Simulators are a familiar, well-known and beloved genre in the world of computer games, and some of them are considered real milestones in gaming history. I'm talking about Microsoft Flight Simulator, I'm talking about The Sims and I'm talking about SimCity. SimCity was launched in 1989 and it was a strange game - a game you couldn't win or lose - and yet it took the world by storm. It sold millions of copies and was considered an educational game, a game that parents bought for their children. It was incorporated into curricula across the US and shortly after it hit the shelves, an academic paper was published about it dealing with the connection between the game and real urban planning. But the story of SimCity is not just a story about a computer game. It encompasses a lesson that deals with the relationship between reality and simulation. It deals with the question of what happens when the creator of the simulator treats it as a kind of amusement while the person playing it treats it with complete seriousness. It also deals with the question of what happens when the hidden underlying assumptions embedded in the game influence an entire generation of decision-makers and also urban planners, cities in which millions upon millions of people live? This is the story of SimCity, one of the most influential simulators in history.

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