Comment by na85

I've definitely seen it argued that SimCity-alikes (and The Sims) are not games. Whether nor not this is true is IMHO beyond the scope of HN comments.

Suppose it's a game: Cities Skylines is open-ended and has no formal win condition, but you can certainly lose. Your city can go bankrupt, etc.

You're playing against the simulator algorithms. If you succeed then you've beaten those algorithms.