After a decade of absence, Maxis, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts, has announced plans to release an updated version of SimCity, the pioneering urban planning computer game, in 2013.
A hugely successful and influential game since its debut in 1989, SimCity has been left behind as other titles such as SimEarth, SimFarm, SimTunes, SimRefinery and a host of other variants have been developed.
Now, according to Tyler Falk, the iconic game is getting a reboot with a focus on regionalism. "[D]espite sticking with the same name, regions and the interconnectedness within what academics would call mega-cities will feature prominently in the new version."
Falk spoke with Ocean Quigley, Maxis's creative director for the new SimCity, on the reasons why the time is right for a relaunch of the original franchise. Quigley reasons that, "Cities are the most interesting and sophisticated things we're building right now. From a big picture perspective cities are an interesting subject. From a more practical perspective, when we did SimCity 4 there were things we wanted to do but computers weren't sophisticated enough. Now computers have the ability to do what we wanted them to do."
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