As promised, I did another playthrough of SimCity 4 for a good four hours just to learn more about the “black box” that makes the game tick. From what I heard, the controlled unpredictability of the game is what makes it appealing to new and old players alike. It is the idea that simple decisions made by a Municipal government could drastically alter the local economy and the character of affected communities. This “black box” is how the game expects the player to play the game and it wants them to do so in a specific direction. The real question that has me stumped is what the game defines as its ideal city.

Not every city needs to be purely residential, commercial or industrial. As I understand things, cities should develop organically, incorporating a combination of all three somewhere within its jurisdiction. The problem is that the game does not think that a city could achieve that without maintaining its Neoliberal conception of social status. There is not a whole lot I can do at this point, but what more can I say?

Categories: Blog Post

Tags: Economics, Finance, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Socialist Finance, Third Place, Work-Standard