illustration: Adrift, oil on panel, 16 x 20" 2005 by Amy Bennett
Other Cities: Maxis
By Benjamin Rosenbaum
15 April 2002
Eighth in a series of excerpts from The Book of All Cities.
Unfortunately, the city is real. You wouldn't have set the level of Natural Disasters to High, if you'd known. When the fires raged through town, real children died. You saw only pixels.
At least the game is relatively benign. You set the taxes, you build the highways. The citizens may fear and despise the alien intelligence that rules them, and wonder why. But they know it could be worse. They could be playing Doom.
Originally published at strangehorizons.com
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