SimCity 'gifted' to One Laptop per Child

by James Ransom-Wiley { Nov 8th 2007 at 3:57PM }

SimCity is EA's gift to the world, the publisher announced today as plans to include the seminal sim game on each computer in the One Laptop per Child initiative have been finalized. EA might describe this event as "the first time a major video game publisher has gifted a game to the world" (reality check: gifted a game to an estimated 10 million laptops by the end of '08), but we doubt the company is gonna take home many 'Philanthropist of the Year' awards for donating a game that was first booted up on Mac OS 6 (it's that old). While a proposed open source version appears to have been nixed from the agenda, we're confident that the generation of dormant hackers sure to be sprung by the OLPC program will make short work of any imposed limitations -- that is, if they ever tire of the free porn.

Tags: ea, electronic arts, electronic-arts, ElectronicArts, olpc, simcity

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

robert @ Nov 8th 2007 4:07PM

one Faptop per child

Rubang B (BRUSH WITH FAME) @ Nov 8th 2007 4:19PM

I could've sworn they officially announced this a year ago, but maybe that was when they were planning on the open source version and they finally officially changed their mind about that or something. These things are going to be so awesome. I wish I could buy one.

samfish @ Nov 8th 2007 4:25PM

They could have at least made it Sim City 2000. That was the best one, I always thought.

Gavin @ Nov 8th 2007 4:33PM

Nice hollow gesture on EA's part.

Hey kids, here is a free game that is almost two decades ago, now get the fuck off our porch.

megaStryke @ Nov 8th 2007 4:40PM

Hey now, people. SimCity Classic is... uh... a classic!

Cesaria @ Nov 8th 2007 4:49PM

Don't hate on SimCity. They could be giving out a ten year old madden.

Zip @ Nov 8th 2007 4:51PM

To be fair, fellows, the XO laptop is hardly a powerhouse. A newer game would've been a disk hog on a system that has to be careful with the requirements it has. In addition, OLPC uses linux based systems out of the box, too many new gamer would've been shoddy or incomplete ports. The original SimCity is old enough that you're not going to have to seriously worry about culling out non-existent Windows API calls.

More importantly, I'm glad to see almost any kind (except Microsoft) support for the OLPC. A lot of people take a very short sighted view at this project and what they're trying to acheive. A village needs food aid today, and they will still need it tomorrow if they don't receive the knowledge, information and access it takes to improve their living conditions. I believe there's a saying about teaching a man to fish?

In addition, the XO Laptop is an interesting piece of hardware even for those of us in first-world countries. If you're interested in this hardware, you should look into their Buy One, Give One Program. You can get an amazingly flexible piece of hardware for yourself, and one for a child whose life can be improved with one.

An ASUS Eee might come with a little more power but I've yet to see it come bundled with good karma.

http://www.laptopgiving.org/

James @ Nov 8th 2007 4:57PM

Where can I buy one of these?

robert @ Nov 8th 2007 5:08PM

click the link directly above your post

R @ Nov 8th 2007 5:09PM

I'm not aware of any consumer models at the moment, the best way would probably be the Buy One, Give One program I mentioned just above. $399 buys one for you, one for a child in another country.

James @ Nov 8th 2007 5:11PM

"in North America". Nevermind then.

R @ Nov 8th 2007 5:18PM

Where are you, Europe? I heard a discussion on the OLPC blog that it's possible to use a mail forwarder, or simply to have someone remail for you. You may need to watch out for duties/customs though.

They plan to expand to outside North America as soon as they can, it's more of a distribution issue then a slight against Europeans, honest. ;)

gonk @ Nov 8th 2007 5:42PM

lol they're just looking at porn

grim-one @ Nov 8th 2007 5:48PM

"the first time a major video game publisher has gifted a game to the world"

That's ridiculous, plenty of publishers have made their older catalogue freely available to ANYONE. Lately publishers have even been releasing older games as freeware to promote newer sequels (ala GTA).

TheWarden @ Nov 8th 2007 6:58PM

One porn-top per child.

Gorf @ Nov 9th 2007 4:27AM

I think this is a really cool idea, the only problem I have with it, is that they're implementing some weird simple user interface designed for people that have never used a computer before rather than going with a UI that resembles Windows which, going with the teach a man to fish train of thought, would help people get used to interacting with computers in a job in the real world.

Ohmz @ Nov 9th 2007 5:26AM

Whats wrong with Lin-City?

http://lincity-ng.berlios.de/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Thats free and 3d...

Sidepocket @ Nov 9th 2007 10:06AM

I actually wish that Nintendo would make a Brain Age for PC so they could put it on here. :D

Don Hopkins @ Nov 10th 2007 10:33PM

There are a few factual errors in this article that I would like to correct.

"EA might describe this event as "the first time a major video game publisher has gifted a game to the world" (reality check: gifted a game to an estimated 10 million laptops by the end of '08.)"

The fact is that EA is releasing the source code to SimCity under the GPL (just not the name "SimCity"), and it can be run on any Linux system, and ported to any other operating system or computer.

The only restriction is that it can't be called "SimCity" without going through EA's review, quality assurance and approval process. That is because EA wants to protect the integrity and quality of their "SimCity" trademark.

The GPL open source code of SimCity will be known as "Micropolis", which was the original working title of the game.

"a game that was first booted up on Mac OS 6 (it's that old)"

It's older than that: The first version of the game was developed for the Commodore 64 in 1985, but it would not be published for another four years.
http://simcity.ea.com/about/inside_scoop/sc_retrospective02.php

So it can run very fast on the OLPC, at a rate of at least a year a second. (But only in "Super Fast" mode -- normally it runs at regular speed and uses only a small sliver of the available CPU time, to save power.)

"While a proposed open source version appears to have been nixed from the agenda,"

No, the open source version was not nixed from the agenda. The source code is being released under the GPL, which means it is open source.

The legal details:

The GPL source code version of SimCity will not be called "SimCity", but we will use the SimCity source code to make a city building game called "Micropolis", which was the original working title of SimCity.
That's because EA reserves the right to review and QA the official version of the game that's published under the name "SimCity" on the OLPC.
So we can make improvements to the TCL/Tk version of Micropolis (based on the GPL source code), and submit them to EA for review and QA, which if they approve, will be used as the officially branded version of SimCity for the OLPC.
It will be the same code, but the only difference is the name, which EA understandably wants to protect, be ensuring the quality and integrity of OLPC SimCity.