Google+

SimCity News

Please note I'm currently working on the new site. I didn't want to take the site offline though, so you can still visit it. However me working on the site while it's still online means a lot of the pages will appear wonky. But not to worry, it won't take too long. Happy
Monday, March 18, 2013 - 22:32

EA today announced that their current CEO, John Riccitiello, will resign by the end of the month. Until a new CEO is found, Larry Probst will be the executive chairman. Ricitiello was CEO of EA since 2007 but now feels it's the right time to "pass the baton and let new leadership take the company into its next phase of innovation and growth."

Electronic Arts Announces Change in Executive Leadership

Larry Probst Appointed Executive Chairman, Effective Immediately

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA) today announced that 
John Riccitiello will step down as Chief Executive Officer and as a member of the Board of Directors, effective March 30. The Board has appointed 
Larry Probst as Executive Chairman to ensure a smooth transition and to lead EA's executive team while the Board conducts a search for a permanent CEO. The Board will consider internal and external candidates with the assistance of a leading executive search firm.

Mr. Probst has played a leadership role at EA since 1991. In addition to serving as Chairman of the Board since 1994, he previously served as the Company's CEO from 1991 to 2007. As CEO, Probst successfully grew the Company's annual revenues from $175 million to approximately $3 billion, led EA into new platforms such as mobile, online and other emerging markets and expanded its international presence to more than 75 countries.

"We thank John for his contributions to EA since he was appointed CEO in 2007, especially the passion, dedication and energy he brought to the Company every single day," said 
Mr. Probst. "John has worked hard to lead the Company through challenging transitions in our industry, and was instrumental in driving our very significant growth in digital revenues. We appreciate John's leadership and the many important strategic initiatives he has driven for the Company. We have mutually agreed that this is the right time for a leadership transition."

On behalf of the Board, Lead Director 
Richard A. Simonson stated, "As we begin the CEO search, we are fortunate that Larry, who has a proven track record with our employees, partners and customers, has agreed to assume a day-to-day leadership role as Executive Chairman. He has 16 years of experience as CEO of EA and a deep understanding of the Company's strategy, management team, business potential and industry trends."

Mr. Riccitiello stated, "EA is an outstanding company with creative and talented employees, and it has been an honor to serve as the Company's CEO. I am proud of what we have accomplished together, and after six years I feel it is the right time for me pass the baton and let new leadership take the Company into its next phase of innovation and growth. I remain very optimistic about EA's future — there is a world class team driving the Company's transition to the next generation of game consoles."

 
Wednesday, March 6, 2013 - 14:43

Looks like I've got my hands full for a while. :P

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 13:49

The lovely Cheetah has written the final part of our hands-on!

Quick! Go read!

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 12:56

The past few days several SimCity blogs have been added on the SimCity website. I haven't had time to add all of them separately seeing as we're very busy with the server and the new website. But I didn't want to keep all the cool stuff from you guys. So here's a combined post about the new blogs.

The first one is about making money in a high-tech city. The second blog is about SimCity for Mac. And the third blog is about the Sandbox mode in SimCity.

How I Mayor: Dirty Secrets of High-Tech Industry #1

How I Mayor: Dirty Secrets of High-Tech Industry

Welcome, Mayors, to my high-tech metropolis. Brian Bartram here, Senior Game Designer on SimCity, and I’ve been given the green light to show you how I built this city of the future. I’ve got a problem, though – investing deep in education has left my coffers nearly empty. But there’s a clever solution here, a protip that I’m going to share with you. Pay close attention, I’m going to make gold out of garbage!

SimCity Mac FAQ

Update for all our Apple Mayors -- SimCity for the Mac is releasing this spring and pre-orders will be available soon. For more information, please read our official FAQ below.

Q: When will the Mac version be available?
A: SimCity for Mac will be available in Spring 2013.

Q: Why is the Mac port launching later?
A: This isn’t a Mac port, but a full native version that runs on the Mac OS. Because of this, we want to take the time to ensure that Mac fans will get a version worthy of their platform.

Q: How will users purchase the Mac version?
A: You will be able to pre-order SimCity for Mac soon. Stay tuned for more information.

Q: Will the Mac version be available at retail?
A: The Mac version will only be available as a digital download.

Q: Will the Digital Deluxe version be available for Mac?
A: Yes. You will be able to purchase the standard, Limited Edition and Digital Deluxe versions for Mac.

Q: Does SimCity support cross-platform play between PC and Mac users?
A: Yes. Everyone is playing together on the same servers. That means PC and Mac users will be building the world of tomorrow, together.

Q: Will PC and Mac users be able to play with one another?
A: Yes!

Q: Will Mac players be part of the same SimCity World as PC players, or will they be separated?
A: Yes, Mac players and PC players will be part of the same world.

Q: What system specs are you targeting with the Mac version?
A: Like the PC version, we are aiming to make the game as accessible as possible. Any user with Snow Leopard and a Core 2 processor will be able to enjoy SimCity for Mac.

Q: Will the Mac version have any advantages or additions over the PC version?
A: The Mac version will have the same features as the PC version.

SimCity Sandbox Mode

SimCity Sandbox Mode

Hello, Mayors! I’m Lead Gameplay Scripter Guillaume Pierre, also known as MaxisGuillaume on the forums, and I’m here today to talk about an often requested feature by fans: sandbox mode.

I'm not sure what to think about the Mac version. I am a Mac user and having to boot to Windows all the time to play my games is not something I really like to do. And that's why I absolutely love that there is a Mac version but... seeing as I've already pre-ordered (might I add not the cheapest version of them all) the Collector's Edition for PC, I don't feel like having to pay the same amount of money again for a separate Mac version. Especially since the Mac version will be available as a digital download only. On top of that the release date for SimCity on Mac is "spring 2013" and that's not good enough for me. I want to play the game as soon as it's released, with my friends of which most are playing on PC. So I'm glad EA took the time to make a Mac version, but I guess I'll just have to keep on using Bootcamp to play my games...

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 12:00

Tonight we will post part 3 (which is also the final part) of our SimCity hands-on preview. For now I would like you to visit our colleagues Platinum Simmers and Simparool, who also attended the event and both have articles online! Platinum Simmers have an English written article, and Simparool's article is in Dutch. But I'm sure Google Translate can help you if you want to read it! Both have unique screenshots as well.

Platinum Simmers:

To begin with, you need to pick a region. Within this region, you need to choose a city to play - regions can have anywhere between 3 and 16 cities to play around with, so there is plenty of choice. Not sure which city might be for you? No problem. Each city has a preview button detailing what it has to offer in terms of resources. We strongly recommend you pick one that has water as it makes life much, much easier!

Simparool:

In de regio’s kun je niet alleen steden bouwen, maar ook zogenaamde ‘great works’ (we weten niet precies hoe ze dit in het Nederlands vertaald hebben). Dit zijn speciale gebouwen of complexen die bijna even veel grond nodig hebben als een normale stad. Denk aan een internationaal vliegveld, een zonne-energiecentrale, een raketbasis of zelfs een arcology. Een arcology is een complete zelfvoorzienende stad in een gigantisch futuristisch gebouw, terug van weg geweest uit SimCity 2000. Waarschijnlijk zal je dit gebouw ook de ruimte in kunnen lanceren, maar dat is nog niet helemaal zeker.

Saturday, January 26, 2013 - 18:53

Well, part 2 of our SimCity hands-on preview is online! Curious?

Start reading!

Friday, January 25, 2013 - 13:04

Earlier this month we were invited on a SimCity event in The Netherlands. It's actually the first time I didn't attend an event myself. Instead, Cheetah (who you may all know from The Sims Zone) attended the event for me. Big thanks to Cheetah for attending the event and for writing up a nice article as well. The next few days we'll add the other parts.

Small note I'd like to add: we were allowed to take screenshots. However,  the producer (Jason Haber) had to approve them, and we can only use 10 of them. So to make up for that (cause we ended up with 7 unique screens), we added some screenshots from Ocean Quigley to the preview as well!

Go read (part 1 of) our preview!

Thursday, January 24, 2013 - 20:11

I closed the form an hour ago and spent some time removing duplicates from the spreadsheet. After that I used random.org to select 15 numbers. I looked up those numbers in the spreadsheet and here are the winners:

  • Noel Reinhold
  • Jeyhan
  • Nick Suter
  • Laurent
  • Timothy Guenthner
  • Emily Alice
  • Nasos
  • Rachel
  • leclanfra
  • Ivan Genc
  • Gino Abbas
  • Rui Cardoso
  • Oscar Samuelsson
  • Alex Saul
  • Kyle

Congratulations to all of you! I have mailed all 15 winners with their unique code for the SimCity beta. Happy

I would like to thank EA Benelux for letting SNW host this giveaway!

Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - 09:29

We have a bunch of SimCity beta codes, isn't that exciting? Do you want one? You do? Good, then do the following:

Follow @SNW on Twitter and retweet this tweet!

and/or

Like our page on Facebook and share this post!

Once you've done this, comment below this post with your name, mail address and a link to either (or both) your twitter retweet and/or facebook share.

Google sites is a bit odd with the comments, so I made a form where you can send in your comment. However this comment won't appear below this post. Don't send it in more than once.

On Thursday 8pm GMT+1 we will announce and contact randomly selected winners that entered their info in the form below!

The beta will start on January 25, 2013 at 6pm GMT+1 (which is 5pm in the UK and 9am PST). And the beta will end on January 28, 2013 at 9am GMT+1 (8am in the UK, and 12am PST). During this time you can play several times, as you can only play in one hour slots.

Please note:

  • If you didn't sign up for the beta prior to January 20, you can't participate in the beta. Don't request a beta code if you didn't sign up!
  • You have to be 18 years or older to participate in the beta.
  • You need Origin to use the code.
  • You obviously need an internet connection.

On another note, only the following countries can participate: Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States.

These are the requirements set by EA. To read EA's online privacy policy and terms of service, please go to www.ea.com

Good luck and happy sharing!

You can no longer participate!

The giveaway is closed and we are now going to randomly select the winners!
Tuesday, January 22, 2013 - 08:07

Welcome to the temporary SimsNetwork (SNW) and SimCityNetwork (SCN) website!

Here is a Q&A or FAQ, whatever you want to call it, that will hopefully answer some questions.

Where is the real website? What happened?
It's gone! The website as we know it, is gone. The server crashed. The file system corrupted everything. All the websites and mailboxes (among other things) are corrupted and unreadable.

What about backups?
We have one person who usually makes a daily backup. However this person experienced issues of his own right when the server was failing, therefore the recent backups are gone. We do have a few backups from August 2012 and those should be safe and well. Nonetheless it's from August 2012, which is why we lost everything that happened between August and now.

And what happens now?
After a weekend of inspecting the damage and lots of tears, I decided to continue with SNW. I have to admit losing my "baby" like that is hard and I had to think about whether or not I wanted to start over. However I know in my heart I would miss it too much. I would miss the games, the community, the people, everything really. So I am going to start over. My boyfriend (Cheetah from The Sims Zone) will help me rebuild and restructure the website. I can do it myself, but it will take longer if I do everything alone. It's a complex system and I'm really a perfectionist when it comes to my sites, so I only trust Cheetah to help me with this. A lot of friends have offered their help, and I really appreciate that!

Cheetah is the one who is going to download whatever is left of the files. After everything is downloaded and kept safe on a backup disc, he will install everything on the server again. Fresh and clean. Once this is done, most of the sites can be moved back, including a few of my own (since I haven't updated most of them lately, and therefore the August 2012 backups will be fine for those sites).

When will SNW be back?
Like I said before: we have to start over. I roughly work 10-12 hours a day on my websites, so I'm hoping to be back within 2-4 weeks. But in the meantime, this temporary site will have to do. We will post important news here, as well as previews/reviews and giveaways.

To stay up to date, follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for sticking with us!

Pages

News Archive

Discord