Articles - Sim City 4 Deluxe - Has The Expansion Pack Gone To Far?

"Ever since Maxis' takeover by EA and the release of The Sims, the California Giant has

been churning out expansion packs for all its games faster then you can say… Stop!"

I remember the days when maxis used to churn out little sim games, lovingly prepare a lengthy manual for them and package them in what seemed to be a black shoebox with a nice glossy sleeve around it. I remember the days when they used to bundle games together and sell them at a price that made everybody happy.

But it seems that nowadays the power-mad maxis would rather give the people in marketing a good kick and tell them to market a bundle of the original game and its expansion as an entire different entity. No! we cant just say "Sim City 4 and Rush Hour Expansion Bundle" - that'd be far to grammatical! We have to call it "Sim City 4 Ultra-Deluxe-Gold-World-SpecialEdition-Vacation-Superstar-Pets!" For gods sake… okay that was a bit mad but c'mmon! Why call a bundle Sim City Deluxe? There is nothing deluxe about it.

Is it just me or do I feel inadequate about not owning a deluxe version? Its not good enough to own the original game and buy the expansion pack, I want to buy Deluxe just for the sake of saying I have the better one, when what I really have is two copies of the game and the same expansion pack that everybody else has. True I could give the spare copy to Africa and end the suffering of underprivileged kids or maybe sell it on eBay for a few pounds and with the proceeds, throw a few more koi-karp in my piano shaped pond, maybe I'll build a wing on the national gallery with my name on it!

...All because the maxis skyscraper has the overwhelming need to satisfy its superior ego and marvel at all the titles that it has released. And the cause? The Sims.

The Sims is evil. The Sims was the best selling and most profitable game of all time. just think what was the last game that Maxis released before the Sims - I recall it being SimCity3000 and how many expansions did it have? One. Well that's a lie essentially they had 2 or 3, but they were all the same expansion packaged under the different names. Ring any bells? This major re-branding came after The Sims had been released and after Maxis realised that expansion packs had more potential then actual games.

In short; Sim City Deluxe, we will buy it, not because we need it, but because we want it. We will go to websites like these read all about them and our anticipation will grow to such a point that we have to run out and get it on the day its released. Then we'll will play it for hours and hours our lives will be consumed with it and then will we read that there is another expansion pack in the pipeline and the entire vicious cycle will go on and on.

That includes me, I can scour all I want at how evil Maxis is and how their marketing department should be sent straight to hell, but that's their job and their damn fine at it.