SimCity 5's Multiplayer Blues

Great cities aren’t born in the lonely light of the elbow lamp, but in a series of bureaucratic deals: trade-offs between neighbors and politicians, partnerships public and private, negotiations of transit and trade. Rarely does anyone get to play Robert Moses, let alone Romulus and Remus.

Except, of course, in SimCity. The decades-old city-building game, unlike Legos or Lincoln Logs, never taught cooperation. No, SimCity has always been a solitary pursuit with a single aim: to create, develop and maintain one's very own computer-animated metropolis. As such, it became one of the most successful PC game franchises of all time.