Well, we all saw that coming. After the hugely disappointing latest part of the SimCity series, EA decided to pull the plug and shut down the studio that was behind it. Yeap, Maxis Emeryville, the team responsible for Spore and the SimCity series, is no more. And while a dedicated team of ex-Maxis devs is hired by EA in order to keep SimCity alive, we kind of expect to see this game being abandoned really soon.
As EA revealed via a press 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.”
And that is that. SimCity was plagued by idiotic decisions, and we are happy to see another city builder aiming to be what SimCity should be in the first place (obviously we’re talking about Cities: Skylines).
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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