subject: The History Of The Sims [print this page] Have you ever been interested in running your own city, managing your own amusement park, or building your own utopia? The Sims, published by EA Games, makes all of this possible through their life-simulation engine that drives their games.
One of the best-selling video game series in history, the Sims was originally created by Will Wright with the original title being SimCity. Whereas The Sims focuses on individual people simulation, SimCity deals with the simulation of an entire city, including businesses, highways, and electrical wiring. SimCity was first released in 1989 by the company Maxis. The original working title of SimCity was "Metropolis." Maxis founder Jeff Braun, after conferring with the game's creator Will Wright, decided that SimCity would be Maxis' first release.
The original premise behind SimCity was to take a city's depressed situation and make it a profitable entity where the characters living in the city enjoyed their way of life. When the game was first released in 1989, it won dozens of awards for accomplishments in the video game genre, including Game of the Year by the magazine Computer Gaming World.
Since the original SimCity was released, many reiterations have found their way to market. Among these, SimCity 2000 introduced an entirely new generation of gamers to the fun and excitement that the game provided. There has also been a revitalization of the series in recent years, as Electronic Arts have released "The Sims" as well as "The Sims 2" and a prequel to the series "The Sims 3." To this day, The Sims remains the number one selling PC game of all-time, shipping over 19 million copies worldwide.
Other companies have tried to capitalize on the success that simulation software like SimCity enjoyed. Such examples would be "Capitalism," "Entrepreneur," "Industry Giant," and numerous text-based simulation sports games that mimic the constant progression of a fictional universe. As some of these games have found immense success in today's video gaming world, they owe much of their achievements to the founders and original producers of the SimCity series.
