In Which we return to SimCity 2013, victim of blind spots...

Good afternoon, my friend, reader of this post! Happy Tuesday, how are you? How have the first week of 2025 treated you? An auspicious start, so I hope! As for me, I am okay... at moments, because I have been trying some different things on my games and computer, I feel in the dark, walking in circles with no purporse and so I become frustrated. The hobby has also caused me to be less mentally available for drawing or writing, at least over the past few days, which is also a source for dismay. In retrospect, though, it's not all bad. I think my first drawing of 2025, the cherry tree, tradition since 2022, looked quite charming, and I trust I will do some more at some point real soon, there is no reason for any stress I'd say, even if I stress all the same. The year caused me to become surprised with its walking, because on a chain of events that started with SimCity 4, released 2003, I ended up returning to the infamous title SimCity 2013, famous for ending SimCity as a franchise for the time being, and for plunging the world of modern city building games and even strategy as a whole, on a very bad turn, as I can't help but detesting Cities Skylines. It is very inportant to say, the demise of SimCity is not fault of the game per se, which even with its flaws (flaws that any game may have mind you) is charming, pleasant, and infinitely more inviting than Cities Skylines. No, that alone would not cause the franchise to sink. The main guilty part is EA, the developers and the handling of an infinitude of small steps that when summed, did cause a dark ages on this niche and precious world. By that, I mean the fact the game was at first an online only experience, DRM measures went unreasonably hard on this one as well, and I think the worst part is the fact the game do not answer well to mods. I came to realize mods are one thing thar keep, good and bad alike, games alive and running. It harnesses the creative force and enthusiasm of us gamers, and is infinitely pleasurable to engage in its use and development. The bad mod support is egregious, causing in the end SimCity 2013, which is by all means at is core very promising, to fade into obscurity, and so Cities Skylines came to fill the hole left by it. It is a beautiful thing, capitalism, the free enterprise and competition, what Mises and Schumpeter called the creative destruction. It is what always comes to the rescue of a person and a group of them too. Crisis are not moments of ending and bad closure in true capitalism, but they in fact can be exciting times where goods exchange hands and a lot is rearranged as to make life keep going in the best way possible. And what is best, we can even criticize it! I mean, I am an ardent evangelist for the free market, and specially because ir allows me to call Cities Skylines garbage and to lament the current state of affairs of the genre, because on a true free competition scenario, it is not for good it will remain this way, and one complaint has weight, because the customer is the king in true capitalism. In fact, it doesn't even have to be entirely 100% a free market in order for this to work, even a bit of freedom causes so much good to happen. When even this bit is gone, now is when things become desperate, more and more... so, SimCity unfortunately struggles to keep itself half relevant. But, here is the catch, Cities Skylines is now also on a terminal crisis, due to their own set of blind spots... like I said, crisis can be beautiful, and maybe someday there will be a good city builder modern game again, not a limited frustrated project like SimCity 2013, not a souless sandbox simulator as Cities Skylines... and so, after a hiatus of 5 years, I returned to SimCity, I hope I can have it more presently on my catalogue from time to time... 

My first drawing for 2025, I trust many more will follow in due time...

It was not my intention to dedicate this post entirely to this topic, but the fact is I in the end sid just that. I think this is a good point to wrap it up, because I did write a lot and at a certain point, words become redundant.. I can only thank you, my friend, for reading this piece I just wrote! Much appreciated always, and I wish you the best! I hope to return to this happy place as soon as I can, hopefully before the weekend! Until then, do take care of yourself, and I see you again real soon! Farewell!!