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Items tagged with SimCity
Word is out that Electronic Arts has closed down Maxis Emeryville, the studio responsible for the buggy SimCity remake and, more recently, The Sims 4. Guillaume Pierre, a designer and lead gameplay scripter for SimCity, first revealed the news on Twitter saying, "Well it was a fun 12 years, but it's time to turn off the lights and put the key under the door. RIP Maxis Emeryville." Subsequent tweets would clarify that yes, "the shop is closing down," followed by confirmation from EA once the news spread. The timing really couldn't have been worse, as EA dropped the bombshell right in the middle...
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It might have taken nearly an entire year, but EA and Maxis have finally announced that the biggest complaint SimCity has received since launch is soon to remedied. That's right: Offline mode is en route. In an official blog post, Maxis' Patrick Buechner says that this is an announcement he's wanted to make for "quite some time", and while an offline mode seems to explain itself, there's more than one reason why the patch will be issued. The biggest reason, of course, is that people have demanded for it since the game launched last spring, but perhaps more interesting at this point is this: Bringing...
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If you've ever been to Disneyland or Disney World (or any of the five theme parks around the world, then you've seen at least a glimpse of Tomorrowland. Maybe you thought to yourself, "That's not how I envision the future." Well, what does your version of the future look like? One way you can show it is with the upcoming SimCity Cities of Tomorrow expansion pack. The first DLC for SimCity will be available on November 12, 2013. If you decide to snag it, you'll be able to take your current cities that you've already worked so hard on and transform them in into futuristic looking buildings and roads....
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The modern version of SimCity just can't seem to enjoy a smooth launch. When it was released to Windows PCs back in March, users complained about the lack of offline play and problems connecting to overburdened servers. Now several months later, SimCity launches to the Mac platform, and once again, gamers are having trouble. Several posts on EA's forums detail issues gamers are having getting the game to run properly. The complaints aren't limited to a single system, either, but a range of Macs, including brand new Retina MacBook models. One user complained of having to reinstall Origin five times...
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Would-be mayors gaming on an Apple Mac were promised a version of SimCity for their platform of choice on June 11, though as it goes with politics (and game release dates), you can't always believe what you hear. If you had hopes of spending your summer vacation playing SimCity on your Mac, you'll have to resort to plan B, if you have one, because Maxis made the decision to move the release date to August. Apparently it wasn't an easy one to make. "We have made this tough decision because we do not believe it is ready for prime time yet," Maxis stated in a blog post. "We want to ensure the Mac...
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Maxis is prepping the first "major" patch for SimCity, which is set to launch this coming Monday at around 1PM PST. While I'd argue that it's bizarre to issue a major update to a game in the middle of the day like this, this particular patch looks to be well worth it. In addition to a slew of bugs being fixed, the HUD has been improved for colorblind mode and mayors will now drive their fanciest vehicles around - cars, helicopters, limos and sports cars. Ahh, to be king. Taking care of complaints that casinos are not profitable enough, those have been improved upon with this patch. Unfortunately,...
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When it comes to creative advertising potential, it's hard to beat a game like SimCity. In most titles, the idea of in-game advertising makes little sense. Sarah Kerrigan doesn't shop at Victoria's Secret, Booker DeWitt is an unlikely fan of Coca-Cola, and the post-apocalyptic setting of Metro 2033 isn't exactly prime McDonald's turf. But SimCity? SimCity is a game where it makes perfect sense to integrate real-world brands and buildings. A city filled with familiar logos and advertising is a city that more closely resembles the real world. That's undoubtedly why EA decided to partner with Crest...
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At this point, after its CEO resigned in the aftermath of a launch fiasco, a couple of rounds of worker layoffs, and being voted “Worst Company in America”, Electronic Arts is probably in “screw it” mode. To that effect, the company announced that it’s killing off a trio of its Facebook games. The Sims Social, SimCity Social, and Pet Society will all be shut down on June 14th. In a blog post, EA staff stated, “After millions of people initially logged in to play these games, the number of players and amount of activity has fallen off. For people who have seen...
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Electronic Arts is not in a good way these days. After the recent disastrous launch of SimCity, which led to the ignominious resignation of CEO John Riccitiello, the company was voted as the Worst Company in America. Now the company has confirmed a round of layoffs, which follow layoffs in Montreal and L.A. this February. Polygon believes this round will be focused on EA’s Montreal studio; EA did not release numbers on how many people would be let go. EA says that it’s streamlining operations and that it’s attempting to retrain or relocate as many employees as possible. As always,...
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SimCity is headed to the big Apple, not to be confused with the Big Apple (New York City). We're talking about the Mac platform, with availability scheduled for June 11, 2013, Electronic Arts (EA) announced in a forum post today. For those who already own the PC version of SimCity, they'll receive the Mac version at no additional cost, and vice versa. Why won't the Mac version be available sooner? EA says Maxis is creating a native version optimized for Mac OS X as opposed to a simple port, hence the June launch. There will be standard and Digital Deluxe versions, both of which will be available...
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EA CEO John Riccitiello has resigned from his post after six years as the top man and the previous seven as COO. In all, Riccitiello has been with the company since 1997, but he’s leaving under a cloud. The company missed its financial goals of the last year and also this quarter, but most will point to the ill-fated launch of SimCity as the reason that he’s leaving--or at least, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The launch of SimCity earlier this month was a total fiasco from start to finish, top to bottom. EA and its subsidiary Maxis did not have the back end ready...
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For the past nine days, Maxis has been caught in a firestorm of epic proportions. Having failed to beta test the game appropriately or account for actual server loads, Maxis' SimCity servers disintegrated under the onslaught of people wanting to play a game they paid for. Since launch day, company executives and representatives have remained steadfast on one point -- the game must be played online. "With the way that the game works, we offload a significant amount of the calculations to our servers so that the computations are off the local PCs and are moved into the cloud. It wouldn't be possible...
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Electronics Arts over the weekend announced that it's been able to improve server response time by 40x for its new SimCity title, thus reducing serving server downtime due to its decision to incorporate a DRM scheme that requires a persistent Internet connection. Not a moment too soon, EA also noted that the number of SimCity players has doubled since the title launched. There's still more work to be done. "The situation is good, but not good enough," said Lucy Bradshaw, General Manager of EA's Maxis Label. "And since my boss is one of the negatively affected (!) - we’re still driving hard...
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If nothing else, give Electronics Arts (EA) credit for acknowledging how "dumb" it was to not be fully prepared for the demand its SimCity game would attract, given that the publisher is insisting on a DRM scheme that requires an always-on Internet connection. Unfortunately, that's not where the boneheaded decisions end, that's just the beginning. To make matters worse, EA offered frustrated gamers a refund, only to renege on that promise. If you're a publisher wondering how not to launch a product, just follow EA's lead on this one. All that said, EA is at least attempting to make nice with angry...
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