Is not the original SimCity, now called Micropolis, open source and part of the OLPC project distro?
Still, really sad to see Maxis axed.
EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis
21–30 of 204 posts
Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis
#22Westwood, Origin, Bullfrog, Maxis.... EA's strategy seems to be "Buy studio, make them shovel a couple incomplete games out of the door, close studio, repeat." Okay, they're asshats. What I don't get is, how does this make them any money? They're basically strip-mining the games industry, is this really more profitable than actually making good games?
Eliminating competition.
I hope that is EA's strategy, as it will end them.
The overhead of entering the games industry is cheaper than ever, and as a result we are seeing more and more independent game developers successfully penetrating the market.
Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis
#23I was just thinking today about how cool a modern open world version of SimAnt would be. Oh well. Edit: Someone posted a link to this but then it got deleted: http://www.formicarium.org/
[deleted]
Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis
#24I was just thinking today about how cool a modern open world version of SimAnt would be. Oh well. Edit: Someone posted a link to this but then it got deleted: http://www.formicarium.org/
Just found this... looks promising. http://www.java-gaming.org/index.php?PHPSESSID=jlcj75c7a3d1v...
Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis
#25Westwood, Origin, Bullfrog, Maxis.... EA's strategy seems to be "Buy studio, make them shovel a couple incomplete games out of the door, close studio, repeat." Okay, they're asshats. What I don't get is, how does this make them any money? They're basically strip-mining the games industry, is this really more profitable than actually making good games?
Eliminating competition.
Pretty good strategy from a financial perspective if you consider game purchasing to be a zero-sum game. If your average consumer is willing to spend $XX on games, and $YY is going to solid competitor ZZ, then acquiring and shutting down ZZ, removing them from the game industry, frees up that $YY to be spent on EA games.
What I don't understand about that strategy is what prevents the acquired employees from re-forming as a new company? Are there non-competes in place? Is it difficult to get financing to form a AAA game company? I'm presuming that, regardless of what happens, it takes a while.
Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis
#26Wow, an icon of my childhood gone. If you're an affected developer, shoot me an email & I'll be happy to put you in our pipeline.
Icon is the correct term.
SimCity had one of the earliest form of DRM I remember. The almost-impossible to Xerox manual (highly reflective paper so photocopies would come black) was used to answer a question the game asked you, about the population of a specific city on a certain page of the manual.
Loosing the manual was not an option.
Farewell Maxis.
Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eliminating competition.
I hope that is EA's strategy, as it will end them. The overhead of entering the games industry is cheaper than ever, and as a result we are seeing more and more independent game developers successfully penetrating the market.
I personally agree. But consider none of this is on the radar of the stereotypical MBA/middle manager/C-level execs/...
Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eliminating competition.
I hope that is EA's strategy, as it will end them. The overhead of entering the games industry is cheaper than ever, and as a result we are seeing more and more independent game developers successfully penetrating the market.
EA has been around for 30 years though, so whatever they are doing, it works - what I don't understand is why does it work.
Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis
#29The title (and of the article) is inaccurate. The title talks about Maxis as a whole closing, but the article and third party sources list just one (admittedly BIG) location closure.
The Maxis brand may very well continue and appears to be operating at other physical locations.
Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis
#30Westwood, Origin, Bullfrog, Maxis.... EA's strategy seems to be "Buy studio, make them shovel a couple incomplete games out of the door, close studio, repeat." Okay, they're asshats. What I don't get is, how does this make them any money? They're basically strip-mining the games industry, is this really more profitable than actually making good games?
I think that is the point - it isn't making them money!
When you think of the brand "Maxis", what do you think? Either the Sims or Sim City.
But the brand EA is a far more recognisable (and valuable).
Like it or not, EA buys a company, milks it for what its worth, then kill it off.