![simcity classic simcity classic](https://www.myabandonware.com/media/screenshots/s/simcity-graphics-set-1-ancient-cities-2l4/simcity-graphics-set-1-ancient-cities_6.png)
One reason The Sims was successful is that it did not try to be full 3D, and ran well on low-end computers (the old computer that little sister inherits from big brother when he upgrades to a gaming machine). That was during the time that The Sims was also in development. Of course things are a lot different now! You just could not approach anywhere near that quality with 3D graphics at the time. Using 2D pre-rendered sprites means that the artists can use as many polygons, rich textures and lighting techniques as they want in 3D Studio Max, and tweak them until the sprites look perfect, and that's exactly what the user sees.
![simcity classic simcity classic](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_XiP5xKaPo4/maxresdefault.jpg)
Going 3D at that time in history meant that the quality of the graphic would take a huge hit, as well as the rendering speed, and fewer people would be able to run it because it would require a high end computer, so it was just not worth it. Maxis almost ran out of money before they could ship it.Īt that point EA bought Maxis, fired all the people who had been fucking around for years trying to implement the full "VR Cyberspace" experience instead of just the next version of SimCity, reverted to the original design of a sprite based version of SimCity instead of full 3D, invited the reporters who they'd shown the 3D SimCity and explained that now it was going to be 2D like SimCity 2000 but with higher quality graphics, and they finally delivered SimCity 3000.
![simcity classic simcity classic](https://compote.slate.com/images/a7289b62-f2e9-48ca-ba0a-289fbfaa364b.png)
Maxis announced that SimCity 3000 was going to be full 3D, and in fact demonstrated early versions of it to the press, but the project was too ambitious, took far too long, and the technology was not quite there yet. SimCity 2000 was orthographic with terrain elevation but essentially 2D sprite graphics. Well, SimCity "classic" was 2D top-down square tiles with flat terrain.