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[FARTRON]

I only did a quick search, but I haven't seen any threads on this travesty yet.  I have also been sans-net for a little while.

Sim City has long had a soft spot in my heart, as one of the first PC games I ever bought, and for dealing with a subject that I find fascinating.  Since the series inception, the game has served as a tool for experimenting with how your development of a city's environment will impact its growth and the society that lives within it.  EA decided to invert that, and has found a developer who would make the opposite game; one in which your careful tweaking of the socio-meter determines the nature of the people in the city, which the structure of the city then arranges itself around.

It's not surprising to me then that BP (formerly British Petroleum, but who not long ago changed their name to BP-with-a-sunflower, and adopted the slogan "Beyond Petroleum" and yet has continued to dump poison all over Lake Michigan, and process and sell lots and lots of petroleum) would sign on to sponsor the Global Warming module of the game.  When the focus of the game was on structure, and how that impacts behavior, a massive conglomerate would never come near the project for fear that the simulation might imply structural change as the answer to the problem.  With the finger of blame carefully pointed at human nature, an oil company is now free to carefully engineer the player's choices just the way they want the issue to be framed.

EA is now officially the evil empire, because they are not only pissing on a franchise that I hold dear, but subverting to an dark purpose: to teach the exact opposite lesson about society and politics. 

[Doncommie]

Sim City 4 went way too far into book keeping but Sim City Societies looks like they went so far the other way they fell off the edge. Yes something needed to be done but I think this will be about as popular as The Urbz (Which I saw a Sims expansion pack developer indicating was a massive failure).

[moi]

This is probably targetting the people who play The sims.

[GP Lackey]

Is this the only details of the game released so far?  Not much is said in that interview.

From your description though it sounds a bit like City Life, which had this silly mechanic where you had to attract residents of different social stripes like blue collar workers and the radical chic to power different industries.  It...really fell out from the idea of the simulation, and it was pretty unintuitive.  I guess what I like about Sim City is that the hypothesis the game mechanics promote actually makes some sense.

[FARTRON]

The wikipedia entry for societies has some more info, and links to other sources.  It also mentions the City Life similarities.

Public works will not play a part in the game. Transportation networks will be simplified to dirt roads, paved roads, subways and bus stops. The player will not be able to build zones[...] These six 'energies' include productivity, prosperity, creativity, spirituality, authority, and knowledge. The city will look, and act, according with the energies the player chooses.

[Keops]

Bah, I won't play it anyway... (jk)

SimCity 2000 and it's SCURK (SimCity Urban Renewal Kit) is where it's at baby!

When I read about the changes to the game, I was like Oo. I'm not too sure I dig the whole Societies concept. I've got to see it in action first, but I'm not a believer. *goes back to play SC 2000*

[JP]

I only did a quick search, but I haven't seen any threads on this travesty yet.  I have also been sans-net for a little while.

Sim City has long had a soft spot in my heart, as one of the first PC games I ever bought, and for dealing with a subject that I find fascinating.  Since the series inception, the game has served as a tool for experimenting with how your development of a city's environment will impact its growth and the society that lives within it.  EA decided to invert that, and has found a developer who would make the opposite game; one in which your careful tweaking of the socio-meter determines the nature of the people in the city, which the structure of the city then arranges itself around.

It's not surprising to me then that BP (formerly British Petroleum, but who not long ago changed their name to BP-with-a-sunflower, and adopted the slogan "Beyond Petroleum" and yet has continued to dump poison all over Lake Michigan, and process and sell lots and lots of petroleum) would sign on to sponsor the Global Warming module of the game.  When the focus of the game was on structure, and how that impacts behavior, a massive conglomerate would never come near the project for fear that the simulation might imply structural change as the answer to the problem.  With the finger of blame carefully pointed at human nature, an oil company is now free to carefully engineer the player's choices just the way they want the issue to be framed.

Wow.  This actually makes a lot of sense - a message-via-mechanics that absolves the corporations of responsibility.  Very cool analysis.  And if correct, sad to see SimCity taken in this direction - the original was a defining game for me as well.