SimCity 5 Passed Off From Maxis

CVG is reporting that Maxis, makers of the venerable Sim City series, has passed development of Sim City 5 to another company. The new developer, Tilted Mill Entertainment, will be finishing the game. In a departure from the series, it is not going to be a realistic urban simulator. President & Director of Development Chris Beatrice responds to criticism of that choice: "...I do not want to mislead anyone: This SC is not a realistic urban simulation, which I understand, to many, represents the heart of what SC is. No one is blind to that. And if you're just completely turned off, even angered by the mere notion of any game called 'SimCity' that is not a detailed, realistic urban simulator, I absolutely understand that viewpoint, and absolutely respect it. I do want to say, though (with no insult intended to die hard SC fans) that we are absolutely thrilled to be a part of this venerable series, are extremely proud of what we have put together, and make no apologies about what we have managed to create. And while our past experiences (including contributions from many of you) certainly inform all our ongoing efforts, this SC is its own unique creation."

Comments

Strange?

[Zironic]

Isn't it somehow deceiving to take an established franchise, just increase the number counter and then completely change the very core of the franchise?

I thought normal decency at least demanded you use a naming convention like Sim City: XXX.

I love the Sim City series and hope that it won't get dragged in the mud now in the newest installment. Caesar IV wasn't a very good game but there's always hope that a developer can improve isn't there?

Re:Strange?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you RTFA, you'll notice it is NOT being called SimCity 5, but "SimCity Societies" because since it is such a radical departure they did not want to increment the number by 1, but rather give it a completely different name.

RTFA

[Shihar]

They are not going to call it SimCity 5. They are currently searching for a new name BECAUSE it will be so unlike the other SimCity games. The name they are working for SimCity Societies. What the hell the game is going to be about if it isn't a quasi-realistic city simulator is beyond me, but it looks like they are not going to just notch the counter up one. Think Fallout Tactics instead of Fallout 3. Though, comparing anything to Fallout Tactics is probably not a good way to reassure a fan of the original game.

Re:RTFA

[Speare]

My vote is for Sim City: Crystalline Power World, with lots of anime-spiky-haired disaffected youths in all of the council seats, and a galaxy police starship floating overhead whenever the yakuza get too organized.

Just can't win with some people...

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

Gaming is constantly being dogged by how unoriginal it is and how most major games are just slightly prettier rehashes of older ones, and how evrything these days is a formulaic sequel. So Maxis have changed that. They've actually decided to try something new with an established series, even using new developers to do so, and what do they get? "Waaah! It's not a REAL SimCity", "Maxis have ruined my childhood memories". Boo-fucking-hoo. They've tried something new. So what. Everything from Simcity 2000 has been basically the same game anyway, so if you're really that intent on playing the same old thing you've already got three games to choose from. For everyone with an open mind, well maybe they'll find something fresh and slightly original thanks to a developer going out and doing something different with an established franchise for a change. If it sucks and the new concept tanks then you be damn sure Simcity 6 will be back to the old formula again, so it's worth the risk isn't it?

Sounds like that old sim village concept

[majortom1981]

This could actually be a cool game. Combine the best aspects of The Sims and Sim City and you could have a huge game. Things like building your city also effects your sim. Say you build a garbage dump next to your sims house. Then the house value goes down and your sim itself starts changing. You decide to nock down a school, your sims kids grades start going down because of class overcrowding. This can be a huge game, Basic city building with basic sim management but heavy interaction between the two. Open yourself up to a new idea and you will see the potential in this.

hmmm

[nomadic]

Judging by the state of the game industry, the new one will somehow be a WW2 FPS.

Re:I Hate SimCity

[T.E.D.]

My stupid cities always eventually went bankrupt.

Marion Barry reads Slashdot? Who knew?

Re:Open Source SimCity - the real thing!

[SimHacker]

I'm working with EA and the OLPC project, to make the original version of SimCity Classic open source. It's currently going through EA's QA process right now, and the legal department is working on their end of the deal. This sort of stuff always takes a long time to complete, but Will Wright wants it to happen, so I'm optimistic it will.

Once all the QA and legal stuff is done, we're going to release an updated version for the OLPC of the original X11/TCL/Tk version I developed for Unix about 15 years ago, which supports cooperative multi player mode (voting, chat, shared whiteboard, etc), and I've heavily optimized it so it runs really fast. After it's released, then we're going to adapt it to the OLPC's "Sugar" user interface, which is based on GTK and Cairo. SimCity will be scriptable in Python, of course! We'll rewrite the multi player mode on top of Sugar's standard networking libraries, instead of directly opening multiple X11 connections, as it currently does.

Some ideas about SimCity on the OLPC:
SimCity for OLPC (One Laptop Per Child): Applying Papert's Ideas About Constructionist Education and Teaching Kids to Program.

I'm already developing some of the software components required to port SimCity to the OLPC, including pie menus and a tile engine:
Pie Menus for OLPC Sugar User Interface, in Python with GTK, Cairo and Pango modules.
[OLPC-Games] Efficient general purpose tile engine, and a cellular automata machine.

-Don