Phil Salvador is a librarian who specialises in strange old games, and he's written a fascinating history of Maxis Business Simulations, a division of Maxis that was spun off from the main company after the runaway success of its breakout hit SimCity in 1989. The whole thing is worth reading, but what may be of particular interest is the section on SimRefinery. The idea behind Maxis Business Simulations, Salvador writes, was to create powerful simulations that could be used by industries as instructive tools. That wasn't a particularly new idea, even at the time, but what Maxis could add was the 'fun' element - the notion of being able to learn through play. Chevron approached Maxis about creating an oil refinery simulation, and the result was SimRefinery. Maxis Business Simulations may have been ahead of its time - perhaps too ahead of its time. Chevron, which had ordered the software in the first place, never wound up adopting SimRefinery at a large scale, although copies floated around various industries and academic departments for years after Maxis finished it. One of those copies may be making its way to the Internet Archive, where you'll be able to download and play it.
from PCGamesN https://ift.tt/2LWTQ1Y
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