Anita Western

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What is SimCity?

SimCity is a city-building computer game that was designed by Will Wright and released on October 3, 1989. Will Wright’s vision for SimCity grew from the game Raid on Bungeling Bay. Raid on Bungeling Bay enabled him to develop his own maps, which sparked his imagination for all of SimCity. In SimCity, the players are instructed to create and cultivate a city, maintain a secure budget, keep the city’s citizens happy. The cities may not be people, but each and every one has its own personality. Will Wright fostered SimCity around an assortment of lives and buildings, each with their own identities and characteristics.

After being released, the computer game was incredibly successful and today there are multiple sequels. Until The Sims was introduced in 2000, the SimCity games were the best-selling line of computer games developed by Maxis. In early January 2010, the source code for SimCity was liberated under the free software GPL 3 license with the title Micropolis.

Stimulating Detroit v. SimCity

As stated in the article "Simulating Detroit: A city with cars and crime but no races" from playthepast.org, Detroit is known worldwide for one thing, automobiles but that began to change in the early 1970’s. Granted the city has been struggling but in order for Michigan as a whole to be powerful again, Detroit needs to be on the path to be a great city again. The article explains how there is huge potential for growth and jobs in Detroit, but it’s not only the city’s finances have to be fixed so the city can grow and prosper. It suggests that race and the racial lines that are rarely blurred in Detroit could keep the former automobile empire from being a safe and attractive place for people to live, work, invest and do business.

Mark Sample points out that this game is very flawed. As the player, if you fail to “rebuild the automotive industry” the punishment is not unemployment it is crime. In the game, in order to make Detroit’s streets safer (lower the crime rate), one must build a prosperous town. When the player fails, the streets do not swarm with people rioting for their Civil Rights, instead they fill with “algorithmically-determined mobs” that loot and vandalize the city. This simulation game is not realistic enough and does not appropriately teach the player what current events were actually happening in the early 1970’s in Detroit.

Social, Cultural, and Political Importance of SimCity

In this SimCity game, race and the riots occurring in the early 1970’s in Detroit are molded into one single issue of crime. Though cars are known to describe Detroit and in the game the player has the ability to save the city because the auto industry is failing, that is not a correct analysis of history. Detroit, like a multitude of other places in the United States, has a long history of racial discrimination. Even after the Civil Rights Movement, the racial tensions in Detroit continued to escalate.

The 1967 12th Street race riot was prominently featured in the news media, with television exposure, widespread newspaper commentary, and broad stories in Time and Life magazines. These riots that were portrayed in multiple types of media never featured one thing, cars. The cars were not what Detroit was known for in the 1970’s, they were known for their violence and rioting, yet the SimCity game shows otherwise. This is why the author suggests that this game should not be used for any educational purposes.

Comments & My Opinion

I agree with Mark Sample’s comment that eliminating race from SimCity misrepresents the problem at hand. As Trevor Owens explained, simulation games may need some amendments before it can be used as a tool to educate the player on the city’s situation. Yet not all players will receive the same knowledge if it was transformed into an educational tool because all people see things in different ways. The main debate that occurred in the comments consisted of whether it was appropriate for Will Wright to address racial issues within a video game.

I believe that every economic and social factor does not need to be included in order for the game to be a successful educational tool but many agree that it needs to be more realistic. Yes, the auto industry is something simple to understand from any age bracket and the factors that separate race from crime may be difficult to understand for some but this game should not teach that race equals crime or that crime stems from unemployment. There are so many other factors that determine whether one will commit a crime.

Works Cited

Sample, Mark. "Simulating Detroit, A city with Cars and Crime but No Races." Play the Past RSS. N.p., 14 Feb. 2012. Web. 01 June 2014.

"SimCity (1989 Video Game)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 18 May 2014. Web. 03 June 2014.

"SimCity." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 29 May 2014. Web. 02 June 2014.


Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)

U.S. Representative Lamar Smithon proposed the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) on October 26, 2011. The goal of SOPA is to increase the ability of U.S. law enforcement to retaliate against online copyright infringement and online trafficking in counterfeit goods.

SOPA does not apply to any website unless the copyright owner has complained about them and the website has refused to obey the laws. If you disobey the law, you cannot hide behind "freedom of speech", where the law (SOPA) allows the owners of copyright to prevent illegal use of their property.

If the SOPA bill is passed by the legislature, it will lessen Internet piracy. As a result, there is a potential that the entertainment industry will become more profitable. This will affect music, movies, video games, and more because copyright infringement happens with media so often. The office of the Attorney General will hold the reigns, requiring entities in the US to take actions against websites that have copyright infringement.

SOPA Domestic Internet Site “A site that corresponds to a 'domestic domain name…registered or assigned by a registrar or other authority that is located within the United States” (Havey).

SOPA Foreign Internet Site A site that is not using a domestic domain name is foreign, redd.it for example. Yet foreign-hosted sites such as wikileaks.org would be defined as domestic. “Search engines can be required to continually monitor and prevent new instances of links to foreign sites” (Havey).

Protect IP Act (PIPA)

The PROTECT IP Act is a proposed law with the stated goal of giving the US government and copyright holders additional tools to curb access to "rogue websites dedicated to the sale of infringing or counterfeit goods" (McCullagh). The website was designed "as a means for engaging in, enabling, or facilitating the activities of copyright infringement or counterfeit products” (Havey).

Anonymous

Anonymous (plural) is an international network of individuals that enjoy Internet hacking. They do not share numerous common characteristics, that’s what helps them stay unidentifiable. Wired.com called Anonymous a “culture, complete with its own aesthetics and values, art and literature, social norms and ways of production, and even its own dialectic language.” Anonymous made headlines after a series of publicized promotional attacks such as the denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks where Anonymous targeted the websites of MasterCard, Visa and PayPal. Their motto, “We are Legion,” suggests that they are a group of fighters, more powerful than a single individual.