City growth - for example, increasing your city’s population - in SimCity BuildIt is tied to crafting goods from Commercial and Industrial Zones, versus Shipments. “While spending money does accelerate certain aspects of the game, a player can pretty much get everything for free. “As a key design principle, progression in SimCity BuildIt is not tied to any type of micro-transaction,” Willig said. He attributes the high amount of playtime in part to the structure, which uses micro-transactions to speed gameplay, not gate it, by accelerating crafting and shipment times.
“If we hear that there are other things more important, we’ll pursue the priorities our players set, as they sure seem to know best.”
#SIMCITY BUILD IT UPDATE#
If the response to this update is good, the company will then focus more attention on the social aspect, including chat, he said. We’re studying engagement with this new feature, and we’re talking to our players about how we might expand social play.” We dipped our toe in social gameplay with the latest update. “It’s something we think about a lot, but in a different way … basically, not as an end in itself but as a means to facilitate meaningful gameplay interactions between players. “Chat is not part of the game today,” Willig said.
While the update added the ability to see others players’ work, it still doesn’t offer the chance to talk with them. A recent update added new disasters, such as tornadoes, lightning, and marauding robots the opportunity to visit other Mayors’ cities new types of roads and new houses of worship. So far the team has released a major addition focusing on Tokyo Town: a new area, accessed by airport, designed mostly to appeal to the game’s heaviest players. The best mobile games can have a life cycle, so we’re just getting started with SimCityBuildIt.” “We see this iteration of SimCity evolving more similarly to games like World of Warcraft, Hay Day, and The Sims FreePlay, where new content, features and systems are introduced on a regular basis to keep players engaged, retained, and rewarded in an ever-expanding and evolving game for a very long period of time. “We’ve designed SimCity BuildIt to keep players engaged for years to come,” Willig said. Willig says the Apple App Store review score has averaged 4.5 stars for the United States, France, Korea, Germany, and the United Kingdom App Annie puts the average at 4.0 worldwide. Those players stick with it: They spend 40 minutes a day in the game on average, Willig said, checking in five to six times a day for a few minutes each time. games overall on those platforms, and in the top 150 worldwide, according to App Annie reports. sim and strategy games on iPhone and iPad, in the top 100 for U.S. It’s commanded a solid place on the charts since its launch, always hovering in the top 10 in U.S. I think this mobile-only approach by EA for SimCity is a missed opportunity because the company would have arguably been able to cross-promote and build an even large market for itself.”īut analysts agree with Willig: BuildIt has been a tremendous success on mobile. For example, Cities: Skylines by Paradox Interactive has proven to be a major success on PC. “However, in the process it managed to alienate a large number of consumers. “SimCity continues to be one of the best-known franchises in the industry, and SimCity BuildIt provides an excellent case-in-point on how EA as a publisher has successfully transitioned to mobile,” said Joost van Dreunen, chief executive of analyst SuperData Research. Electronic Arts recently announced that it would close SimCity 2013 studio Maxis Emeryville, absorbing those operations into the corporation’s other locations (including Helsinki). And the global success of BuildIt may ironically have opened the door for the success of SimCity PC-based competitors.
#SIMCITY BUILD IT PC#
Some of those consumers expressed frustration over the company’s apparent focus on the mobile game over the PC versions in forums and article comments.