Wright showed Micropolis to many game companies, but none were interested, because they couldn’t get past the idea of a video game whose only goal was to build a city. The “goal” of his simulation was to simply create a sustainable city on a small scale, so he gave the game a fitting title, Micropolis. So he tweaked the map software, adding the ability to create roads and construct buildings he included real-world considerations like population growth, tax revenues, zoning districts, and crime rates. But for Wright, creating the detailed maps of the enemy strongholds was more fun than actually raiding Bungeling Bay. In Raid, the player pilots a helicopter over hostile enemy territory, destroying weapons factories. In 1984, video game developer Will Wright was working on the game Raid on Bungeling Bay. As Maxis looks ahead to an unclear future, it seems like a good time to look back at the history of these world-changing, world-building games. After all, the aim of SimCity was to grow your small patch of land into a futuristic megacity, not consolidate it.

EA says they are planning to consolidate Maxis within their existing development arms, but to anyone who grew up with these groundbreaking games, this sounds like bad news. Video game giant EA just announced that it is shutting down Maxis Emeryville, the studio behind SimCity and numerous other popular Sim franchises.

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