When SimCity got serious: the story of Maxis Business Simulations and SimRefinery
https://obscuritory.com/sim/when-simcity-got-serious/ [obscuritory.com]
2020-07-12 06:42
SimCity wasn’t meant to be taken seriously.
The game was inspired by research on real-world urban planning concepts, and although it was created as a way for players to experiment running a city, the goal was to be fun rather than accurate. “I realized early on, because of chaos theory and a lot of other things,” said designer Will Wright, “that it’s kind of hopeless to approach simulations like that, as predictive endeavors. But we’ve kind of caricatured our systems. SimCity was always meant to be a caricature of the way a city works, not a realistic model of the way a city works.”