Building SimCity

How to Put the World in a Machine

Chaim Gingold

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Paperback

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English

MIT Press
02 July 2024

Computing: general

A deep dive into the trailblazing simulation game SimCity, situating it in the history of games, simulation, and computing.

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 wide-from the dawn of programmable computers to miniature cities made of construction paper and role-play. An unprecedented history of Maxis, the company founded to bring SimCity to market, the book reveals Maxis's complex relations with venture capitalists, Nintendo, and the Santa Fe Institute, which shaped the evolution of Will Wright's career; Maxis's failure to back The Sims to completion; and the company's sale to Electronic Arts.

A lavishly visual book, Building SimCity boasts a treasure trove of visual matter to help bring its wide-ranging subjects to life, including painstakingly crafted diagrams that explain SimCity's operation, the Kodachrome photographs taken by Charles Eames of schoolchildren making model cities, and Nintendo's manga-style ""Dr. Wright"" character design, just to name a few.

By: Chaim Gingold
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 369g
ISBN: 9780262547482
ISBN 10: 0262547481
Pages: 480
Publication Date: 02 July 2024
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Chaim Gingold is a designer and theorist whose work has been featured in Wired, CNN, and the New York Times. He worked closely with Will Wright on Spore and designed the Spore Creature Creator.

Reviews for Building SimCity: How to Put the World in a Machine

“In his new book Building SimCity, Gingold meticulously describes the history of the people and ideas that shaped simulation games. Gingold's book recognizes that games are rarely the result of a single person's efforts. Building SimCity includes the collaborators—programmers, artists, interface designers, writers, and business partners—who helped make the game an unlikely commercial success. It also situates SimCity in the wider context of 20th-century computing, design, and education.” —Los Angeles Review of Books