5 ms·

Stopped reading when the author began complaining about SimCity not including enough Race Relation management features.

birdyrooster 5y ago
There is only one line which mentions race, and it does so in context with class, “In SimCity race and class conflicts are sanitized.” The author of the article didn’t even push a race based agenda (clearly class oriented) and the parent commenter is projecting onto it. Americans and their insane racial culture is causing people like the parent commenter to disengage from reality.
- medicineman 5y ago
  Rent free.
dragontamer 5y ago
A family friend of mine got her start in life in a trailer park. A lot of these city-builder games assume that "higher land values" is better, because land values == better tax revenue. But is that really what we should be optimizing for in these games? A city without trailer parks / low-cost housing is a city where my friend wouldn't stand a chance at all. The power-gamer in SimCity 2000 ignores hospitals and schools. Because life-expectancy doesn't lead to any tax benefits, and school / education counts don't seem to have any real effect on the city either. At some point, the game "stops reflecting reality", and when that illusion disappears, some players no longer find the game interesting. I personally am a power-gamer, I've never held that "illusion of reality" in any game I've ever played (be it SimCity, Civ, or whatever). I play these games to have fun and understand that there's almost no political or social commentary associated with the game design decisions. ---------- But other people play these games hoping to "roleplay" a City's Mayor, or to "roleplay" the emperor of a Civilization. For these people, realism is a highly important trait. Alas: most games are not realistic at all. The games that do seek realism (ex: Hearts of Iron) are too complex for the typical person to pick up on. ------- I think its fair for people to look at SimCity and say "well... that's not realistic. The game doesn't have the right incentives in the right places". Because frankly: it doesn't. Its just an incomplete viewpoint into city building. Even Cities: Skylines has a similar issue. ---------- Games like "Two Point Hospital" are better, because its all clearly a joke. So the game is clearly a game. Curing clown's disease is funny and clearly not what happens in Hospitals. You better understand the game in the abstract: patients seek a diagnosis. The GP takes a guess, and sends the patient to a diagnosis room (X-Ray or other machine). The diagnosis room gives another result, and the doctor either is confident in treatment or needs additional diagnosis machines to make a better guess. Or... you just remove all the diagnosis rooms and force doctors to send patients in for treatment because treatment makes more money. Lulz. Then when the patients inevitably die to these poorly made decisions, you get a bunch of janitors with vacuum cleaners to clean up the ghosts. But yeah, it makes the most money (because you have the highest throughput of patients), so its the "Power gaming" move in Two Point Hospital.
Hammershaft 5y ago
I mean, it's a dynamic in the actual formation of cities in North America. I think the purpose here is less that SimCity should model all of these complex social dynamics that formed modern cities, and more that SimCity should not advertise itself as a model of reality, and should explicitly clarify that it is based on a faulty and simplified model.

There is only one line which mentions race, and it does so in context with class, “In SimCity race and class conflicts are sanitized.” The author of the article didn’t even push a race based agenda (clearly class oriented) and the parent commenter is projecting onto it. Americans and their insane racial culture is causing people like the parent commenter to disengage from reality.

medicineman 5y ago
Rent free.

dragontamer 5y ago

A family friend of mine got her start in life in a trailer park. A lot of these city-builder games assume that "higher land values" is better, because land values == better tax revenue. But is that really what we should be optimizing for in these games? A city without trailer parks / low-cost housing is a city where my friend wouldn't stand a chance at all. The power-gamer in SimCity 2000 ignores hospitals and schools. Because life-expectancy doesn't lead to any tax benefits, and school / education counts don't seem to have any real effect on the city either. At some point, the game "stops reflecting reality", and when that illusion disappears, some players no longer find the game interesting. I personally am a power-gamer, I've never held that "illusion of reality" in any game I've ever played (be it SimCity, Civ, or whatever). I play these games to have fun and understand that there's almost no political or social commentary associated with the game design decisions. ---------- But other people play these games hoping to "roleplay" a City's Mayor, or to "roleplay" the emperor of a Civilization. For these people, realism is a highly important trait. Alas: most games are not realistic at all. The games that do seek realism (ex: Hearts of Iron) are too complex for the typical person to pick up on. ------- I think its fair for people to look at SimCity and say "well... that's not realistic. The game doesn't have the right incentives in the right places". Because frankly: it doesn't. Its just an incomplete viewpoint into city building. Even Cities: Skylines has a similar issue. ---------- Games like "Two Point Hospital" are better, because its all clearly a joke. So the game is clearly a game. Curing clown's disease is funny and clearly not what happens in Hospitals. You better understand the game in the abstract: patients seek a diagnosis. The GP takes a guess, and sends the patient to a diagnosis room (X-Ray or other machine). The diagnosis room gives another result, and the doctor either is confident in treatment or needs additional diagnosis machines to make a better guess. Or... you just remove all the diagnosis rooms and force doctors to send patients in for treatment because treatment makes more money. Lulz. Then when the patients inevitably die to these poorly made decisions, you get a bunch of janitors with vacuum cleaners to clean up the ghosts. But yeah, it makes the most money (because you have the highest throughput of patients), so its the "Power gaming" move in Two Point Hospital.

Hammershaft 5y ago

I mean, it's a dynamic in the actual formation of cities in North America. I think the purpose here is less that SimCity should model all of these complex social dynamics that formed modern cities, and more that SimCity should not advertise itself as a model of reality, and should explicitly clarify that it is based on a faulty and simplified model.