Geekscape Games Podcast: Level 21 – ‘Rockband: The Old Blood Feat. Battletoads’

EA today announced the closure of the long running studio, stating that “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.”

The studio was founded in 1987 by Will Wright and Jeff Braun. The incredible Sim City was its very first game, which of course launched a slew of Sim related titles. The Sims was once one of EA’s largest money makers, and though The Sims development was moved to a separate team, it’s crazy to think that the studio responsible for its creation no longer exists.

Here’s EA’s full statement:

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.

Now, Maxis is also responsible for 2013’s mediocre SimCity, but after such a steady library of critically acclaimed titles, everyone has to miss every once in a while, right (just look at Pixar and Cars 2)?

We wish the best for everyone affected by the closure. What was your favourite Maxis game?

‘The Sims 4’ Takes Character Creation To The Next Level!

by Derek KraneveldtMay 14, 2014

Briefly: Each and every time EA releases a new title in The Sims franchise, I become addicted.

I have no idea what it is about the ‘life simulator’, but it’s really nice to design folks and houses and do stuff that I’m not nearly cool enough to do in real life. The enhancements and additions to each title are always impressive, and that definitely looks to be the case with The Sims 4‘s character creator.

The video below showcases the many changes that the character creator has seen since The Sims 3, including ‘Detail Mode’ which actually lets you sculpt your character with your computer’s mouse (or maybe your iPad’s touchscreen?). It’s really impressive, and it’s not something that I’ve seen from a character creation system before.

In any case, whenever The Sims 4 releases, it’ll be even easier to make even more diverse characters than ever. Take a look at the video below, and let us know what you think!

Its Finally Here! SimCity Is Getting An Offline Mode!

by Shane O'HareJanuary 14, 2014

In a recent blog post from Patrick Buechner, Maxis General Manager, he said the words SimCity fans allll over wanted to hear. “We’re going offline!”

The upcoming Update 10 will give all SimCity players of the option of a “Single Player Mode”. This lets all players keep their city content locally on their machine and not on EA’s servers. What does this mean for you? Well you can play SimCity on a plane, on a train, in a car, near or far! The big feature is that the game is now open to the modding community, which has always been a huge part of the SimCity franchise; as Patrick said in his blog

Bringing the game Offline means big things for our wonderful community of Modders. They can now make modifications to the game and its components without compromising the integrity of the Online game. Modding is a big part of our studio’s legacy and we’re excited to see what you guys create. Check out this thread to learn about Oppie85’s Central Train Station, which you can put into your game right now, and if you’re interested in making your own content take a look at the Modding Policy. To get you started, we will be rolling out a series of tutorials from the studio that surfaces how we’ve created some of the content that you’ve seen so far in hopes of inspiring your creativity.

This update comes with mixed feelings, some are saying this should have been built in day one. When SimCity launched last August, it came with forced “Always On”. This meant that regardless of your interest in online content, you were forced to connect to EA’s servers to play. All of your cities and content was stored on their servers. What did this mean? Come launch day the servers were non existent, as EA did not anticipate the large volume of players. If you were able to actually log in and play, chances are when you came back all of your hard city planning was gone! Deleted to the cosmos.

No word yet on availability, as Update 10 is just getting pushed to the testing group. So any SimCity Geekscape Gamers out there, what are your thoughts on the offline mode?

Maxis Announces ‘The Sims 4’

by Derek KraneveldtMay 6, 2013

It’s been rumored for as long as I can remember, but now it’s official. Maxis has just announced The Sims 4. The game is set to release on PC and Mac sometime in 2014.

That’s it. Not a single screenshot, trailer, or other tidbit of information was revealed, but more information is expected later today.

Less than two months ago, EA had major issues with the launch of Sim City (and that’s putting it lightly). I’ve always been a fan of The Sims, so I can only hope that things go differently this time around. I really hope we don’t see an always-on DRM system or tons of microtransactions in this one.

Have you been keeping up with The Sims? Will you be looking at The Sims 4, or did Sim City leave too bad a taste in your mouth? We’ll update you with more info as soon as we get it!

Source: EA

New SimCity Trailer Released!

by Shane O'HareJune 14, 2012

In the hustle and bustle of E3, sometimes great gems get lost in the fray. Case in point, EA and MAXIS released a new trailer for their upcoming SimCity sequel, titled SimCity. Check it out below.

Color me two shades excited and a slight gradient of worried. It says SimCity which makes me believe this is some kind of “REBOOT” for the series. The trailer gives me a real big SOCIETIES vibe, which is their dumber version of SimCity. I can’t say for sure.

The new GlassBox engine makes it look fabulous. If they retain the great bits from SimCity 3000 and SimCity4. Then this new iteration will be great!