from perfect though, across the Roman empire territories the very idea of beliefs holding organised power had become completely alien to societies. It was remembered from precursor, barbaric, times. This issue was indeed one of the few major issues Constantine had to deal with once he gave the mission to create christianity. His decision to establish religion as a pillar of power is responsible for centuries of misuse of belief in that sense. The man was a power broker, simple as that.

Well, in a sense of general history I would agree. In regards to the previous century, I honestly see very little which took place or was instigated without a direct involvement of the US. It is indeed a trend which was broken, though not out of policy but out of political realities. The first world war rose out of a mondane continuation of balance of power methodology which became a systemic conflict for the most part because the participants failed to realise the influence of advanced industrialisation on economics and the interdependancies that had come in to place between the participants. It was the first war not instigated by the US which it entered specifically for the purpose of economics. The second world war we have to be honest, and punch through the veneer created by ourselves in our perspective of the victors. The Nazi phenomenon would never have culminated in a factor of force if it had not been deliberately nurtured by American capital. The sad truth is that those German companies that embraced the people behind the curve for the most part were subsiduaries or strategic partners of American corporations, and those who were not were behind the curve of adoption in comparison to American firms and institutes. Ofcourse the underlying trends are diverse, but for all of them we have to recognise an interconnectedness of linked dependancies. Think of these conditions as enablers in that chain of trends & events. It is there that we have to recognise that the very decisions to embrace the motivators of conditions, to integrate their rise in an economic transaction system and to effectuate their interests these horrific motivators came to power. Truth be told, it was not until well in to the war that we actually stopped dealing with them, and even then we only froze relations and interests, to simply continue them upon conclusion of the war. And for the most part, once again in dealings with the same enablers locally. I can't help but to agree with historians in that sense, we as a country are largely responsible for the rise to power of nazism. In great part in active collaboration and participation, and if anything we did not think of strengthening them as bad while we were making money of them. In that sense the second world war had been one of the best investments ever made by the actors of that horrific mindset. That war would not have happened if it had not been enabled. Once again, choices. Roosevelt was a firm opponent already during the interbellum of these matters, recognising the dangers and the visible scenarios of consequences. Unfortunately, people rather collectively made clear that as long as the proverbial marketing could mask the relations the money was too good. Again, it was not even until well in to the war that he found the power to cut those ties and supporting initiatives. At great political cost I should add. And these are just matters on the European end of affairs. Let's not forget that the pacific theatre was a rather natural and planned result of strategic policies shaping a potential conflict in to an effectuated conflict at the conditions and timeline chosen by those responsible for the planning. We are culturally unable to look at that theatre without our memory of Pearl Harbour, which, as gruesome as the cost was, is so much more culturally instigated perception than we are able to admit. But it is as it is, we created the conditions for that conflict, we guided the development of those conditions, and we made a great deal of money every step along the way. And the concerns that were raised, similarly to the time just prior to us blowing up our own Maine in another time and theatre, were few and far. Interests decide, and those are more important than any morality. But you are right, history does not repeat itself neatly. That is only logical, if anything because of the interwoven forces of demographics, economics and globalisation. History does not move in circles, but in something much closer to a spiral. As a species, individually and as group dynamics we are prone to repeating the same or similar issues because of the entropy our human conditions are exposed to, still circumstances change and conditions vary, if anything because the scale of events and impact scenarios changes. A conflict of war at one point in history will have been gruesome, but will also have had a smaller impact footprint than a similar conflict a few centuries later. What remains remarkable is how we can observe the parallels between issues faced and decisions taken at various points in time. An individual learns, among other things, through repetition. The same is true for groups. The larger and more complex group dynamics become, the more prone it becomes to facing the same issues repeatedly. Enter our human species. As for Rome, it had a choice. Many even. Like Russia it exists still today. Harsh statement, yes I know. The US remains a 1st world power only through military strategical indicators. In a cultural sense it has lost most cohesion factors, in terms of economic indicators with the exception of a handful of sectors it has become a 4th world country. In a developmental terms, even infrastructural but also services dynamic it has degraded to a 2nd world country. In a political sense it has much more in common with the balance of power countries it once elected to seperate itself from. Ofcourse none of that is pleasant, even if it still is a functional system. But there is the matter of choice. In complex group dynamics the prime level of choice remains that of the individual level, that is where trends are instigated but more importantly it is where trends are provided with energy. It's not comparable to the Rome most people remember today, that of feasts while the Goths stand at the wall and where on a cultural level the fragmentation prevented both the group and the individual from fueling trends because they no longer were the ones to instigate trends. The US, its people, there are choices, there is initiative. As long as these two things exist, one does not have to crash in to the same issues others crashed in to in the past. The fall of Rome was not a drama, it was an evolution of a culture into a complex group dynamic solely based on dependancies. All empires suffer from that syndrome. It's closely related how we as social animals prioritise the closest exposure of the dynamic versus that which is beyond that horizon / view. But true, just because something is human nature does not make it right. We are supposed to be more than we are, both alone and together.

That was not a reference to a past analogy, but a high potential future one. And a bit of a joke At minimum one a lot of people stateside deliberately desire. Much like the debates on the senate's floor in Rome, for ages and ages until suddenly Rome was threatened by the rise of commercialised empires from beyond the borders of the eastern provinces back then and the militaristic cultural influence from Carthage. Which in contrast of how history was rewritten after the victory was not really a competitor to Rome, but an upstart nuisance deliberately kept in a position of constantly having issues and used as a variable in a politics of fear management back home. By the way, isolationism is the very worst possible course for the US. No resource reservoirs, no shared cultural trending, too strong economic divides, near zero internal consumptive/productive relation. No, the US depends on the outside world. It is no longer able to survive on its own. It would be far wiser to go back to roots, adjust those for modern circumstances, anticipate on future dependancies and lead by examples of morality and tolerance. This is what once made the US the nation of choice for every people in the world. A nation which even the old balance of power empires looked up to for determining the course. Until a handful of men in the US saw the opportunity to make money from the misuse of people having a dream and trying to make it real. Simple as that. There has not been a single war since that time that the US has not started itself. There has not been a single war we've been in that was joined even. It does not matter which example we pick. Cuba? The war with Spain? The first world war? The creation of the nazi's rise? The second world war? None of them. We have a rather nasty habit of being very smart in creating the circumstances required for us all to suddenly through great cataclysm get motivated enough to forget out founding principles.

Well, ancient cultures actually did have such a concept. In fact, many ancient cultures shared an awareness of what recent advances in the sciences now call the multiverse. The dogon not only have a celestial charting awareness which has baffled us for ages, their creation myths incorporate the conceptualisation of both this universe and the multiverse it is a part of. Not that this is limited to that tribe or even the African continent though. The really interesting part is that science is slowly progressing to a point where it is getting very close to what in earlier centuries was immediately dismissed because of centuries of short sighted religious persecution: the concept of prime cause growing ever more in the direction of the concept of prime mover. Even orientations such as the computational universe theories developed in the recent decades, or perhaps even especially. What we know today of the religion of christianity is that, seperate from the belief system underneath, it is an artificial construct. It was pieced together at several occasions through a man determined process of editing, selecting and discarding. That is not strange though, religion after all is the organised function of belief systems in service of men. It is incredibly prone to being abused. Christianity is in that regard one of the worst possible religions. That is not the same though as the belief underneath. The belief system was misused. That degrades the use of it, and the sharing, but it does not diminish core values or that which lies at the heart of the beliefs themselves. One of the most common instruments of religions to guard themselves against people noting these distinctions is what is known as the victimisation perception. It is an integral part of the religious education but even more importantly of the storytelling and the symbology. Let's be honest, what is our most common reflex when questions are asked? We feel attacked, questioned, we feel our values are being threatened. Perception management is an integral part of how religions abuse belief. Belief is individual, shared in and as a group, and tolerant. It does no harm, it does not enforce. Because it is part of the self, and not organised as an institute or instrument of man. Beliefs are never a problem between people, no matter how much one may disagree individually, because face to face there is always the relation of man to man in place. People may make mistakes, may even offend the other, but it remains on that level and thus is always open to an exchange of perspectives. The organised version of that puts that belief in service of the organisation. That is where things go wrong. The further the distance between people with differences in opinion the easier it is for circumstances to arise which keep those people divided. And ofcourse every organisation innately requires participation, the noses have to point the same way. That is where concepts like hierarchy and authority are introduced, but also where limits on discourse and exchange of information are injected. Every human organisation functions like this. Religions are not an exception in any way or form. But that is why beliefs reach out to learn, while religions reach out to teach. It is not without reason that religious groups all have their own versions of the Jesuit doctrine of "give me a child for 5 years and he is ours for life". Creationism is not a theory, it could be. In fact our science increasingly finds out as it evolves that there is a lot less divide between science itself and the ancient knowledge contained in the stories and symbologies of belief systems. But creationism is used as an instrument. And that, is what should immediately send up the red flag to anyone with an honest belief in god. Scripture teaches the dangers of the mentality that gives way to using belief in service of power, under many many guises. It is an honest shame that people with an honest belief remain unable to make these distinctions.

To be blunt, if a trend of lack of long term sales cannot be created, that is not something I would see as a bad thing. It would provide the starting elements of a potentially different commercial trend, where going broad but shallow could very well be replaced by a flexibility which would allow for going broad and deep with room for choice based provisioning across user types. Something I would find not just more satisfying, but which on a creative level would be just as wonderfully challenging as commercially satisfying. Unfortunately, that requires a mentality that goes beyond the short term target focus. If the decision point really were Maxis, you could have hope. But this is the strategic level, that of EA directives. The level of stuff rarely even told to the poor people who do the actual work at the studio level, so to speak. EA has a model of strict and controlled cycles of short term focus. Even that which some people here call the relentless milking of consumers with Sims 3 DLC content is such a series of short term cycle focus. It is a strategy developed to provide exactly for that scope. In many ways it even prevents the studio level from doing much of anything else, without even realising it. Look, sure, Maxis could shoot itself in the foot. But this is a global and leisure market project. You would have to nuke both legs to not meet required targets, not to mention desired targets. The sad part is that meeting desired targets faster than established required targets is what creates feasible room for creating what you are referring to, indeed possible strengthening that commercial road. Problem is, while that would be great for Maxis as a brand, it would be utterly averse to EA's strategic goals. Think about. Now I am not saying a studio cannot be smarter than the average publisher board staring at shiny graphs. But it is something that studios subject to publishers tend to not survive very well.

I once had a very interesting discussion with a professor of economics, who also was a priest. One of the things he mentioned is that time is an incentive from god to be proactive, but with god standing outside of man until that point of omega planned for man he stands outside of that reality which man shapes with the instruments given to him by god. A statement which after much further debate with not just him but several physicists present turned out to be perfectly in tune with not just theology, but also science. I can give a long piece of text on string theory, quantum foam, the relation between presence of an observer, perception of observer and reality states and so forth, but that would take matters too far. But you raise an interesting point. The part of days in the bible is a result not even of translation issues or even errors, but of selection issues. When the bible was put together (our modern day version of it was created not that long ago in our history at an in retrospect utterly strange and forced convention put in place by a roman emperor) it was a very messy process. A lot of texts were discarded because of politics, even simple hate of that which cannot be controlled, or directives of conversion put in place to make it easier to guide other beliefs into merging with christianity. Other texts were redacted, yet others were combined, and so forth. Not a single gospel was preserved in original form. What we today refer to as "days", as we now know from digging up precursor texts as well as finding original texts preserved over time) was not days, but ages. 6 ages of creation. Each age evolving, after prime instigation. As Einstein or Bohr would have said (actually have said) "a brilliant program". That is quite a difference, isn't it. It even avoids - out of simple clarity - having to face an issue of dealing with the notion of a god with its own perception or even reality. It simply is in line with both the human and the divine. 6 ages. Which incidentally are once again a perfect match to the evolution of the multiverse as science is managing to chart. Also incidentally, that is something which every precursor belief systems shares, whether it is the vedda's or the oral traditions of the dogon, the dreaming voids of precursor aboriginees, the creation tradition of the bushmen, the sun cults of the egyptian precursors or even further back to the origins of all the abrahamic religions, sumer. Among quite a few other things actually, but that aside. On the part of coming from apes, we are indeed apes. But we are also more than just genetics. Like every animal with an evolved or granted empathic capacity (depending on whether one adheres to empyrical science or scripture and/or both) man is more than the sum of parts. Quite a few other animals are as well. It's why quite a few saints and other by now holy figures took time and occasion to point out such things. Ok, sometimes it was a bit abused during history (for example how Christianity forbade the eating of horse meat because Germanic tribes had too much of a reverence for the animalistic during their conversion stages), but even today even the Catholic Church has clear doctrine on the place of empathy among the animals of this world and the responsabilities of mankind to them and the world that is shared. What is interesting is that the creation tale we find in the bible today is a derivative of a much more detailed and earlier set of creation tails. It is the same story for example that the tribes carried with them on the road to Kanaän once upon a time long ago. The short version we have today pretty much guarantees a conflict between the story and the science. Much the same way as earlier science of man guaranteed conflict between itself and that story. Yet again today we find increasing paralles in the analogies and symbolism between that tale and what science is slowly finding. Building blocks of DNA, the various elements used in splicing, but that too is going to take us far too much off track here. Suffice to say that our beliefs as preserved by our species are increasingly turning out to be established not just by belief, but also by science. What tends to confuse the matter is the symbologies in place in these "seperated" worlds of perception. As mentioned before, one of the best theorists today in string theory is an incredibly devout man who sees no divide between belief and science there, because it is a perfect match. It is just different names and analogies. We see the same pop up in genetics, biology, everywhere. As one scientist once told me "the problem is not who is right or wrong, the problem between us and the church is who's language is used to explain matters to people - it's like who gets to publish". Humorously ofcourse, but quite an intruiging statement. By the way, the Vatican has no issues whatsoever with the science of man being an evolution of an ape. It is perfectly in line with accepted doctrine of a man created by god in an evolution from alpha to omega, as from god to part of god in all things. Ofcourse that is not something people tend to be taught at sunday school, but it is interesting to get slapped with such a statement from a bishop as happened to me once. I can assure you, it really makes one raise an eyebrow or two, such a moment. Something funny, is an increasing shift in scientific communities, under the influence of emerging theories as quantum and string theory, of a computational universe. A universe which has a point of creation, and not just a point of coming in to existance. A universe model which also comprises an evolutionary model based on entropy and exergy unnervingly similar to concepts such as this relation of alpha and omega which many belief systems have known both individually and seperately over the course of history. Even those which tell a tale of several cycles of man across history know these very concepts, reincarnation or no reincarnation, indian or proto african or european. Intruiging isn't it. We as a species are too heavily influenced by our own very human tendencies to fall prey to behaviour that prioritises the self and here & now rather than the group and the future. It is the bane of our history. Even when we as a group make an effort to focus on group and future we tend to allow ourselves to have objectives in that be misused by individuals and misleading of the group dynamics. Most of our religions are textbook examples of those traps, unfortunately. As much good as some try to accomplish, we have to be honest. And we cannot fall prey to the trap of "yes but it also does good". If doing good requires doing bad than the price is simply not one to pay. Again something all ancient scriptures are rather clear on. We use people's beliefs in organised manners for the purpose of managing fear. On a psychological level it is understandable, that does not make it right however. Look at how we push ourselves to take texts literally. We know that words were given in different times, under different conditions, to different people, for specific circumstances and lessons. The words themselves are clear of that, and time and again the texts caution against that trap. Yet we push each other to reach for literal interpretation because if we can point to a written word it is equal to a concept of law. It is self justification, and that is something entirely different. We really should look at how conditions and matters were different, exactly because we are dealing largely with lessons, because it is not the lessons or the people that are that important, but the conditions themselves. After all, just about every god or gods we ever came up with (so to speak, obviously) warns us that history repeats itself if we do not study it and learn from it. We need to know what conditions result in what consequences under what circumstances. Only that way we can take a new road, and thus no longer fall prey to those same mistakes. We will make new ones yes, but that is the actual learning curve. It is the secret of life as god teaches it: choose, and choose again. At every fork in the road. Look back, learn who went where and how, and choose again and again. In doing so make the way go forward until it reaches god itself. It is an evolutionary concept present in our science, ir our theology, in our philosophy, everywhere. But no, deus le volt. Ergo <insert person, city or country of choice here> delenda est. God forbid we would use our brains and hearts together. So that the whole would be more than just the sum of parts.

I know, don't worry. I only replied for the slim but deserving chance that someone who actually is caught on the treshold between having belief and being religious reads this topic, and might have or take a moment to think without reflexively falling prey to the constraints of dogma or doctrine. Besides, if he does respond, chances are that it is going to be highly entertaining at worst, and at best a completely blatant red flag to anyone who might be on the edge of falling prey to becoming religious. Never bad odds

It's a current event because every day people kill each other because they challenge each other's beliefs, I'd say. Instrumentation in service of such ongoing conflicts is continuously relevant for discussion, and creationism is part of that instrumentation.

The visual is never seperate from gameplay. Human beings are guided by their senses. We even prioritise those senses based on stimuli and environmental conditions. One of the cornerstones of game theory and game design theory alike.

That last question is the crux of it. Justification for that will be based on the common tools of marketing for generating sales based on available allocation of resources for the studio. That limits the ability to thus provide for what is wanted / desired in consumer patterns. It is a resource determined decision process. What we do in the industry as such is prioritise that which we can provide cheaply. Think of content that does only requires art & packaging, but not development and much of QA. That this already is the chosen approach is visible in the marketing as well, the Sims "model" as such is a clear applied model to SC2013. And that is the strategic decision level. The level of design & development comes long after that. It does not decide these things, it can only "fill in" what the strategic targets and the resource allocations leave room for. The lifecycle of SC2013 is dependant on venture planning for a) strategic policies of EA (DRM, data / user profiling, tech evolution in service of) b) further title development by the studio (major part in what determines resource allocations for a studio), the ability of Maxis to provide DLC packaged feature sets on top of the more resource allocation friendly content sets and some other minor tidbits like the willingness of target user types (again, not "deep" gameplay fans of previous titles or even the broad concept of the simulation game) to keep using their wallet.