SimCity Societies [PC]

SimCity Societies: Green Cities

WATCH SIMCITY SOCIETIES GREEN ENERGY CHOICES VIDEO

Since Will Wright and Maxis first unleashed SimCity back in 1988, the series has featured a realistic look at the way one factor of urban living affects another. As gamers built fantasy burgs while managing traffic, population, taxation and pollution, they discovered a compelling, highly variable and always entertaining model of gameplay.

After taking over the development of SimCity Societies, Tilted Mill has changed the formula in a few ways and introduced new levels of detail that escaped previous editions. Perhaps the most notable addition is a deeper model of energy production and pollution, which came about through collaboration with the petroleum company BP.

The energy giant wanted to work with SimCity publisher EA to create a game showing how industrial pollution, like the side effects of power generation, has a far greater effect on the environment than all consumer use combined. Instead of making a standalone game, EA brought BP on board to contribute energy details to SimCity Societies. The company also became the first to have paid ads placed within a SimCity game.

BP's assistance brought realism to the game, which helped inform a level of visual detail that suggests how going green might be a great way to live. First, though, the company helped expand how the game depicts power.

"The range of power producing buildings is broader than it has been," says lead producer Rachel Bernstein, "and from working with BP it's also more accurate. We get a fairly accurate look at the trade-offs you might face in terms of what power plant money can buy, how much power it delivers, and what effect it has on the environment."

So when gamers go to place a power plant, they first see a small panel readout that shows the cost of the building, the power output, CO2 emission levels, smog levels and whether or not the building will repel citizens. There's also a note about renewable energy sources; not ironically, the game's two renewable sources (Wind and Solar Farms) are also the two that don't cause unhappiness in Sims settling down nearby.

In the series' past, pollution was one factor of city life. "Through our course of working with BP," Bernstein explains, "we got a little more sophisticated at our look at pollution. We broke it up into smog, which is something you can see in the game, and carbon, which you can't see, but still has effects."