EA donates SimCity to OLPC

According to a weekend report on Ars Technica, leading game maker Electronic Arts has decided to give their pioneering game SimCity to the One Laptop per Child project for installation on every machine distributed to children in developing nations).

You probably played SimCity as a kid. Remember laying out your own city, making decisions about geography, building roads, residences, and commercial areas? You got to watch how your choices play out over months, years, and decades.

The game also reveals the importance of city planning and civic policy-making to ordinary citizens, making it likely that at least some children in developing countries could be inspired to begin a career in that field. Placement of homes, schools, hospitals, water supply, and shipping docks, for example, is a central part of the game and may shed light on children's own civic situation, as it has for students and users in "developed" countries.

Don Hopkins, who will make the game available on the machine's Sugar interface, has also suggested the game be used to teach children how to code their own games, Ars reports.


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