There are a very few computer games that have acquired classic status in the Spike hall of fame. “Railroad Tycoon”, “Roller-coaster Tycoon”, “Civilisation”, “Total War” and of course “SimCity”.
The first version of SimCity was released in 1989 and was re-released in a various upgraded forms until the last iteration, SimCity 4, some ten years ago. Then the designer, Will Wright, went off to design one of the biggest selling franchises of all time, The Sims; leaving SimCity fans to continue tweaking SimCity with user developed add-ons and dreaming of a new version.
So there was some excitement in the SimCity world when a new version was announced as being under development last year, and an orgasm of anticipation when it was finally released this week. So how come one of the trending hashtags on Twitter over the past couple of days has been #simshitty?
The basis of SimCity has always been the same. Start with a plot of land and some money. Lay down some roads and zone some land for residential, industrial and commercial development. Then sit back and watch as buildings are erected and your population rises. As mayor, you spend money servicing your city and gain income from taxes. All you have to do is keep your citizens happy and and have money in the bank.
Early on, it is quite easy. You have to make sure there is adequate power and water and garbage disposal. Roads will need to be upgraded, fire, police and ambulance services will be required; and don’t forget a school to educate your citizens. But as your city grows, so do your problems. Pollution is an increasing threat, fires and crime running out of control, gridlock, a populace that wants more open spaces, more entertainment, more everything; as they grow more wealthy and sophisticated. Add on the threat of natural disasters and keeping your city running smoothly can be quite a challenge.
The great thing about SimCity though has always been that the underlying complexity of the simulation has never been something the player has to understand and work with. The controls of the game are simple; even if it’s sometimes not completely clear what impact your decisions are having on your creation. The other refreshing aspect of the game is that you can’t win (or lose). It’s down to you as to how you want to develop your city, and no two cities are ever the same. I have spent many a happy week building and refining a city; and the bulldozing entire blocks to change part of the design.
It’s also very pretty, especially the latest version:
Ah yes, the latest version. Known simply as SimCity, or more commonly Simshitty. It’s not going very well.
In this connected world, the designers thought it would be cool to have cities connected. So they came up with the idea of regions. In a region you can find up to sixteen cities. Maybe all the cities in the region are being built by a one player; or maybe multiple players around the world are building separate cities in the region. Cities in a region can share services, citizens in one city can commute to other cities or visit as tourists, there is trade between the cities and cities can work together to produce “great works” in a separate part of the region.
It’s a fine idea in principle, and the designers extended the connectivity idea still further by having worldwide commodity prices, leaderboards, challenges and all manner of goodies which required players to be connected. The downside of all this is that you can’t play SimCity in isolation on your computer. You have to log into a server, and only once you are logged in can you play the game; even if you are going to play a whole region on your own and hove no interaction with other players. Not a great problems provided that the servers can cope with the load….
The first thing that the developer (Electronic Arts- EA) did wrong was not allow pre-downloads of the game before launch day. If you buy a game on-line from a service such as Steam, you can download the game well in advance of the release date; even though it is not activated to play. Come release day, any final patches are downloaded and the game is activated for your gaming pleasure. EA didn’t do this, with the result that everyone had to download on the day of release, resulting in massive delays and failures as their download servers could not cope.
Once people had finally downloaded the game, they couldn’t play it, because the gameplay servers were completely swamped. Since release day on Tuesday, the wide wide world of web has become a sea of bitching over the new SimCity. The EA forums are awash with bile and hatred. People have bombed Metacritic with negative reviews such that the User Score is now down to 1.6 (out of 10). Amazon have had so many complaints they have now removed it from sale. It’s a gaming bloodbath.
Which is all very strange, because I have had no problem with the game at all, other than buying it.
I went on-line to purchase the game and having recognised I was in Thailand it very gave me a price in Baht; and ordering instructions in Thai. With she who must be obeyed at work, I spent a happy hour cut and pasting instructions on the order page into Google Translate and then, very slowly, completing my order. I only got stuck on a drop-down list which for some reason wanted my country; and I could not recognise Thailand in Thai so chose one at random. After completing my order I was able to find my way onto a site where I could change the language and discovered I had stated my country as the Seychelles, but it had not stopped them accepting my credit card so I don’t really mind.
The download of the game took a few hours; but after that I was away and playing the game on a server in the USA. I have been back a few times for a quick session and never failed to access the server; maybe I am just lucky.
From my brief exposure to the game I am pleased to report that the SimCity ethos lives on. It’s fun, funny, beautiful and challenging in both old and new ways. It’s clearly had a load of love expended on it by those who built it, and it’s a shame it fell over because EA couldn’t get their act together and provide sufficient servers to handle the tens of thousands of people who had waited ten years to play their favourite game and we not that happy at suddenly finding out that they couldn’t.
You can buy SimCity here, although it might be better to wait a few days before indulging, and expect this weekend could stretch the servers over the edge again.
Comments 🔗
2013-03-08| Bob James saysWaiting for the native Mac version, rather than restart in Boot Camp to play.
2013-03-12| Grant saysI see your city has trams, with nary a bus in sight. Wonderful! If you need a transport manager, look no further. As Mayor of this delightful burg, can you make them drive on the correct side of the road? I’d like that bedded in before before I take up my new position…
2013-03-12| Spike saysI have public buses and school buses and an airport and a sea terminal. I have park and ride facilities, I have every convenience possible; and my streets still look like Bangkok. You are welcome to come and sort out the mess.
2013-03-12| Grant saysI shall be there in my “Fat Controller” suit, booted, spurred and ready to go. I shall make your trains run on time, I have connections in Italy…
2013-03-15| MeMock saysThis might interest you about playing offline. http://www.geek.com/articles/games/modder-proves-simcity-can-run-offline-indefinitely-20130314/