Building Simcity: How To Put The World In A Machine (Game Histories),New

A deep dive into the trailblazing simulation game SimCity, situating it in the history of games, simulation, and computing.Building SimCity explores the history of computer simulation by chronicling one of the most influential simulation games ever made: SimCity. As author Chaim Gingold explains, Will Wright, the visionary designer behind the urban planning game, created SimCity in part to learn about cities, appropriating ideas from traditions in which computers are used as tools for modeling and thinking about the world as a complex system. As such, SimCity is a microcosm of the histories and cultures of computer simulation that engages with questions, themes, and representational techniques that reach back to the earliest computer simulations.Gingold uses SimCity to explore a web of interrelated topics in the history of technology, software, and simulation, taking us far and widefrom the dawn of programmable computers to miniature cities made of construction paper and roleplay. An unprecedented history of Maxis, the company founded to bring SimCity to market, the book reveals Maxiss complex relations with venture capitalists, Nintendo, and the Santa Fe Institute, which shaped the evolution of Will Wrights career; Maxiss failure to back The Sims to completion; and the companys sale to Electronic Arts.A lavishly visual book, Building SimCity boasts a treasure trove of visual matter to help bring its wideranging subjects to life, including painstakingly crafted diagrams that explain SimCitys operation, the Kodachrome photographs taken by Charles Eames of schoolchildren making model cities, and Nintendos mangastyle Dr. Wright character design, just to name a few.