Every time I’ve ever brought up the fact that Cities Skylines (the first one anyway, I haven’t played 2, maybe it’s different) isn’t really much of a game as much as it’s a city painting/traffic management sandbox with very little chance of ever failing, people would inevitably come and hit me with a “That sounds like an amazing time!” Or a “And that’s why it’s better than SimCity!”

For everything else that SimCity 2013 had going against it (and there was a lot), its gameplay actually had challenges to overcome with real decisions to make that had gameplay consequences as you were building out your city. Where you put your utilities mattered. If you didn’t think it through, you were putting your city in jeopardy.

In C:S, it felt like the only real consequence your decisions ever had was that you made more traffic jams to handle. And that’s not even really an obstacle because you could literally raze your entire city and rebuild it with your many millions accrued over time.

But you can’t make a huge city in SimCity (2013), so C:S won.