[SimHacker]

Oh, owch. You had to go mention "The Sims: Urbz", didn't you? I was hoping that was long forgotten. But yes that's a very good analogy between SimCity Societies and Urbz. An unfortunate case of brand dilution: Societies was developed by an outside company, and it didn't have much to do with the original game.

[simplefish]

To be fair, SimCity Societies was an excellent game. But it was very much a spiritual decendent of Ceasar III and Pharaoh. I think the branding did it more harm than good; the people who love Maxis-style city games disliked Societies, and the people who love Impressions-style city games never bothered to pick it up assuming they would dislike it.