Maxis general manager Lucy Bradshaw recently wrote a blog post explaining why SimCity is an online-only experience. She laid out reasons for making sure the experience was consistent and up to date between players, that they’d have access to their cities anywhere with cloud saves and have social features that allow players to easily interact.
“Always-Connected is a big change from SimCities of the past,” wrote Bradshaw. “It didn’t come down as an order from corporate and it isn’t a clandestine strategy to control players. It’s fundamental to the vision we had for this SimCity. From the ground up, we designed this game with multiplayer in mind — using new technology to realize a vision of players connected in regions to create a SimCity that captured the dynamism of the world we live in; a global, ever-changing, social world.”
“So, could we have built a subset offline mode? Yes. But we rejected that idea because it didn’t fit with our vision,” she added. “We did not focus on the ‘single city in isolation’ that we have delivered in past SimCities. We recognize that there are fans — people who love the original SimCity — who want that. But we’re also hearing from thousands of people who are playing across regions, trading, communicating and loving the Always-Connected functionality. The SimCity we delivered captures the magic of its heritage but catches up with ever-improving technology.”
Source: EA.com
