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Friday, October 14, 2011

2012 / Games Herman Cain Is Running for President of SimCity

Posted by Paul Constant on Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 2:47 PM

If Herman Cain's 999 plan sounds familiar to you, that's probably because you've played SimCity before. According to Huffington Post, Sim City 4 default settings are set to 999: "the default tax rate was 9 percent for commercial taxes, 9 percent for industrial taxes and 9 percent for residential taxes." But the best part of the story is the way SimCity's creators embrace the theft:

We encourage politicians to continue to look to innovative games like SimCity for inspiration for social and economic change," said Katsarelis. "While we at Maxis and Electronic Arts do not endorse any political candidates or their platforms, it's interesting to see GOP candidate Herman Cain propose a simplified tax system like one we designed for the video game SimCity 4."

Adopting such a simple tax structure, Katsarelis said, would allow fantasy political leaders to focus their energy on infrastructure and national security. "Our game design team thought that an easy to understand taxation system would allow players to focus on building their cities and have fun thwarting giant lizard attacks, rather than be buried by overly complex financial systems."

The way they handled this makes me feel really good about the fact that SimCity is one of my all-time favorite video games. (Via Wonkette.)

Comments (16) RSS

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i could be president, i have fun playing sim city!~

Posted by hans millionaire on October 14, 2011 at 3:11 PM

If I were president, everyone would get cool ships and weapons like in Unreal Tourament III.

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

on October 14, 2011 at 3:16 PM

It's one of my two all-time favorite computer games. Sadly, OS X Lion is not compatible with SimCity 4. So now I have to set up a dual-boot thing with one of the older versions of OS X so that I can still get my SC4 fix. (same deal with American McGee's Alice, my other favorite) And btw, I always jack up that tax rate on the industrial and business zones! :)

Posted by DowntownTaylor

on October 14, 2011 at 3:18 PM

I could be president for about an hour, and then I'd start cranking up taxes and destroying the country with monsters and tornadoes. Even that amusement, however, will only last about ten minutes, and then I'll resign the presidency and then I'll be back here commenting before the story even hits the press.

Posted by MacCrocodile on October 14, 2011 at 3:19 PM

@3 I think you can play both SC and Civ on the Games tab for Google+ actually.

Let's just hope he doesn't hack the city file ... he probably doesn't understand they store thing in adjacent cell layers and all his buildings would come crashing down or start displaying Nazi flags.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on October 14, 2011 at 3:40 PM

If only this was Simcity. I'd love to get in every republican's face with YOU CAN'T CUT BACK ON FUNDING! YOU WILL REGRET THIS!

Posted by Zebes

on October 14, 2011 at 3:42 PM

I thought he was just offering the country a $9.99 Pizza Deal.
Who cares if the poor have to pay more in taxes and the rich get a big fat tax break, when the rest of us get a three topping pizza for 9.99!

Posted by Senor Guy on October 14, 2011 at 3:44 PM