The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) Foundation has been getting a lot of newsprint lately. First, real orders came in; then mass production finally started. There's even been talk of Windows on the OLPC. More good news: since this is really a laptop for kids, EA's getting "in the game."
Today Electronic Arts Inc. announced the company will
donate the original SimCity™ — the blockbuster 1989 game credited with
giving rise to the city-building game genre—to each computer in the One
Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative. OLPC is a not-for-profit
humanitarian effort to design, manufacture and distribute inexpensive
laptops with the goal of giving every child in the world access to
modern education. By gifting SimCity onto each OLPC laptop, EA is
providing users with an entertaining way to engage with computers as
well as help develop decision-making skills while honing creativity.
This is the first time a major video game publisher has gifted a game
to the world.
While I have to applaud this move, it's not a FPS, dang it. And did you know you can play the original online for free anyway? At any rate, this will probably distract the kids, and keep them from surfing for porn, as earlier reports indicated --- we hope.