Katsarelis: Our new GlassBox engine is very powerful. GamesBeat: The interesting challenge for you is this: You can use a lot more computing power and get a lot more detail and data and all that, simulating anything you want, but you also want to make the experience of playing the game simpler for players? Katsarelis: I was on SimCity 4, and I worked on Rush Hour.
GamesBeat: How many of these Sim games have you worked on now? (SimCity was one of the reasons I came to Maxis, actually got into the games industry.) We wanted to make sure that SimCity held true to that, so we made a little video about some of the things you’re going to be able to do in your city to impact the world. It kinda makes you think it inspires people in different ways. It is a game and you get sucked into it, but then you start looking at the real world a little differently. Katsarellis: One of the key pillars of SimCity has been the way it makes you think about the world.