SlashNOT

EA-Maxis, developers of famous simulations including SimAnt, SimCoaster, and SimLandfill, have released their crowning achievement: Similization. Similar to the recent hit game The Sims, in which players control the lives of otherwise purposeless computer simulated humans, Similization expands game play to billions of concurrent Sims and increases realism by removing all player control beyond specifying the initial starting conditions.

“We realized that by allowing the player to control the life of the Sims, unrealistic situations were occurring. Players would invariably concentrate on one or two Sims at a time, and those Sims would end up attracting large groups of followers, which would subsequently begin constructing extremely elaborate buildings for no apparent purpose.” says Maxis lead developer Ian Combs

“We’ve finally truly mapped the human experience in Similization, which the players compete by setting up starting conditions and then watching how far the Similization goes before destroying itself. So far in the six thousand simulations we’ve run in the lab, we’ve seen three end scenarios emerge: collapse by viral agent, global nuclear war, and mass starvation brought on by environmental changes. The starvation one is the most common. It’s all very exciting.”

“We’ve created an environment that so closely matches human experience, that we’ve seen remarkable parallels in some of our running lab simulations.” he continues. “For example, we have Sims who have developed the ability to create software that simulates their own existence. If you look really closely, you can see me, right there in that Sim EA building, pointing at something on that monitor there.”