Well, all work and no play makes for a dull boy, so Electronic Arts is donating the original SimCity to the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project - for each laptop for um... each child.

The laptops themselves will begin shipping to the first batch of countries by the end of this year.

The original SimCity was the game that popularized the whole city-building game genre, and the idea is that kids will benefit from the game's fun and effective way of teaching decision-making and creativity.

The more recent incarnations of SimCity still retains a lot from the original, including (of course) building housing areas, schools, and energy supplies. Kids will also have to learn to manage the city's taxes and funds as well as manage policing and road repair.

The SimCity game is an effective way of using the limited storage and processing power of the laptop itself, and will be beneficial for each child that has access to the unit.