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The Death of Maxis and Other Awkward "The Sims" StoriesFollow

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#1 Mar 04 2015 at 2:41 PM Rating: Good
Shaowstrike
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Kotaku wrote:
EA has shut down Maxis Emeryville, the main Maxis studio and longrunning developer behind SimCity and Spore, among other games.

I've been hearing rumblings about this for a few days now, but official word comes via designer Guillaume Pierre, who wrote on Twitter this afternoon that the studio would be shutting down.

We've reached out to EA for confirmation. It's unclear what this means for the future of SimCity or other Maxis games, but EA has used the brand for a number of studios.

UPDATE (3:29pm): And here's EA's statement:

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Today we are consolidating Maxis IP development to our studios in Redwood Shores, Salt Lake City, Helsinki and Melbourne locations as we close our Emeryville location. Maxis continues to support and develop new experiences for current Sims and SimCity players, while expanding our franchises to new platforms and developing new cross-platform IP.

These changes do not impact our plans for The Sims. Players will continue to see rich new experiences in The Sims 4, with our first expansion pack coming soon along with a full slate of additional updates and content in the pipeline.All employees impacted by the changes today will be given opportunities to explore other positions within the Maxis studios and throughout EA. For those that are leaving the company, we are working to ensure the best possible transition with separation packages and career assistance.


Originally founded in 1987, Maxis was best known for the Sim franchise, which began with Will Wright's SimCity and expanded to include a number of other games, including the popular The Sims series, which is handled by a separate developer called The Sims Studio. In 2013, Maxis released an online reboot of SimCity that was plagued with all sorts of problems, which may have been what led to this final closure. Neither SimCity nor the recent release of The Sims 4 performed very well, according to a person familiar with goings-on at the studio.


Edited, Mar 6th 2015 9:18pm by Shaowstrike
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#2 Mar 04 2015 at 7:59 PM Rating: Good
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I wanted to like Sims 4, I tried but they took out some of the things I liked in Sims 3. I did play a couple of generations and already had all the stuff I wanted by then. I might spin it up again down the line when I get the urge to play RPG real life again.
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#3 Mar 04 2015 at 8:39 PM Rating: Good
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They could have had way more fun with the announcement.

Just saying.
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#4 Mar 06 2015 at 7:42 AM Rating: Good
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Maybe now they can get a studio to get the Sim City franchise back on its feet.....
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#5 Mar 06 2015 at 8:08 AM Rating: Good
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Wasn't there a newish game people were saying was what they had wanted in the newest Sim City?
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#6 Mar 06 2015 at 9:45 AM Rating: Excellent
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Cities Skylines. It's been getting a lot of pre-launch play on Youtube and from streamers and reaction has been very positive. Launches March 10th.
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#7 Mar 06 2015 at 10:02 AM Rating: Good
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Yeah, that's the one. I think I heard people talking about it on a couple different streams.
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#8 Mar 06 2015 at 1:34 PM Rating: Good
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I think the Skylines game is something like 28% off on GMG at the moment. Without coupon code (don't think the coupon applies to the VIP prices) so you can use your GMG credits on it too, assuming you got random bonuses for playing games and getting achievements.
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#9 Mar 06 2015 at 2:04 PM Rating: Excellent
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It's $22.xx from GMG in the VIP section (like you said, you can't use the coupon but you can apply Playfire credit). $18.xx from Nuuvem.
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#10 Mar 06 2015 at 2:18 PM Rating: Excellent
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Shojindo wrote:
I wanted to like Sims 4, I tried but they took out some of the things I liked in Sims 3. I did play a couple of generations and already had all the stuff I wanted by then. I might spin it up again down the line when I get the urge to play RPG real life again.
I've said it a couple times elsewhere, but Sims4 isn't a complete game yet.

Too much of Sims for me is the various DLC, mods and expansions. There's so many building styles and so much creativity you can have in Sims3 that you just can't yet in Sims4. It's getting there, but until it's been out a few more years, and had a chance to add several new expansions, it's not really going to strike me as a complete Sims game. Right now it's only the basics, they're just on their 2nd expansion now, and new content is starting to show up. Modders are making the switch over to Sims4 slowly but surely, and there's a lot more content then there was a while ago. Things are looking up, in my mind at least.

Still though, in Sims3 I can have my teenage werewolf Sim have a romantic relationship with an evil robot who has a fear of humans. They can go on a dream vacation to China and then return to live out their life on a small houseboat with 11 cats, an adopted home-schooled daughter who has a nasty habit of being abducted by aliens, and a unicorn they befriended outside the resort they manage. Sims4 is just so bland in comparison.


Edited, Mar 6th 2015 12:22pm by someproteinguy
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#11 Mar 06 2015 at 7:02 PM Rating: Excellent
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someproteinguy wrote:
Shojindo wrote:
I wanted to like Sims 4, I tried but they took out some of the things I liked in Sims 3. I did play a couple of generations and already had all the stuff I wanted by then. I might spin it up again down the line when I get the urge to play RPG real life again.
I've said it a couple times elsewhere, but Sims4 isn't a complete game yet.

Too much of Sims for me is the various DLC, mods and expansions. There's so many building styles and so much creativity you can have in Sims3 that you just can't yet in Sims4. It's getting there, but until it's been out a few more years, and had a chance to add several new expansions, it's not really going to strike me as a complete Sims game. Right now it's only the basics, they're just on their 2nd expansion now, and new content is starting to show up. Modders are making the switch over to Sims4 slowly but surely, and there's a lot more content then there was a while ago. Things are looking up, in my mind at least.

Still though, in Sims3 I can have my teenage werewolf Sim have a romantic relationship with an evil robot who has a fear of humans. They can go on a dream vacation to China and then return to live out their life on a small houseboat with 11 cats, an adopted home-schooled daughter who has a nasty habit of being abducted by aliens, and a unicorn they befriended outside the resort they manage. Sims4 is just so bland in comparison.


Edited, Mar 6th 2015 12:22pm by someproteinguy


Can we now make this thread about awkward SIMS stories?!

This was in 4 but I decided to make this guitar bum dbag that would just hang out in the park and pick up random strange. Meet this blonde chat her up, go over to her house, it's a mansion. Well thing about SIMS 4 is you can't tell the difference between teen and adult. So it turns out blonde is not datable. But her redhead Mom is SMOKING hot. So me and the Misses head up to her room and in walks Dad home from work. He watches a bit, then just busts out crying and runs to another room to cry more. We did not stop during this. Fall asleep. Next morning my dbag guitar bum starts making breakfast downstairs like the mooch he is. Mom comes down to flirt. Daughter talks about something and eats with us. Dad comes down, starts crying and goes back upstairs to his cry station.

At that point I started feeling a bit digiremorseful and just rolled a new family. Smiley: frown


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