Have you ever been interested in running your own city, managing your own amusement park or building your own utopia? The Sims, published by EA Games, makes all of this possible through its life simulation engine that powers its games.
One of the best-selling video game series in history, The Sims was originally created by Will Wright under the original title SimCity. While The Sims focuses on the simulation of individual people, SimCity deals with the simulation of an entire city, including businesses, roads, and electrical wiring. SimCity was first released in 1989 by the Maxis company. SimCity’s original working title was “Metropolis.” Maxis founder Jeff Braun, after consulting with game creator Will Wright, decided that SimCity would be the first Maxis release.
The original premise behind SimCity was to take the depressed situation of a city and turn it into a profitable entity where the characters who live in the city enjoy their way of life. When the game was first released in 1989, it won dozens of awards for achievement in the video game genre, including Game of the Year from Computer Gaming World magazine.
Since the original SimCity was released, many iterations have hit the market. Among these, SimCity 2000 introduced an entirely new generation of gamers to the fun and excitement that the game provided. There has also been a revitalization of the series in recent years, as Electronic Arts released “The Sims” as well as “The Sims 2” and a prequel to the “The Sims 3” series. To this day, The Sims remains the number one selling PC game of all time, with more than 19 million copies worldwide.
Other companies have tried to capitalize on the success of simulation software like SimCity. Such examples would be “Capitalism”, “Entrepreneur”, “Industry Giant” and numerous text-based simulation sports games that mimic the constant progression of a fictional universe. As some of these games have been hugely successful in today’s gaming world, they owe much of their achievements to the original founders and producers of the SimCity series.
