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EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis

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Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis

#51

Post by swang »

saganus wrote: post #26
calcsam wrote: post #9

Wow, 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.

DRM is _digital_ though, it was just called copyright protection back then.

And the Sierra adventure games had this form of copyright protection way before SimCity.

Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis

#52

Post by welly »

qmalxp wrote: post #3

I 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/

I'd be interested in a Sim Cockroach game. I reckon that would be even more fascinating than Sim Ant.

Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis

#53

Post by chao- »

prewett wrote: post #40
spiritplumber wrote: post #6

Westwood, 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?

On the plus side, it looks like there is a vacancy in the simulation game market...

Coincidentally I was just looking back into the state of city simulation games the other day. On my list of "Games I have played beyond any reasonable number of hours" is Sim City 4 with the various mods available. I was, like most, disappointed with the 2013 offering. Cities XL never really piqued my interest, and I've also switched entirely to Linux for my desktop needs.

Then the other day I heard about an upcoming title called "Cities: Skylines", which seems like it has promise from a gameplay standpoint. Even better, it's cross-platform to both Linux and Mac.

Edit: It's interesting that the recommended hardware for Linux is a lower bar than on Windows (see bottom of https://www.paradoxplaza.com/cities-skylines). Can anyone with a game dev or graphics background speculate on that?

Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis

#54

Post by Lordo »

m_mueller wrote: post #48
lmkg wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a strategy, it's better than being profitable: it's predictable. The forecasts for the upcoming financial quarters are much more likely to be accurate when you only work with known IP. The CEO is more beholden to analysts and stockholders than to customers. He has more to lose by failing expectations than he has to gain by exceeding expectations. Therefore, EA adopts a strategy that minimizes variance rather than…

This is pretty much how a deadly virus works, right? Infect a particular game brand (cell) by buying (infecting) it, generate enough new copies of the virus (selling the game), then destroy it and release the virus onto the next cells. If the analogy is correct, the game market will either die, find a cure and eject EA or EA adapts and finds a way to coexist such as not to kill the host cells anymore.

Hahah excellent analogy.

Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis

#56

Post by sb057 »

iamartnez wrote: post #45
kenrikm wrote: post #15

This is just my opinion, though semi-backed by conversations I've had with people who work at EA. EA Gameplan in a nutshell. 1) Force studio to make changes to a game that benefit the EA but have no tangible (or very little) benefit to the customers (Forcing use of Origin, Sims being online only, etc..) 2) Act surprised when the proverbial shit hits the fan with angry customers. 3) Let said customers know that "you'r…

What about DICE? And BioWare? I wonder if DICE came to the negotiation table more prepared and/or with something up their sleeve. It could be that EA is hands off so long as a studio produces highly profitable titles. As soon as there's a dip, snip snip.

It's widely agreed that Battlefield has been on the decline since 3 (3 being the first game released under EA). Bioware has been putting out exceedingly mediocre games since their purchase, not to mention are the laughing stock of many gamers.

Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis

#57

Post by ChuckMcM »

Kind of sad when I think back of some really awesome Maxis games like SimLife and SimAnt. But Maxis hasn't really been in a position to make the kinds of games they used to have they? Seems really odd to shut it down during GDC though, could make for some awkward badges over at the convention center.

Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis

#58

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #29

The 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.

Maxis Emeryville is Maxis. The Will Wright Maxis, the Sims, SimCity and Spore Maxis. The real Maxis, if you will.

There are some other things EA does under the Maxis brand, but that's just rebranded EA Play stuff. The Maxis people cared about is dead. (Though The Sims isn't, that was spun off into its own studio before Spore was made.)

Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis

#59

Post by pekk »

cpayne wrote: post #30
spiritplumber wrote: post #6

Westwood, 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.

I think about old Apple and Amiga games like SimLife... the Sims wasn't really in character for Maxis, it was a perfect EA game

Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis

#60

Post by omegaham »

troymc wrote: post #39
spiritplumber wrote: post #6

Westwood, 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?

EA has at least one other strategy, with EA Sports: every year they come out with a new and improved Football, Basketball, Hockey, Golf, etc. and people get it. Madden NFL has been going since 1988. To be fair, EA Sports did discontinue some of their less popular games, such as Rugby and Cricket.

And despite all of their shiny improvements, Madden 2005 and 2008 are considered the best from a gameplay and mechanics standpoint.
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