All Stories Tagged: Maxis, Page 9

The SimCity 2.0 patch seems to have introduced some new bugs of its own, according to users.

EA is preparing a major update for SimCity, which will come with a few small feature additions and a huge list of fixes and updates to make the game run smoother.

Gosh, wouldn't it be great to have the World's Largest Ball of Twine or a giant dinosaur statue in your SimCity to attract tourists? Yes, wouldn't it just. Unfortunately, these and another three roadside novelties are exclusive to a marketing promotion with Crest and Oral B, through codes in specially-marked packages. Sponsored content is to be something of a thing with SimCity, it seems.

"Say, that FarmVille certainly is popular," executives the industry over observed, "Let's make one of those too." And so innumerable copies of Zynga's social games (which, while perhaps not original, refined and better-marketed what came before) flooded Facebook and pocket telephones. Then they didn't do so well and many were shut down. And that's just what EA will do to SimCity Social, The Sims Social, and Pet Society in June.

SimCity is coming to Mac on June 11, and PC purchasers will get it for free and be able to switch back and forth with their cities intact.

As SimCity's servers crumbled to rubble and dust at launch, EA turned the fastest speed 'Cheetah' off as it scrambled to ease their load and let people actually play. While the game has mostly been stable for a few weeks now, EA held off on re-enabling Cheetah speed until it was certain it wouldn't bring things tumbling down again. Which it now is. As of yesterday, Cheetah speed is back for all players.

SimCity players have had to endure a lot in the game's short lifespan, but things have stabilized a bit sans a few game modes. Now, Maxis was to make you and your sims happier with a free add-on, brought to you my the Nissan Leaf.

Maxis is currently testing fixes for big SimCity issues like progress loss and bringing back Cheetah speed, the developer says. It still has smaller patches in the works too, with patch 2.0 set to bring improvements to fire engines, street cars, casinos and more.

Maxis and Electronic Arts have rightly endured their share of slings and arrows for its botched launch of SimCity, but one developer giving a talk about the game at GDC is trying to make the best of a bad situation.

Given the incredibly volatile launch SimCity has experienced, you'd think that Electronic Arts would wait before issuing a press release about the game's sales figures. But, no. Here we go.