SimCity for the OLPC

Electronic Arts has decided to donate the original (“classic”) version of SimCity to the One Laptop Per Child project.

John Gilmore took care of registering the project properly and requesting a GIT repository for it. The announcement was posted today, a couple of hours ago, on the OLPC development list

SimCity for the OLPC will go by the name Micropolis, which was the game’s original name. The goal, of course, is to turn the original program into a python script that integrates with the Sugar interface. The game will be released under the GNU GPL license.

As an old fan of the game I think this news is extraordinary. Sure, I’d like it even better if it were one of the more modern versions, but either way the educational benefits of this game are extraordinary. In fact, our authorities should be required to play it ;)