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You Can Mod SimCity, But Not Too Much

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By JcDent11-01-2014

SimCity, EA's love letter to casual players and always online apologists, is possible, but hard to mod with the whole “always online multiplayer” thing. Maxis have released the rules for modding SimCity. So what do they tell us?

Well, hidden under layers of meaningless PR drivel (we love the creativity of our fans, etc) and ass covering legalese (we take no responsibly and can wreck your shit anytime), there are five core rules that I'm going “translate” here:

1. Mods must not jeopardize gameplay or impact multiplayer component, so...no fun stuff. This basically limits it to visual mods, as far as I understand. Would be an egg on Maxis' face if some modder introduced some long awaited features that the devs stated to be not impossible.

2. Mods shouldn't infringe on intellectual property. Here goes your plans to make Arbites precinct in-game, but you can still make the whole city have steampunk aesthetics, at least.

3. No messing with executable files!

4. SimCity’s EULA and EA's Terms of Service supersede these rules if conflict arises.

5. In case something bad happens, EA can shitcan your mod and take disciplinary action, which, with EA's track record, probably means bans and setting your cat on fire.

Also, if you make a mod, Maxis/EA have the right to distribute and it promote without any monetary compensation. While this is probably normal with mods and done so that some hack wouldn't sue EA for using his “HD garbage truck wheels” to gain money, this just sounds hostile.

You also can't sell (rent, etc.) the mod, which, I think, never really happens anyway, but you might ask donations (but not via the mod itself) for its development, although you can't promise exclusive content for people who give you money.

In a related blog post, the devs also stated that they're “exploring” the possibility of online play, which in all likelihood means that they have to convince an EA exec that the game won't be pirated to hell once it goes offline. They also promise a series of posts detailing how the game was made, giving us an insight into the technical side of this clusterfornication.


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