The first piece of SimCity DLC has finally been released and it’s… a Nissan commercial?
Once you download the free DLC expansion, you can put up to five Nissan Leaf charging stations around your city. These stations make your sims happier, so their neighborhoods will receive a massive happiness boost after the building is constructed. They don’t use any power. They don’t produce any garbage or sewage. They don’t generate any pollution, use any water, require any workers, or use any resources whatsoever from your town. It’s essentially just a magic building that makes everybody happy. Apparently electric cars are powered exclusively by magic.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am all in favor of alternative power sources, hybrid electric cars, and the Nissan Leaf in general. But, this feels too much like an ad to me. Each Nissan Leaf charging station comes complete with its own “dump the pump” billboard, so… in a very literal sense it is an add. Plus, the building’s magical happiness-generating properties, and the fact that they don’t require any resources, seriously breaks the simulation side of SimCity. So, as much as I am for environmentally safe cars, I wish that EA and Nissan had kept their ads out of my videogames.
The next thing you know they will find a way to beam ads directly into your brain.
Source: ArsTechnica