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Real estate developer tried to pass off SimCity screenshots as a real project

October 23, 2014
Updated: March 7, 2024 at 6:24 PM

Real estate developer tried to pass off SimCity screenshots as a real project

SimCity may have upset gamers last year, but a real life property developer in Dubai liked it so much it used a screenshot of the game for a real estate project.

SimCity allows you to build the perfect city of your dreams, so it’s not a complete mystery why someone might use it as inspiration. However, taking a screenshot and presenting it as your own vision for “futuristic urban hub combining business, retail, residential and visitor attractions and facilities” is at best lazy, for a property developer.

The company, Visionary Property, presented its idea ‘The Dubai Metro City” at the CityScape property event in Dubai. Its chairman originally said it had worked with ‘the world’s most renowned architects’ to create its proposal, but some professionals recognized the images as being from EA’s famous city building game. The company has since apologized.

This isn’t the first time images from a game have been presented as real life. In 2011 a British TV company used video of war simulator ArmA 2, presenting it as real footage of a terrorist group training. While the footage was surprisingly convincing, it was highly misleading!

Download SimCity for PC or Mac OS X.

Source: Yahoo News