14 DAY TRIAL // Publisher Electronic Arts has announced the closure of Maxis, the makers of the SimCity and The Sims franchise, with the Emeryville headquarters being shut down, and the other divisions consolidated into other studios.
While the publisher has assured fans that SimCity and The Sims development will carry on at new studios, it still marks a sad day for many fans of Maxis' simulation games.
Reddit user Vertexnormal, confirmed to be a legitimate former member of Maxis Emeryville, has addressed the issue in a post detailing how life was working for EA, offering us a unique and valuable behind-the-scenes glimpse of the whole thing.
Among others, he discusses some of the more controversial and criticized aspects of the video games, such as SimCity's always online functionality, explaining why that happened in the first place, and how the slow sales of a SimCity 4 expansion pack impacted how the 2013 version of the game performed, with execs focusing on the much more lucrative The Sims.
SimCity's maligned mandatory online connectivity is largely to blame on internal policy, and on the huge inertia of the corporation, due to the way things are done. Early on in development, concepts and features are pretty much locked in, and every minute change is an uphill battle, making it very difficult for the studio to make any actual structural changes once the initial pitch is greenlit through EA's internal processes.
EA is not as bad as it used to be
He reveals that, for EA, it's all about the money, as the corporation does not share the same sense of obligation and sentimentality that the developers have. He recalls that, due to the fact that Sim City 4's expansion "didn't print cash" like The Sims was doing at that time, all efforts were channeled toward that franchise, which led to a much smaller team ending up working on SimCity.
He also reveals that workplace conditions have greatly improved during the last decade, and that EA "is actually a great place to work these days," remembering the bad days of the past, when the EA Spouse class action law suit took place, when employees used to put in insane hours for little compensation.
In any case, the entire thread is well worth the read if you happen to be a fan of SimCity and want to gain a better understanding of what went wrong and why, and see the studio's own perspective on things, as gamers have expressed their feelings on the subject time and time again.
