Subscribe by EmailEA Donates Original SimCity to OLPC Program
November 9, 2007 by David |By David Peralty
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
With the One Laptop Per Child initiative, America is finally getting technology in the hands of people around the world that barely have access to fresh, clean water. And what does Electronic Arts contribute to the OLPC Program? The original 1989 edition of SimCity. Now people in third world countries that get access to the inexpensive laptop will be able to build a pixelated, virtual city which could have a bigger population than the real city they live in.
While I do think its great that the video game maker decided to give away a free game to the program, couldn’t they have at least given a slightly more up to date version like SimCity 2000?
I should note that the OLPC’s are not the most powerful machines in respect to video graphics and screen resolution, so maybe it was the best game they could get working on the machine. As a child, this game sparked my imagination for hours, and lead me into a Sim-madness as I played nearly all of their other properties, from SimAnt, to SimCity 3000.
From the press release:
OLPC will begin distributing laptops in countries such as Uruguay, Peru, Mexico, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Haiti, Cambodia and India by the end of 2007. The idea to connect SimCity with OLPC came from internet pioneer, activist and OLPC advisor John Gilmore who knew the game’s history and recognized its potential relevance to the not-for-profit project. Not long after its 1989 release, SimCity became a phenomenon, winning more than 24 domestic and international awards. The game soon made its way into more than 10,000 classrooms as an educational tool and became part of the annual Future City Competition, a contest that still runs in seventh and eighth grade classrooms today.
What do you think, was this a smart and helpful move? I suppose it will help them get their branding to a new, untapped market long before other gaming labels have a chance to.
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i love how that they are contributing to third world countries that don’t have much, but i think that they should focus more on helping them out with all of their money than to sell there games by giving them a very old but great game for free. if they are only going to contribute only with games and not helping to feed or help those less fortunate than others, then that right there is a bad move. close, but no cigar.
While help is always welcome, it’s strange for me that they’ve decided to donate laptops? And then games?
What, the long term plan is to get them hooked on newest PC games?
Those people need water, food and education so they can make their life better when the funds dry out. SimCity won’t help much there.
maybe they want children to learn how societies/cities function from an early stage, that is how western simcity cities function and the simcity peoples need.
It will give the starving children something to play with while they wish for better sanitation, food and stable government.
yeah become a geek and stay home and play instead of becoming a child soldier, something along those lines.
Why not give them command and conquer?
I have plenty of reservations about the OLPC project and even more about how much technology we should be subjecting children to but all the same, if we’re going to insist on giving OLPCs to kids in developing countries, I do kinda like the idea of SimCity being made available. It’s a different sort of educational software that I’ve always been a big fan of.