Ocean Quigly, former creative director of the popular SimCity series, spoke yesterday of his thoughts on the most recent launch, and on gaming tycoon EA. Similar to the requirements of the initial Xbox One reveal, EA announced upon SimCity’s initial release that players must be online to play the game at all, but in an added bumble, failed to provide enough server capacity to handle all of the gamers who wanted to play.

Silly, considering EA has records of every preordered SimCity copy. One would think they’d have prepared for the massive numbers that would attempt to play upon the release.

Quigly commented, “I was dismayed at the blundered launch of something that I had poured so much love and attention into, which made the leaving easier but it would have probably happened anyway.”

He went on to say that regardless of this most recent release he was considering leaving EA regardless: “Honestly I think I would have left regardless of whether EA’s launch of SimCity was smooth or rough. It was basically my third SimCity. I did SimCity 3000 and SimCity 4 and this new SimCity.”

Quigly announced via his twitter that he and two other developers from EA would be moving on to pursue a more intimate development experience with a shared project of theirs.

Quigly, in classy fashion, made certain in his comments not to speak any slight against the often-lamented EA, saying only that, “EA’s strengths are executing things with hundreds of people, to well-understood patterns. The stuff that I want to do now is to explore some new simulation themes and some new mechanics and do some stuff that EA is not well set up to do. So, not knocking EA, they do what they do, but it was time for me and the other developers Andrew Willmott and Dan Moskowitz to go off and try some new stuff.”

We thank you, Ocean Quigly, for your contributions to the SimCity series, and look forward to any other games you have a hand in creating.

Source: Polygon

In case you haven’t noticed, EA and Zynga are at war, with EA delivering the first blow by accusing the company of copying The Sims Social. Zynga created a game called The Ville which is quite similar to The Sims, and anyone can say it’s clearly ripped-off.

Most gamers hate both EA and Zynga–but this could actually create some goodwill for EA as far as their public image is concerned. They were recently voted the worst company of America as well.

“When we looked at TheVille we felt somewhat affronted by what we saw as copyright infringement. We also feel from an industry perspective that a number of these things have happened before related to Zynga, but there’s never been a company that has the wherewithal and the resources to take it to the next level. We do,” Peter Moore told Eurogamer.

“So, we’re defending our Maxis studio, and we’re standing up for the industry. The executive said the roots of what games developers do is creative and takes years of effort.

“And when you see somebody, quite frankly, take months replicating what you’ve done, you’re upset. We were upset. We were upset for Maxis. And we’ve seen enough of it from an industry perspective, with smaller publishers and developers who also put their hands up and said, this is not right, but I don’t know what to do about it. We do.”

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