Xenocity

EA did state back in the day that Simcity 4 failed to breakeven. Simcity 2013 is actually closer to 4 million now. It already blew past the 3 million mark at the last EA financial report. Simcity 2013 has been modestly profitable for EA, but is not as profitable as EA hoped. With development costs doubling every few years in the West, most games struggle to sell enough to breakeven.

Actually hardcore gamers do not play simulators, especially city simulators and builders. They make fun of people who do. The main genre which hardcore gamers play are first person shooters, with it's flagship gaming being Call of Duty. Simcity has always been seen as a casual/kiddy/nerdy game that hardcore gamers wouldn't touch if you paid them. So if you play Simcity (or any other simulator and/or city builder) you are either a casual gamer, kiddy gamer, or nerdy (maybe all 3). But you aren't a hardcore gamer/real gamer according to market research (yes market research is heavily used to determine what developers produce and to segment gamers). Maxis literally broke the bank trying to make a full 3D city simulator in the late 90s according to Will Wright interviews. This game was supposed to be Simcity 3000, but due to development hell and PC specs, Maxis was forced to develop Simcity 3000 as an isosymetric game to pull of psuedo 3D graphics. The full 3D city simulator was delayed and was shifted to be come Simcity 4, but EA now in control of Maxis and canned the project due to costs and sales projects. Maxis by this time had spent the better part of 8 years and countless millions making a full 3D city simulator. EA ordered Maxis to develop a traditional Simcity, which became Simcity 4. Simcity 4 and Rush Hour both sold so badly, Rush Hour selling only to 1/3rd of the Simcity 4 base, prompted Maxis to cancel all the expansion packs they were working on. Maxis also stopped development of all patches they were working on and let modders fix Simcity 4. EA and Maxis then employed market research to find out why majority of the people who bought Simcity 3000/3000U didn't even bother to buy Simcity 4. According to Will Wright in his last interview before he left Maxis stated majority of the responses stated Simcity 4 was too complicated for the majority of Simcity fans. He claimed that plans were in the works to reboot Simcity franchise into a much simplier game to meet majority of the Simcity fans who refused to purchase Simcity 4. Simcity 3000/3000U sold over 5M+ according to EA, Simcity 4 struggled to hit 1M in 2005 at the last sales update. EA has not updated numbers since then and will only mention Simcity 3000/3000U, because it is currently the best selling mainline title. As much as it pains me to say this, EA is best off making Maxis a Sims only studio and killing all other simulation based projects. There is very little money in making a simulator of any sort. @Robotica Bayonetta sold so bad with the orignal game, that Sega canned the sequel and the other games Platinum had in development. No publisher was willing to Bayonetta 2 or any other canned games until Nintendo came along. The question is did Bayonetta sell better or worse than Simcity 4?

The famed well respected British Medical Journal has conducted a study regarding Nintendo's systems on human heath. This study runs from NES to current, includes handhelds and motion controls. People have reported: Seizures called Nintendo epilepsy Fecal soiling Daytime enuresis Neck pain aka Nintendo neck Nintendo elbow Nintendo hallucinations Tendiniti aka nintendinitis Ulcerative nintendinitis Wiitis (can affect any part of the body) Wii knee Other document health issues Some have been life threatening. Have you ever experienced a health issue playing a Nintendo system? http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g7267

Well not all action games do well :kitty: Bayonetta 1 failed to sell at full price on PS3 and 360, barely shipped 1M globally, though we don't know how well it sold at $20 or less. It could have stopped selling. Bayoneta 1&2 on Wii U is nearing 1/3rd the sales of the original game, despite the ~7M Wii Us owned. There are others action games and shooters that failed to do well too. But yeah there is no point for any company to make a game that struggles to profit.

I'd be surprised if EA allowed Maxis to build a new Simcity any time soon. EA has finally been taken over by angry share holders who plan to make the company much more profitable. They also plan to axe anything that isn't decently profitable and monetizable. Despite Simcity 2013 on track to being the best selling mainline title, the profits are quite modest. Though Simcity Buildit has past 15th million download and is more profitable thanks to mobile users and Smart Gamers (yes those who game on a mobile device non handheld are called smart gamers). The key problem is City Simulators and City builders are together quite niche in the market, while being quite expensive to develop. This is in part due nature of the games and their stigma of being kiddy, casual, and nerdy. The real/true/hardcore gamer, you know the ones that play sports and shooters don't bother to with simulators of any sort (if you don't play those games, then you aren't a real/true/hardcore gamers according to market research). Nor does the mass market. Simcity (and some other issues) bankrupted Maxis in 1997, forcing them to find a buyer or liquidate (EA was the only one wiling to buy them). Cites XL bankrupted the developer Monte Cristo in 2000 (or was it 2001). Cities XXL, Skyline, and others may turn out to be decent games, but don't expect them to sell enough to make any real profit. I for one see City Simulators and City Builders going away due to high development costs and low sales.

However, Nintendo has decided to discontinue Club Nintendo in favour of a brand new membership loyalty scheme, with information on this upcoming programme coming in due course. As a special offer for those that sign up for the new scheme during the launch period, users will all receive a free copy of long-awaited 3DS eShop drawing application Flipnote Studio 3D. EU Club Nintendo: NA Club Nintendo: Japan's Club Nintendo has already closed it's doors. NoA says there will be a bunch of new digital and physical prizes for users to redeem next month. We will also get Flip Note 3D for free via Club Nintendo NA next month as well. North American users will have until March 31st to achieve Gold and Platinum status. Rewards will be digital and be released on April 1st and be redeemable until through the end of April. Details on the new program will be announced soon. http://www.cubed3.com/news/23184/1/club-nintendo-to-be-discontinued-worldwide.html

Samsung has made a bid to buy BlackBerry for as much as $7.5 Billion (Over 60% of current market value) Samsung is currently the biggest cell phone and mobile device maker the in world, while also controlling over 60% of the Android market share. Samsung has long wanted to leave Android in the dust for its own OS, Tizen. Due to issues regarding the development of Tizen and the near universal praise for BBX OS, it makes sense that Samsung is wanting BlackBerry. Samsung has wanted to lock customers into their own iOS/Windows style ecosystem to preserve sales and push profits. If Samsung does go through with this and uses BBX, it would cause Android to lose it's biggest player and its sole profitable player. What does this mean for Android's global market share? If Samsung was to switch to BBX at the time of purchase it would result in Android losing 45% (75% market share X Samsung's 60% market share) of it's global market share. It would leave Android with 30% market share handing iOS the crown! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-samsung-makes-takeover-approach-205037341.html Reuter's via Yahoo!

That is true, especially with the tumbling Canadian dollar and the 15%+ tax on goods and most services. There is nothing like listening to my dad and his brother complaining about Canadian VAT taxes and the inferior Canadian goods (they regularly have to go there for work). Since I live an hour from the Detroit border crossing, I can tell you all the Canadians from Ontario are over here by the bus loads shopping at Great Lakes Crossing and the other malls. Despite hearing about all the Mexicans being over here, I swear we have more Canadians. I've always wonder what the ratio is of Canadians to Americans at Great Lakes Crossing. We even have them on our local news as well, talking about how great the quality of shopping and products are here compared to Ontario. If you think that's bad, go to the one of the hospitals and specialists on any given day and you'll find tons of Canadians waiting for American healthcare. But to be fair to Target, Canadians tend to favor avoid American businesses (which is also taught in ever U.S. econ and business class at the college level) These American companies are having trouble in Canada too: McDonald's (yeah they do better in France and India than in Canada) Apple Google (Canadians don't want their tablets and phones. Much like Apple, they are getting raked over the coals by Canadian regulators) Wendy's Walmart (They do better in Japan) KFC Starbucks (They say only foreigners buy Starbucks in Canada) Fox News (They are banned from operating in Canada) CNN (They have huge restrictions placed on them) Gamestop/EB games (They do better business in Australia) American oil companies Microsoft (Canadians won't be caught dead in a Microsoft store and they are regularly on Canadian news for encouraging violence) American Banks (You better have a credit card or come loaded with cash to spend) There are many more companies. Maybe Burger King will have better luck since they now own Tim Hortons. I honestly can't name an American or even a foreign business that has done well in Canada. Amazon did alright for itself, though the rest of the world was more accepting. Well if all the talk about Canada eventually being absorbed, finally comes true, then Target won't have anything to worry about.

Did you get invited to Notch's [Creator of Minecraft] over the top Hollywood style housewarming party? Has all that Microsoft money corrupted Notch?

Samsung has officially hired Lee Don-tae to take over the designing of Samsung products, especially their phones. What makes Lee Don-tae special? He worked right along side Jonny Ive's at Ive's design studio back in the UK. They decided he was closest fit to Jonny Ive's outside of getting Ive's himself. This was after Samsung's intensive investigation into Jonny Ive's background, places he went to, products he bought, and interviewing those who might have interacted with him in any fashion. Why is Samsung going to great lengths to do hire these people? It's part of their plan to reboot Samsung brand into a brand that rivals Apple and others in the public eye. Samsung is also trying to design and build products that review and sell as well as Apple. They are also trying to find closest people to the key Apple employees including Tim Cook. Maybe the soon to announce Galaxy S6 will be turning over of a new leaf. Yes Samsung is gearing up for it's 5th new Galaxy phone release in under a year's time. Who's hoping for original designs and quality products from the King of Android?

That explicit denial doesn't work. Companies only issue explicit denials when they aren't ready to reveal the deal in question. I mean we have heard since late 2011 of Samsung engaging BB for a buyout or license. The market is a giant rumour mill. Anyone who believes this might well take a bath. There are far worse "rumors" to believe. Samsung has actively been looking to kill Android with a passion in order to compete more successfully. Samsung aslo has been caught spying on people lining up for Apple's iPhones and interviewing them on why they are doing it (they tried posing as journalists but were found out to be Samsung employees). They even recorded footage. Samsung has been spotted head hunting at Duke University (Tim Cook's alma mater) in AL, in order to find someone close enough to his mind set (yes they are avidly looking for a gay guy). etc... BBX is highly reviewed mobile OS, which people seem to like.

Actually Tizen was supposed to be a fork of Android, but they ended up partnering with Intel to make a new OS. That explicit denial doesn't work. Companies only issue explicit denials when they aren't ready to reveal the deal in question. I mean we have heard since late 2011 of Samsung engaging BB for a buyout or license.

Android was a stop gap OS for them, until Tizen was ready. What has developed is Android users aren't loyal and rarely buy apps of any price. Also Android is current in a race to the bottom when it comes to prices, which has destroyed all Android profits. Lastly Google has massive judgement against them for using Java without a license. This has forced Samsung to sped up their transition away from Android in order to compete against Apple (who is the most profitable cell phone and device maker) I'd rather see the death of Android in favor for an iOS X BB X Windows fight. I hate Google for their big data tactics.

You mean that he no longer has to conform to your expectations of him as a humble small time indie developer who made a good game that one time? No! He spent the last two years on Twitter, socia media, and interviews lambasting developers for selling out for money. He also stated he'd give the majority of the money to charity, if he sold out. He lastly stated he would remain humble and not live it up, because those people disgusted him. He brought it on himself.

Those threads posted details how the demand caps and regional economy works in Simcity 4 forcing you to actually build up the region to achieve maximum development of a given city. Neither Simcity 2013 and Simcity 4 are fully playable as intended by Maxis. They are playable sure, but if you want either game to be fully playable you have to add mods, even those made by Maxis. Both games are as playable as Assassins Creed Unity and Halo: MCC (on Xbox One) [These are two of the buggiest games released in recent memory] As for Simcity 4, the original release was critically bug ridden and proned to crashing. Part of this was due to the minimum specs needed to run SC4 listed on box and the game wasn't playing nice with certain graphic cards. Simcity fans were quite vocal over the fact they had to upgrade their computers to fully run the game. Rush Hour fixed some of the issues. Then one more patch was released online to address more bugs. Maxis then announced all their planned expansion packs and patches were canceled due to the low sales of Simcity 4 and disasterious sales of Rush Hour (Only 1/3rd of Simcity 4 owners bought the pack). So Maxis opened the game up to modders, so the modders could fix the game and stop complaining about how broken the game was. Simcity 2013's problems came from the development schedule and from market research on why Simcity 4 is the lowest selling main line Simcity title. Maxis was not allowed to delay Simcity 2013, due to EA holding firm on the Windows release. Maxis also admitted to scaling down the Glassbox engine, so users wouldn't have to upgrade their PCs to play the game. Maxis didn't want a repeated of the Simcity 4 launch. Anyways before Will Wright left Maxis in 2008, he said that Simcity 4 had become too complicated for most fans, causing Simcity 4 to be a disaster sales wise (it might not have broke 1 million sales yet, since EA quit releasing the numbers for it some time ago). Simcity 2013 still could use a few more patches to fix many lingering bugs. Right now Simcity 3000 is still the best selling mainline Simcity game with over 5 million copies sold, with Simcity 2013 right behind it in sales. FYI: Simtropolis is the home to the main Simcity 4 and Simcity 2013 modding communities. Both boards have open threads where you can post your suggestions. The Simcity 4 board has a modding thread where they take advice and discuss what they plan on fixing next.

If you think that's bad, you've obviously never played Simcity 2000 Network Edition and Simcity 2000 (Saturn). Those 2 versions have more content and features than Simcity 3000/3000U, Simcity 4 Deluxe and Simcity 2013 put together.

Maybe you have a special version. anyways if anyone is interested on how much more interconnected Simcity 4 cities, can read these threads. http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/58542/whats-the-exact-population-limit-at-which-demand-for-agriculture-disappears You cannot reach the higher stages of development in Simcity 4 without developing the region as a whole. Simcity 2013 on the other hand does not require regional development to reach the highest level of development. NAM was created to fix the traffic pathfinding problem present in Simcity 4.

Welcome to the world of mobile gaming. People won't pay more than $5 for most apps on iOS and most android users wont pay for most apps. Yet iOS users love shelling out money for IAP (instead of paying a higher price for a full game), while Android users try to pirate them. Though this game does remind me of Simcity creator on DS. The main mode requires resoure managmenet to grow your city. The resources change depending on the peroid of history you are in. Though you unlock everything through the main mode for use in the free play mode (normal Simcity style).

You need factories!

I'm being honest. I've played SC4 for 11 years now. Before NAM, your sims wouldn't travel more than few titles to get to work, school, shopping, healthcare, etc... This would lead to your Sims abandoning residential zones after a few simulated months, complaining about a lack jobs, commercial zones, and/or public services. Thus your city's population would regularly go through boom and bust. This literally made Simcity 4 near impossible to have functioning city that isn't a small title. Commercial and industry would go through a cycle of development and abandonment due to the frieght, lack of workers (even though your city has tons of unemloyed sims), and/or lack of customers. This was the first of two critical errors in the game that left the game barely playable for medium and large cities. It also grealty impacted the regional economy. Second major error is the demand caps that requires you to build up the regions. This first demanad cap is ~50k, which will cause the full RCI to crash leading to a hugely negative demand until your city's population hits ~30k. The second demand cap is ~200k. which does the exact samething and causes your population to crash down to ~150k. I think there is a third demand cap. This means no city on it's own in a region can sustain a population of 50k+. Cities have to be interconnected to grow beyond the demand caps. You cannot turn off the demand caps at all. Simcity 2013 doesn't have these demand caps and does not mandate interconnected regions. They are optional (though on by default). You can stop your cities in Simcity 2013 from sharing nearly everything. The only things that cannot be turned off are workers, shoppers, and tourists (many of them come from no where). There is already a lot of mods and custom content for Simcity 2013. It is much easier to mod Simcity 2013, because Maxis made it very easy to mod and gave tools the out. You can download mods that modify the simulation and expand the boundries of your cities. There are mods that allow you to put a McDonalds and other original ploppable. There are mods that allow you to put different kinds of roads in your city that aren't in the main game, including one ways and highways. There is a mod that turns the Mangavel rails into subways. etc... Simtropolis alone has over 500+ mods for Simcity 2013 and the number grows every month. This is much faster rate than Simcity 4 modding. Lastly Simcity 4 is horribly unoptimized causing it to crash frequently even on high end hardware. I don't have this problem running Simcity 2013 on OSX and Windows.

You need to put the mods in the proper folder. Most go into the SimCityData folder, the rest go into the SimCityUserData. You find these folders by going into Finder > Applications. Right click on Simcity 2013 Click "Show Package Contents" From there Contents Folder > Resources > SimCityData (or SimCityUserData). Also make sure to follow the instructions on the mod page.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/24780/ It's $5 for Simcity 4 Deluxe currently on Steam. The though beware the game itself broken and requires mods such as NAM to make it playable. The simulation is riddled with issues that makes you want to give up. The data view is awful and makes addressing issues in you city that much harder. Region interconnectivity isn't as good. Though on positive, you have a large amount of room to build and can use customized maps. It's a decent city builder running on an awful city simulator.

Despite the hate for this game, it has the best simulation to date. This game became decent around update 6. I have trouble going back to Simcity 4 and 2000, due to the dated simulations and data views.

This! Once you get enough residents of all classes to fully power the Academy, it will get the add ons to give you more Controlnet. Then you can unlock the controlnet producing building that you can build in your other cities.

I asked for a simply answer but that's too much! Ok, the addon is not bugged but as I said there are 1308 $ unemployed sims and in my hospital (built near the $ residential zone) there are 32 $ job: it's kinda a joke that on 1308 people there are not 32 that wanna work in an hospital. I can't understand that thing about Silicon Valley Sillicon Valley folk are supposedly extremely entitled picky people who complain to no end. This is why the sims are never happy.