RIP Maxis, 1987-2015

GarageBay9

Maxis finally lost that final game of rock-paper-scissors with the Grim Reaper after trying to repair a busted computer.

I know it isn't still the Maxis of Sim City 2000, SimCopter, SimEarth, and The Sims, but... still. Should have had a better end than this. Sad conclusion to a cornerstone of our industry's history.

http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/4/8149791/ea-closes-maxis-simcity-the-sims

Mstankow

I heart was broken when they blew it with Sim City (2013).

Especially since Maxis was one of my favorite game studios for a long time. Even long after they were bought by EA. I have put hundreds of hours into Sim City 4 and I am still waiting for a true successor.

ZacD

Yeah Maxis had 2 giant flops, so I saw it coming, SimCity and Spore were both very disappointing. I wonder if Sims is the only game that will live on from them.

alonzo

I was hoping for a SimTower for iOS release. My favorite game back then.

Damian Nachman

I felt an urge to post a gif of sims gettings trapped to death in a burning kitchen, but i figured it would be highly in-approariate.

Thanks for all the great games Maxis! You were a huge part of my childhood.
Simcity2000 is still one of the best games ever made.

MeshMagnet

Sad to hear. They had a good run.

marks

MeshPotato wrote: »

I felt an urge to post a gif of sims gettings trapped to death in a burning kitchen, but i figured it would be hihgly in-approariate.

Christ. Now I have to clean coffee off my monitor. Thanks.

Francois_K

Thanks obEAma.

odium

EA gonna EA

cptSwing

SimCity, SimCopter, SimAnt, The Sims, Sim this-and-that. Thanks for the good times, Maxis

SpaceRogue

Ouch ... well that goes right where it hurts.

Goeddy

think that for a time between 2003-5 they held the record for the most sold videogame-franchise.

skyline5gtr

After the last Sims and Simcity saw this coming a miles away. Sorry to anyone who lost jobs. DAmn I loved classic maxis titles, h

low odor

Did anyone play the new Sim City?..it looked great...I kind of lost interest in it when they had the internet always on fiasco

skyline5gtr

low odor wrote: »

Did anyone play the new Sim City?..it looked great...I kind of lost interest in it when they had the internet always on fiasco

I did for a bit, it looked good gameplay was ok but it was very limited in scope and scale and could only build in a small box. Plus it had some major issues with launch since it required an always on connection even for single player and the servers were a mess.

Zack Maxwell

From the article, it seems like they're only closing a single Maxis studio branch, but still continuing work on their games in other branches. It even mentioned that many of the employees of that branch will simply be relocating.

Justin Meisse

low odor wrote: »

Did anyone play the new Sim City?..it looked great...I kind of lost interest in it when they had the internet always on fiasco

I think I put a few hundred hours into it along with the future cities expansion. I also got to the galactic center with at least 2 species in spore. RIP in my favorite game studio.

Darth Tomi

Used to spend hours with SimCity2000. Sad.

GarageBay9

Grimwolf wrote: »

From the article, it seems like they're only closing a single Maxis studio branch, but still continuing work on their games in other branches. It even mentioned that many of the employees of that branch will simply be relocating.

My understanding is this was the "original". Some of the posts from former staff in various places also suggest the layoffs are a lot wider than the press release admits, and not too many people got lateral transfers.

Kind of like when they shut Flight Sim down and said they were retaining part of the team to continue supporting the business license version for defense / instruction... out of more than 200 people, that was like 4 guys.

ZacD

My issue with SimCity was that it was small, the AI was pretty dumb, traffic was a bigger issue than it should be because the dumb AI would always try going to the closest job or house, the first 15 minutes of a city was fun, but after that you always ran into the same issues. It was artificially limiting in a lot of ways, and the road tools required a lot of effort to do bridges, overlaps, or anything cool. On top of that the month of server issues, deception, and lack of late game, I asked for a refund and had to do a charge back.

Add3r

Spore was the beginning of the end in my eyes, such great potential, but just didnt get the love it needed to blossom into the project it could have been. Nonetheless, had a great community and was a decently fun game. Spore 2, or the dark whatever expansion I think it was, was a disaster IMO (not sure if a Maxis product).

Agreed that it is sad to see them go, but I do also agree I wasn't overly surprised. Thoughts go out to those who are displaced from work because of this. Sucks to hear. Hopefully it is just the beginning of a new chapter for those though, could be quite exciting after 12yrs.

Needles

I would've bought the hell out of a Sim city 4 clone done in 3d.

Also charging for mods... lol.

ScoobyDoofus

I dont understand what all the hate for Spore was about. I really enjoyed that game.

ZacD

Spore was over hyped and didn't deliver on it's promises. By itself it wasn't a bad game, but the people that were interested in it as a evolution sim were very disappointed.

Deathstick

I actually really really want a Spore 2. Honestly the only thing that game really needed was a way to tie in the space stage with all of the previous stages, IE actually being able to beam down and interact with the planet (I don't count that blue terrible hologram as interaction, and while I loved making stuff in Galactic Adventures it was really based on short stories and not interacting with creatures simulated on a random world)

It would of been great if you were able to see the civilizations actually fight with each other in a mini-simulation and the creatures behave with each other. (IE tracking the outcome of a simulation and being able to influence it, I'm pretty sure the outcomes were "faked" in the space stage) Also, having the civilizations react to the player's space ship like it did in Will Wright's old spore demo would of been awesome.

Basically Spore 2 equaling more time and polish on the concepts of Spore 1 and implementing the stuff they weren't able to get into the final game would be awesomesauce for me.

Alas I have the feeling that they'll never develop a Spore 2 and only work on the Sims series.

RIP Maxis HQ, loved your work . Here's hoping you all land on your feet!

HandSandwich

Grimwolf wrote: »

From the article, it seems like they're only closing a single Maxis studio branch, but still continuing work on their games in other branches. It even mentioned that many of the employees of that branch will simply be relocating.

Yeah, this is correct. Maxis Emeryville was shut down but Maxis @ EA's HQ in Redwood City is still here and we're working solid. Still, it's always a blow when any part of the industry gets hit with layoffs/closures.