Gaming The 'SimCity' Empire Has Fallen and 'Skylines' Is Picking Up the Pieces

[tom_mai78101]

Mariina Hallikainen, CEO of small Finnish game developer Colossal Order, is having a good day. When I call her, it's only been a few hours since she learned that Colossal Order's SimCity-like game, Cities: Skylines, has sold more than half a million copies in its first week. The first 250,000 of those were sold in the first 24 hours, making it the fastest-selling game its publisher Paradox Interactive has ever released.

The irony here doesn't escape Hallikainen. Only a week before Skylines was released, game publisher Electronic Arts announced that it was shutting down SimCity developer Maxis' studio in Emeryville, which it acquired in 1997.

"I feel so bad about Maxis closing down," Hallikainen said. "The older SimCitys were really the inspiration for us to even consider making a city builder."

At the same time, Hallikainen admits SimCity's mistakes were Colossal Order's opportunity. "If SimCity was a huge success, which is what we expected, I don't know if Skylines would have ever happened," she said, explaining that it would have been a harder pitch to sell to Paradox if the new SimCity dominated the market.

Read more here. (Motherboard)

 

[Varine]

I've never heard of Skylines.

 

[tom_mai78101]

Now you do.

 

[Varine]

Not really, I didn't actually read the article. I lost interest pretty quickly.

 

[FireCat]

Poor Little SimCity.

 

[seph ir oth]

Poor Little SimCity.

The game industry is ever-evolving. I love the classic sim cities as much as the rest, but if a studio lets themselves get chewed out by the big dogs like Maxis just did, they deserve to crash n burn, and let some new blood take over.

I've been resisting on buying this game but perhaps it's time I cave.

 

[FireCat]

and let some new blood take over.

I've never played any of the SimCity games. But I agree with you "If it's a good game to play"