Publishers Broderbund rejected Wright’s pitch – unconvinced by the notion of a game with no fixed end ‘goal’ – and so the initial C64 version languished unreleased. It wasn’t until a tiny publisher called Maxis saw potential in the idea that versions of the game were finally released for the Amiga and Mac in 1989, followed swiftly by PC and – finally – C64 editions. It even made it to the peerless ZX Spectrum in the end. The series itself, meanwhile, showed an ability to adapt as top-down strategy games quickly became a relic of the past in the early 1990s. While not the first isometric strategy game – Peter Molyneux’s Populous had beaten it to the punch as early as 1989 – the release of SimCity 2000 in 1994 heralded a seismic shift in the genre. The isometric landscape made for a truly immersive environment, fostering in players a much greater attachment to, and fondness for, their creations – lending an even greater sense of heartbreak when the game’s increasingly devious ‘disaster’ scenarios struck with devastating destructive effect. (This sense was no doubt added to, mind, by the inclusion of an editor called the Urban Renewal Kit with some editions of the game – enabling players to customise the look of buildings and objects further. Where most games rely on fans to build editors after their release, it’s hard not to draw a link between the SCURK’s existence and the series’ very genesis as the product of an in-game editor itself.)Ī quite frankly staggering hit – fully deserving of the bombastic nature of its title – SimCity 2000 had two distinct, branching effects on gaming. In making the resource management simulation a genuinely hot property, it established a template for the genre that has barely changed in the two decades since. In a handful of cases, developers elsewhere made thrilling and inventive additions to the genre – most notably Chris Sawyer’s Transport and Rollercoaster Tycoon series, and Bullfrog’s similarly isometric Theme Park and Hospital. The better examples of the genre built directly upon Wright’s tropes, and inspired similar feelings of intense emotional attachment combined with frequent, deliberately-instilled frustration in its players. The second effect SimCity 2000 had was to turn the Sim name into a genuine brand and franchise. Other Sim games – Ant and Life among them – had started to spring up immediately after the first game’s success, but it was after the second game that we saw a proper explosion. In the years between SC20’s SimCity 3000, Maxis released games titled (deep breath) SimFarm, SimTower, SimHealth, SimIsle, SimTown, SimGolf, SimCopter, SimTunes, SimPark and, finally, the fairly well-hyped but ultimately disappointing Streets Of SimCity.

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