This week, I stopped by the Video Game History Hour to talk about SimRefinery!

The Video Game History Hour is a podcast by the Video Game History Foundation, where the organization’s co-directors Frank Cifaldi and Kelsey Lewin bring on video game historians to talk about their research. I was glad to have the chance to join Frank and Kelsey to chat about my report on Maxis Business Simulations, the division of SimCity developer Maxis that made games for corporations, like SimRefinery.

Two years ago, Frank was responsible for a huge project about the unreleased Nintendo Entertainment System version of SimCity, and he was curious how SimRefinery fits into the story of SimCity. We talked about how it represents an alternate timeline for what Maxis could have become – and we went on some tangents about the weird company that they did become. Did you know that they briefly had a Maxis Sports brand? Really!

Listen to the new episode here. You can catch the Video Game History Hour on all major podcast platforms and follow them on Twitter at @gamehistoryhour.