ninjasquirrel

Well, it's not really ironic, since his point is that EA needs to change its way of doing things.

I think there is room for both. Some franchises can easily last decades without changing their formula. This is an analogue to the same thing in TV Shows (Simpsons and Seinfeld, for example). If the formula is good, there's no reason (and absolutely nothing wrong with) not to put out more content within that formula. This applies particularly to EA's sports games. The actual sports are the same every year, with different players and stats, and people have been following them obsessively for ages. Why should the games be any different? There are other games which would stand better on their own (much like the first Matrix film). Some very good designs do not lend themselves well to repetition. Shadow of the Colossus, for example. Brilliant game. A masterpiece, even. A sequel under the same mechanics would be a terrible idea, though. The game was jsut long enough to exploit its strong points to the furthest possible. And then it ended.

So far the franchise has survived Sim City 64, Sim City for SNES, SimCopter, and Streets of Sim City. After running that gauntlet, I think that we can rest pretty easy that we are safe from a spinoff targetted at an already growing audience.

I promised myself I wouldn't get involved in any SCS discussions, but I can't resist jumping in at least once. Personally, what I have gotten from the interviews is that there was no real choice but to try a spinoff. The franchise NEEDS a new game now, or it will lose its brand value. That should be a big concern for all of us. If the brand value drops too low, I doubt we'll ever see another Sim City again, traditional or otherwise. Now, add to this the fact that Maxis is not available, and has no experience with 3D anyway. What they've been saying is not that SC4 is a complete game. They're saying that it does its job so well, that trying to get any other developer to try to outdo it on its own turf would be doomed to failure from day one. I can tell you right now, as a software developer, that having in-house domain knowledge is about as indispensable as actually having software developers. It took a decade of experience with the genre for Maxis to build SC4. It also takes longer than a few years to gather the talent from top-to-bottom within a company to create a 3D engine, especially a 3D engine that meets EA's expectations for quality. This sets the stage for the best time to try a new direction with the series, which they've been meaning to do for some time. It's impossible for them to get SC5 made in the traditional style and not have it fall short of SC4, so why bother trying? I'm trying to think of SCS as entry-level sim city. It will get people used to the idea of wanting to have a city that looks the way they want, rather than just being functional, which is, after all, the most challenging and rewarding aspect of SC4. Making a purely functional city is only a matter of solving the simulation. Making a beautiful city, on the other hand, that's the real challenge. I think we should be trying to nudge Tilted Mill into including just enough simulation to tie things in better with the main series, and focus on how to provide THIS challenge better. Just my two cents.

On that note, why doesn't someone just model Tokyo Sky City? It is a modern Arcology, or will be when it's finished. Looks really cool as well. Not to mention they show you a 3d model of it from all sides.