Coming back to SimCity 2000 today, I find it much harder to callously play with the lives of my virtual citizens. The years I’ve spent as a homeowner, parent, and city-dwelling adult make me at least pause before I willingly inflict that kind of pain on my tiny subjects.

I can totally understand that feeling! I played a fair bit of Cities Skylines. To unlock all buildings you have to inflict quite a lot of chaos to your citicens, e.g. garbage needs to pile up like crazy or crime needs to be really high.

It was almost painful to unlock these buildings.