Re:The ideology hiding in SimCity’s black box
by hypertele-Xii on Sunday April 04, 2021 @07:54AM
(#26688731)
> SimCity very much does express an ideology [...] try to zone something for mixed use [...] It's not intended to be an accurate simulation
It absolutely is trying to be an accurate simulation, for its time. That was 28 years ago. Do you remember how slow computers used to be? You can't zone for mixed use because of technical limitations. The simulation takes place on a grid; each grid cell is limited in memory by computer technology; therefore the performance requirements of the simulation dictate that only one thing can exist in one place.
But try to zone something for mixed use.
SimCity itself tells you that certain things will happen under certain conditions, and it is generally wrong about those predictions. It's not intended to be an accurate simulation; it's intended to be amusing and to conform to people's intuitions about what they want to happen when they plan their city in a certain way. But people play it and feel they're learning something about how cities actually work.