The download only contains an incremental update to the actual product, which has to be acquired separately.

The long-awaited 4th generation of the game SimCity, SimCity 4, features new simulation and graphics engines, new regional game play and the new ability to track the lives of individual Sims as they go about their daily routine, SimCity 4 is the most realistic, powerful and personal SimCity experience ever. Right from the start, players experience new God-like powers of creation as they lay the groundwork for their cities by molding mountains, carving valleys, seeding forests and laying rivers. With these new landscape creation features, players can now construct the most realistic metropolis imaginable. Each city a player creates becomes part of an ever-growing tapestry of municipalities that, once connected by transportation networks, share and compete for resources. Depending upon the choices made by a player, this multi-city game play can result in a variety of outcomes within that region. For the first time ever, players can follow a Sim as they go about their life in the city. Players can personalize their Sim and immediately move him or her into any area and watch them experience life in the city, first hand. Is he or she enjoying a happy existence in an urban utopia or enduring a futile fight for survival in the inner-city?