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SimCity 2000 Special Edition is currently free 'On the House'

by Mark Tyson on 10 December 2014, 12:05

Tags: Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:EA), PC

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qacmlz

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EA Origin has pulled another classic game from its vaults to offer for free, 'On the House'. This time new or nostalgic gamers can get a copy of the classic SimCity 2000 for free. The game is apparently usually $5.99 / £4.99 to buy. As those familiar with this promotion will know there's no catch with this 'free lunch', but you do have to use the Origin platform to play your game.

SimCity 2000 was first released on the MacOS platform in 1994 but the Origin 'On the House' version is the PC Windows release from 1995. EA describes the classic city building game as follows "Now you can design any city you can imagine and SimCity 2000 will bring it, and its resident Sims, to life. It has all the features, flexibility, art, animation, and power you need to create an environment of your dreams. Choose from a selection of bonus cities and scenarios to rule or ruin as you please. Build schools, libraries, hospitals, zoos, prisons, power plants, and much more... Lay down roads, railways, and highways. Explore the underground layer and build subways and utilities without compromising your aesthetics. Customize different buildings or design your own graphics sets from scratch." It wittily concludes "This is the ultimate classic Maxis city-building and management simulation. If this game were any more realistic, it'd be illegal to turn it off!"

According to Geek this free 'Special Edition' of the game includes a couple of expansion packs. Firstly there is the 'Great Disasters' expansion which brought several additional random or triggered disasters to trouble your scenarios (city locations). Secondly the SimCity 2000 Urban Renewal Kit is included to edit and create in game buildings and make colour swaps.

As usual this 'On the House' offer has no set duration so if you are even a little bit interested it's worth grabbing now.

HEXUS Forums :: 12 Comments

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Posted by Brian224 - Wed 10 Dec 2014 12:50
I shudder to think how many hours I spent playing Sim City, sometimes at home on my Amiga but mostly in the office. I wonder what it will be like returning to it?
Posted by Saracen - Wed 10 Dec 2014 12:51
…. but you do have to use the Origin platform to play your game.
And that's why my reaction is “thanks, but no way.”

For instance, Origin's Privacy Policy …

EA Privacy Policy
EA understands the importance of keeping your information safe and secure. EA will make commercially reasonable efforts to protect your personal information and ensure the security of our systems. When you enter sensitive financial information (such as a credit card number) on our order forms, we encrypt the transmission of that information using commercially reasonable methods. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure, however. We cannot guarantee that your information will not be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by breach of any of our physical, technical, or managerial safeguards. We cannot assume responsibility or liability for unauthorized access to our servers and systems.
Uh huh. Right. “Commercially reasonable, eh”?

So, no. Hell, no.

Origin require use of their platform, which includes ad-serving technology, based on personal information. They require us to agree to that info being transferred to the US, and therefore outside UK/EU data protection laws, because they want to market to us, and serve ad's, INCLUDING, in their own Privacy Policy, in-game ads.

No. Oh, hell, no.

Free or not, as far as I'm concerned, I know precisely where EA can stick their games. I have NO interest in any online aspects of games like this. I'm 100% content to play it absolutely offline. Which, indeed, in the past I have done, buying many EA games. But the deal was, I provide money, they provide a game to play. And fair enough.

What I'm not prepared to pay with is access to my personal information. Money, yes, my privacy, no way in hell. Any bright 5 year old could drive a battleship through the holes their Privacy Policy puts on protection of our personal data, which is dressed up to sound good, if read superficially, but in fact allows them to do exactly what they wish with our personal information, including changing their privacy policy any time they wish.

I'm not providing EA with personal information for a ‘free’ copy of EVERY game they have, including current releases, never mind a 15 year old one, any more than I'm selling my soul to Tesco for points on a reward card.

If I can buy a game and play it offline, with NO private data going to EA, then fine. But the EA client, with all it entails? Never. No way. Hell no.
Posted by Brian224 - Wed 10 Dec 2014 13:38
Saracen
When you enter sensitive financial information (such as a credit card number) on our order forms, we encrypt the transmission of that information using commercially reasonable methods. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure, however.

Can you name a commercial organisation that uses any form of encryption greater than that which is commercially reasonable? I am sure their shareholders would like to know about it.

Personally I am fairly relaxed about giving out a limited amount of information; age, a unique to vendor e-mail (I like to know where spam comes from), an IP address and where necessary to make a payment a credit card number. After all, fraud and security risks are nothing new and our names, credit card numbers and expiry dates used to be available in plain text on carbon-paper slips in retailers' dustbins. Somebody opened a bank account in my name and obtained £000s credit over 30 years ago using less information than was needed to post this comment.
Posted by Saracen - Wed 10 Dec 2014 14:16
Brian224
Can you name a commercial organisation that uses any form of encryption greater than that which is commercially reasonable? I am sure their shareholders would like to know about it.

….
The point was that it's wide open, for them to determine what's “reasonable”, based on THEIR commercial interest, to how secure MY personal information is.

I.e. any subsequent assurances are pretty meaningless.

Being online, or giving them ANY information, is not necessary to play that kind of game unless you want to interact with others, online. I don't. If it could be played entirely offline, with no need to give them any info, I would. And that's entirely viable for the game itself, just not if you want online interaction. But EA won't permit that. Their “platform” is mandatory, but not necessary for the game.
Posted by Saracen - Wed 10 Dec 2014 14:27
Brian224
…. Somebody opened a bank account in my name and obtained £000s credit over 30 years ago using less information than was needed to post this comment.
What personal information is required to post? We don't know your name, which may or may not be Brian. We don't know your age, gender, or location, not even country. We have no way to indentify you from an email adress or an IP address, without access to the account data from your service providers, which we won't get without a court order, even assuming you're not using throw-away email addresses and an anonymous proxy.

Nor, as far as I know, does HEXUS even attempt to store personal data …. unless perhaps, you win a competition and have something delivered. HEXUS certainly don't have my name, address, phone number or credit card details, though the owner has (or had) my name and phone number, ‘cos he’s a friend. A few others do, too. But, they're certainly not necessary for me to post.

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