# SimCity

20 Hacker News commenters recommended SimCity and 12 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 9 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Classic city builder people recommend for its addictive, charming sandbox play, with the earlier versions favored. Critics say the 2013 launch failed under load and had tiny plots.

## Why people recommend it

- Pioneering sandbox simulation game (4 comments): "ever since I was young and playing with SimCity and cellular automata" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48921699)) "Simcity was the first sandbox simulation game I played" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48781423)) "Sim City was a fantastic simulation from the stand point of a game" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50171412))
- Original version considered best (4 comments): "but the first version is still by far the best" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46929430)) "The original SimCity was perfection" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46941456)) "I thought I'd been hurt too many times (CS:2, SC2013, [..])" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49947523))
- Simple, fast, addictive gameplay (4 comments): "I loved the fast play style that was possible, also in other games, civilization 1, simcity 1" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47815304)) "the actual gameplay was quite simple and efficient to use" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48306176)) "playability wise I found the first one the most addictive" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47022031))

## What people warn about

- Disastrous 2013 launch and server failures (7 comments): "the tiny plots of SimCity 2013 was a bigger turnoff than anything else in its disastrous launch" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48301580)) "when it finally came out it was a completely underwhelming" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45979694)) "to great disaster as the online stuff failed under load" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46899989))
- Heavy traffic and car-centric design (3 comments): "I hated all the heavy traffic in SimCity" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49461994)) "failed to properly showcase how ugly car-centric cities actually are" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47305734)) "Simcity famously has no visible parking whatsoever" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46941778))
- Unrealistic, ideologically skewed city model (3 comments): "have been made deliberately unrealistic in ways that favour North American style cities" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46968372)) "It's unintentional propaganda for the crappy ways we build our cities." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46941896)) "SimCity already distorts reality in an ideological way" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46951752))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [SimCity 3000](https://hackerapproved.com/p/simcity-3000.md): 23 recommend
- [SimCity 2000](https://hackerapproved.com/p/simcity-2000.md): 20 recommend
- [Cities: Skylines](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cities-skylines.md): 20 recommend
- [Microlandia](https://hackerapproved.com/p/microlandia.md): 20 recommend
- [SimCity, but with Permits](https://hackerapproved.com/p/simcity-but-with-permits.md): 19 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "SimCity", https://hackerapproved.com/p/simcity/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).