Monte Cristo, French creator of online SimCity clone, raises €4.5 million

Remember those good old days when you built cities? The early and tough beginning with the polluted ground, the first fire, and when you were in a bad mood: the riots, cyclones, and other disasters. Yeah, we used to be god back then, ruling our city with firm hand.

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t touched SimCity for a while. I’m not even sure whether Matrix offers a Mac version. But some of you dear readers might have discovered CityLife, an online clone of Sim City – developed by Paris-based Monte Cristo.

This French independent game developer has raised €4.5 million from Arts Alliance, 360 degrees Capital Partners and Innoven Partenaires. The thirteen year-old company will use the newly acquired money for CITIES XL, Monte Cristo’s upcoming next-generation city-building online game. That means they’ll expand CityLife, maybe creating an even better game than SimCity.

I wish I could test the game for you, but I can’t. The risk of an addiction is too high. You don’t want to see your European tech news blog disappearing because of an online game, right?