Maybe they had an agreement with GOG? This is all personal speculation, but GOG was primarily known as Good Old (Ol'?) Games for a long time, as they would put that under their GOG acronym back in the day. It was essentially a storefront that primarily dealt with classics and keeping them available to consumers before they pivoted and started also focusing a lot on modern games. Maybe my memory is flawed and I'm completely misremembering the old GOG and they've always focused on modern games as well, so anyone feel free to correct me if that's the case.

Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if GOG struck a deal with a lot of publishers for selling all their classics exclusively. On the flip side, it could also be that the publishers just didn't care enough about their old offerings to put any effort into porting them into other storefronts. Now that retrogaming is much more ubiquitous than it once was, some bean counter pitched this idea in a mid-quarter profit seeking brainstorming meeting and here we are.

I don't think these games require the EA launcher.

That is so fucking annoying. How they gonna say you can't play a game that you bought.

Ffs.

I was having similar issues with Red Dead Redemption 2 on Steam. Like RDR2 is still a great game but that DRM bullshit can go fuck itself.

I don't know about these newly added games but I can launch Sim City 4 from Steam without Origin.

I own all of C&C on Origin, but I'd rather get a root canal without anesthetic than use their launcher. I paid Steam $10 instead.

I'm OK with them wanting to keep making money from it as long as they update it for compatibility with newer operating systems. Selling something they have completely abandoned us not cool.

Same here, Sim City 3000 and The Sims were my jam and I still listen to their soundtracks every once in a while, they're so good. There was something truly magical about Maxis back then.

I honestly had no idea there was a SimCity 3000. Last one I played was SimCity 2000

I really want a modern old school style city builder. I tried cities skyline but it was too complicated. Like parkitect is to planet coaster.

It does not

I remember spending hours on the first level raising land across the entire planet to make a gigantic village

Yeah I'd forgotten about Populous, used to play it on my Amiga back in the day. It was the first. RTS type game I played iirc.

Check out Project Highrise. Felt pretty similar to the nostalgia.

Or https://www.myabandonware.com/game/simtower-the-vertical-empire-3f2

This one and SimCopter took way more of my time than any of the other Sim games by a mile. I was especially surprised because SimCopter was full 3D and my old hardware could run it.

I don't know how well a remaster of either would sell, but I'd buy them. SimCopter could even be a mobile game at this point.

There is OpenRA. An open source engine to get those classic C&C games running on modern machines but it only supports C&C, Red Alert 1 and Dune 2000.

They are working on the next engine with Tiberian Sun currently under development.

If you're interested in Dungeon Keeper, I highly recommend a similar project called KeeperFX. Play the game on modern systems, in higher resolutions, with game fixes as well.

From what the steam reviews say, it's using Dosbox for the former.