EA Offering Free Game to Users After SimCity Launch Problems 259
An anonymous reader writes "The SimCity launch earlier this week was a complete disaster. Single player games that require an Internet connection to enable forced multiplayer features (as well as acting as a form of DRM) is bad enough, but then to not be prepared for the demand such a popular franchise has, well, that's just dumb, and Lucy Bradshaw, EA's general manager for the Maxis Label, has admitted exactly that."
They did not provide much details, but supposedly anyone who has SimCity now should get "a free PC download game from the EA portfolio." They are unrepentant about the always-online requirement though.
Too little, too late (Score:5, Insightful)
EA has been producing crappier and crappier games and screwing over customers for years now. Their workers operate in near sweatshop (ok I wax hyperbolic, but it's not good) working conditions. They could give me their entire catalog for free and I still would never buy another one of their future titles.
Re:Too little, too late (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't pay to be a beta tester, and get an old game as a "reward'. Continue to ask for refunds, and dispute bank charges. Games shouldn't be rentals.
Re:Too little, too late (Score:5, Informative)
Games shouldn't be rentals.
Well, yes, but if tens or hundreds of millions of people support that business model, then it's going to succeed. The way to once again have games that don't require someone else's permission to play is to buy those kinds of games, not the kind that are DRMed out the ass..
You get what you ask for.
Re:Too little, too late (Score:5, Insightful)
Games shouldn't be rentals.
But they are going to be, because this is the one and only form of copy protection that can actually work. Publishers are not going to give that up any time soon.
Re: (Score:3)
In what way does it "actually work?" There are DRM free pirate releases of every game ever released in the past with "always on" DRM. It may take a few more days to crack, but it's hardly "working," especially when it's pissing off nearly all your actual customers.
Re:Too little, too late (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too little, too late (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, this is one form of copy protection that DOESN'T work. The fact is, I was all ready to buy the game. I actually buy all my games, haven't pirated one in forever. (I'm old, employed, $60 is no biggie).
Now I won't buy the game simply because I couldn't play it if I did, and I don't want a game that forces me to save games online, be online when I play, can't be played on an airplane or in the car, etc. And it will stop working once they get tired of hosting the servers.
I've bought every SimCity game ever made and many other sim games from Maxis. Paid money, not pirated. 1, 2k, 3k, 4, Societies, Sim Copter, even Sim Tower and The Sims 1 and 2, simant, simfarm, and so on. I just can't buy this in good conscience because I don't know if I will be able to use it like I wanted to. And that is sad, since I love their games. Maybe, just maybe, I will buy it if someone comes out with a cracked version, and just use the cracked version. I don't mind spending the money, I just don't like being treated like a criminal once I've given them the money. At least with Steam, I can play most games offline and on different computers.
Re:Too little, too late (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it's the one form of copy protection that will not only not work but actually drive customers away.
Let's be frank here, what is happening now?
1. People buy game.
2. People try to play and fail.
3. People search for solutions.
4. People stumble upon someone telling them that the game has been cracked and that the cracked version works.
5. People download cracked version.
6. People play game.
For other games, they'll just omit the (for them pointless) steps 1-4.
Re:Too little, too late (Score:5, Informative)
This DRM is not about preventing piracy,. DRM in games has never been about piracy. Pirates aren't slowed down by this at all. The sole purpose of DRM in games is to prevent your legal rights to resell the games you purchased. Publishers are more afraid of game resales than piracy. Preventing resales will keep the prices of the game higher, and the publishers know this, from EA to Valve (there are no good guys in the DRM world).
Consider that if you were allowed to sell your crappy copy of SimCity 5 that the market would be flooded with cheap copies by now from the disgruntled customers, from $5-10. From eBay to bargain bins to just giving the game to unsuspecting friends. Consider that after all this screw up the game is still selling for FULL PRICE! $59.99! Note also that the physical copy is also $59.99, you get not even one single cent of discount for buying the digital copy, savings are not passed on to you.
The most amazing thing is that the same customers being screwed by DRM are also fans of it and will promote it. Just like you are implying that publishers have to do this, if you repeat this lie long enough customers will believe it.
Re: (Score:2)
That won't work because just by buying it you accepted it was a rental. No-one bought without the knowledge that it was server dependant and therefore that the servers (and thus the game) would be switch off as soon as it became unprofitable.
Or 2 seconds after the release of Sim City 6.
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Most services like Steam and Origin will shut down your account (and, therefore, all the games you "own" within it) if you do a credit card chargeback (as is your right as a customer of the credit card company).
Re: Too little, too late (Score:2, Informative)
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Again, customers ironically defending the same publishers that are screwing them and stealing away their rights! "It's ok if he beats me, deep down he really loves me."
How do you explain that if you buy a physical copy of a Steam game is still comes with DRM and you can not give that physical copy away? The only thing the physical copy does is help you download it faster and to have something to pick up at the store.
If Valve is so full of saints then how come they refuse to let you resell or gift their ga
Re:Too little, too late (Score:4, Insightful)
No, they should have abandoned the DRM. That's the whole point.
Even IF this system had worked out I would not have bought it. I do not like the idea that I only get to play while hanging on their leading-string.
DRM is the least of the problems... (Score:5, Interesting)
DRM is the least of the problems with this game. They took what is inherently a single player game and turned it into social networking garbage. The online only model deprives you of the ability to play Sim City on the train, airplane, or litany of other unconnected places where you might want to play by yourself to pass the time. It deprives you of the ability to save your game, blow the city to hell with disasters, and resume playing afterwards. People might laugh at this, but that has been a huge part of the Sim City experience since the very first release in 1989. The servers don't speak to each other, so if you create a game on server A and have to use Server B tomorrow you can't play the city you spent hours creating. All of this is a huge problem, and that's without taking into account the DRM and completely inadequate server infrastructure.
The server model doesn't even make financial sense for EA -- ongoing expense for a one-time sale -- unless of course they intend to turn this game into a bunch of downloadable content where they "add" features (that have existed since Sim City 2000, i.e., subways and large maps) every few months for $20 a pop. This is almost certainly their plan, because it's the only way the server model can work without becoming a money pit.
I have played this game since I was ten years old and got the SNES version for Christmas. My sister and I used to spend hours in the public library playing Sim City 2000 before we had our first PC, saving our games on 5.25" floppy disks so we could play again tomorrow. I met many of my online friends -- most of whom I still communicate with -- through an old Majordomo mailing list that I found in a book about Sim City 2000. Hell, Sim City 2000 got me online in the first place. I learned how to make my own scenarios with nothing more than a hex editor and patience. I ignored the eye candy and stupid crossovers with The Sims in Sim City 3000 and Sim City 4 because they were at least smart enough to improve upon the underlying simulation model and keep it true to the franchise.
Disappointment does not begin to describe my feelings about this game, which was the first video game I've shelled out my coin for in five years. No, I'm not a pirate, I've just lost interest in gaming in general as I've aged, but this one had me genuinely excited in spite of my concerns about the online model and DRM. Guess I should have known better. I was one of the lucky ones, got a effortless (except for waiting two hours in chat queue) refund without any argument even though I bought it from Origin. Saved me the hassle of doing a credit card charge back, which is something I would highly recommend for anyone who can't get a refund through other channels. Vote with your wallet, it's the only thing EA understands.
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I am also old enough to remember the "old days" of Sim City. Sim City was why I bought that ram extension for my Amiga. Sim City 2000 was why I traveled 50 miles on a bus to the only town around where it was available (and it almost costed me graduation in the end).
SC3000, SC4, I bought them all, played them all, (actually bought SC4 twice, long story) and I was quite a bit excited when I heard that 5 was coming. Luckily I was wary enough when I heard what EA plans with it and my gut feeling was right.
So I
Re:DRM is the least of the problems... (Score:4, Informative)
So I won't get it. Cities XL looks mighty tempting now, though.
I thought the same thing. Its good, but its not quite Simcity 2k good.
Personally I am getting my kicks in Tropico right now. Just think Simcity in Cuba.
Steam has the complete pack with all DLC for ten bucks this weekend.
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Already got it, already played through it. It was a bit of a letdown when I got it, T4 was pretty much a T3 with some new bells and whistles, but with 10 bucks you can't go wrong, the new campaigns alone are worth 10 bucks easily, and the modern times addon sure gives it a new little twist here and there. Plus, by now there's quite a few player made maps out there that are pretty decent too.
And if everything fails, there's still sandbox mode. My only complaint would probably be that it's a bit too easy. But
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I used to play simcity a long time ago, and by that I mean a very early or the earliest version. Then I found Civilization and never played simcity again, but that's beside the point. It seems to me that the simcity game was pretty hardcore on the antipiracy stuff even in the early days. If I recall correctly, to load the game you had to type in something from a printed table that came with the game disk, but it was printed in black text on dark burgundy colored paper. This prevented photocopying, but i
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Wow -- life before search engines must have been hard. I lived it and can't even remember what it was like.
Anyway, this is the code sheet I was talking about:
http://www.vintagecomputing.com/wp-content/images/copyprotection/simcity_large.jpg [vintagecomputing.com]
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The most hilarious doc-check protection I can remember was the one for ELITE, IIRC for the Atari ST. The doc-check itself was straight forward, but when, instead of looking up the word in the manual, you typed in the code word to get access to the hex editor it would always ask for the same word from page 16... I forgot the rest.
It was then that I always enabled the cheat mode even if I didn't plan to cheat, it allowed me to play the game without reaching for the manual each time.
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It deprives you of the ability to save your game, blow the city to hell with disasters, and resume playing afterwards. People might laugh at this, but that has been a huge part of the Sim City experience since the very first release in 1989.
A huge part? It's been the best part!
Losing that capability destroys the game completely for people that are interested in the 'what if' scenarios rather than a linear progession.
Can my city survive a flood/fire/bridge collapse/attack from a renowned overgrown Japanese reptile?
Shit, next you'll be telling me this messed up version doesn't support infinite cash hacks?
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Oh yeah. Start a fire or a riot in SC2000, let the game run for a while (make the viewpoint window as small as possible to maximize speed), and enjoy your firestorm/open rebellion.
Or the original, where fires could rage for decades as the city grew around the burning squares.
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Not any more. Now days, most companies have betas that you have to pay $10-30 to participate in or buy another game to participate in. Or pre-order the game to participate in.
Of course, I don't know why anyone would want to participate in a beta. That just sounds like doing work for your recreational time.
Re:Too little, too late (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Too little, too late (Score:5, Insightful)
So in other words, EA is saying: "we're sorry you discovered that our product is complete DRM-ridden shit, so we want to allow you to download any of our outdated examples of complete DRM-ridden shit from our online catalog!"
I'm thinking that a lot of otherwise unconcerned folks are discovering the hard way that maybe DRM is a bad idea?
Nah - too much to hope for.
Spectacularly defeats the purpose of DRM too (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, it just occurs to me... their problem with piracy and with second hand games is that someone gets to play one of EA's games, and EA doesn't get paid for it.
So let me get this straight, the result of putting the idiotic DRM in SimCity, is... that now a LOT of people get to play one of EA's (other) games, and EA doesn't get paid for it.
Sure, most of those wouldn't have bought the other EA game, but then neither would have most pirates. That is, outside of putting the BS in BSA.
But if you do the the maths BSA style, where every single copy downloaded is a lost sale -- and you just know whoever came up with that over-the-top DRM is -- yeah, great job, EA. Did you need a scope to shoot yourself in the foot so neatly, or is it a natural talent?
No, seriously, releasing SimCity without DRM would have probably resulted in less people playing an unpaid copy, AND saved them from all the negative publicity and angry customers.
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... releasing SimCity without DRM would have probably resulted in less people playing an unpaid copy [of one of EA's games], AND saved them from all the negative publicity and angry customers.
Best quote I've read all day.
It's slightly weakened by some of the online aspects, but certainly should apply to the single-player mode.
Re:Too little, too late (Score:5, Insightful)
What's interesting is the date they've set for the claim:
That date is over a week away, and almost two weeks from the initial release: why would they set it so far ahead? I guess the logical explanation for it is to allow for people who ordered a copy via snail-mail, but the cynic in me wonders if they're trying to bulk out the sale numbers with "look, it now comes with a free game, and you've got ages to join in! Please buy it! Ignore the bad reviews, think of the other game you'll get for free!".
Re:Too little, too late (Score:5, Insightful)
To top it all, when I tried to contact them to see if patch-only downloads were available (I'm on a slow connection that 6Gb of downloads would swamp) I was told I didn't have the right date of birth. I ended up having to use the UK Data Protection Act to get hold of my account details, and sure enough my DOB was correct. The data also included "customer offered 15% discount" - which was news to me.
I give up , I'm simply not going to buy another £40 coaster from them, I have enough of those.
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Has been this way with battlefield 2 as well. Each "update", which seemed incremental, i.e. names such as update_103_to_104.tar.bz2, was a complete replacement and even overwrote your configs if you didn't save them someplace else. Servers were a pita to run as well, but I guess they solved that with their stupid rental model now.
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People have known EA was full of sleaze for decades now. This should come as no surprise to anyone. I sort of feel sorry for Maxis for getting involved here and tarnishing their own game. But they made their own problem when they partnered with known scumbags.
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I don't want a free game. I just want my money back. I've had no problems connecting and playing -- the game is just shit. This isn't SimCity. This is . . . a sort of high-gloss facebook game. Giving me a free game (that I probably already own) does nothing for me. Just give me my money back and you MIGHT have a chance of me returning to Origin as a customer. Maybe (and I buy a LOT of stuff).
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They could give me their entire catalog for free and I still would never buy another one of their future titles.
Their entire catalogue consists of 51 titles currently, the majority of which either require online DRM or have already had their servers shut down. Just what people pissed off about online DRM want.
Re:Too little, too late (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, how dare they expect a game to work at all on day 1! What a bunch of assholes!
Re:Too little, too late (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Too little, too late (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I think they did consider the use-case (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, considering how the game works, I'm 100% convinced that it's the result of EA considering the single-player case... except in EA management lingo that use-case sounds a bit like, "OMG, gazillions of people will pirate our game, or buy it used on EBay."
Seriously, the game IS at heart a single player game. I've managed to squeeze in between server crashes and start a game or two, and guess what? The game functions exactly the same when the server crashes while you're in your city.
The lie that the game is too complex for a single CPU and they need to do server-side processing too, was just that: a lie. The only "server-side processing" they do is saving the game and publishing your game events.
But here's the funny thing: Steam for example manages just fine to send your achievements to the server in the background, without needing the game to be tethered to a server all the time. Skyrim, Fallout New Vegas, A Game Of Dwarves, etc, take your pick, they're all single player games that Steam can both provide DRM for and save the achievements (and for some even the save games) on their server without pretending it's an online game.
So anyway, the game IS perfectly able to run single player. It's not a real client-server product like WoW or EA's own TOR. It doesn't need a server or a server emulator to play exactly the same. It's a single player game, which is perfectly able to function without a server, plus some artificial tethering to their servers that doesn't really add much.
So why IS a single player mode missing at least as an official option to start the game, when the game functions perfectly well in single player?
It seems to me like the only reasonable explanation is that they considered single-player offline mode as something to prevent.
Well, that much is clear (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, that much is clear.
In fact, here's a thought: they said that the processing was so complex, they had to do some of it on their servers. But... if my still fairly top of the line 4 cpu / 8 thread Intel couldn't do it... what was EA going to do that actually makes a difference? Add one more CPU of their own for everyone who plays at a given time? Yeah, I'm so going to believe that they'll buy a 1 million CPU server farm just to handle everyone at launch. NOT.
So, yeah, it was clear that they're just shovelling ridiculous BS and hoping that enough morons would actually believe that.
The sad part, though, is that I've actually seen morons repeating it in excuse of the crashing servers fiasco.
Actually, now that makes me wonder (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, now that I said that only morons would believe EA's BS about the CPU not being enough for their game, and that they're actually processing your city on the server... it kinda makes me wonder if they ARE trying to get morons as a target demographic.
I was reading a paper a few months ago about Nigerian widow scams and such. The question they had basically asked themselves was: why those scams don't try to be a little less ridiculous and more plausible? Why don't they try to snag more people?
Their conclusion was that basically the scammers don't really want everyone. They actually want only the morons, who are more likely to then go through with it. If a smart person gets tipped off that it's bogus... GOOD! That's one less dead end to waste time on.
So I'm thinking, hmmmm, maybe that's EA's plan. Maybe they do want to reach the morons. More morons with money probably means more crap DLCs sold down the line :p
Re:Too little, too late (Score:5, Informative)
A triple A game company that gets it right is companies like EgoSoft who removed all DRM from their X3 franchise and has already announced the new X3 sequel will not contain any form of DRM at all.
DRM only hurts legit players and lags them up, making games unplayable for legit customers. And cripples PC gamers and PC's
There are quire a few triple A game companies that know DRM is shit and does not help at all against piracy and it only hurts legit customers.
People who buy SimCity 5 are total morons if they buy it knowing the DRM it has, cause in a couple years that 59 dollars goes in the toilet when EA unplugs the login server for SimCity 5.
they've already killed game servers as little as 2 years old in the past. Making money spent on the game totally useless.
Anyone who defends companies like EA or Ubisoft are just ignorant of the facts, and it's those 2 companies that are destroying PC gaming the most.
If I had a choice between piracy or selling my company to EA, I'd more than welcome the pirates. Cause Valve already published a study that games without DRM piracy HELPS sales, due to word of mouth advertising as well as most pirates will pirate for the single player action and fall in love with the title and buy it for online play or coop play or to support the developers in general if they enjoy the game as a try before you buy. Which was published by Valve that piracy helps pc game sales.
it's only companies that use draconian DRM that continue to lose money and eventually blame piracy when it's their own company shooting themself in the foot (See Ubisoft's CEO blaming piracy for last years sales drop, when in fact it was most their games requiring always on DRM such as AC series, Anno 2070, and most everything else they released this past year)
Re: (Score:3)
Sorry, I could understand it taking a few tries right at release, when the main spike hits, but to take three days to log in just to play single player which should need little to no connection (should be validation the FIRST time you ru
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I do believe your detractors have a point. EA is not the most consumer-friendly of publishers, and while people do know that patches, etc., will be forthcoming for
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How dare they expect a product to work when all they did for it is to fork money over? The cheek!
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I'm going to go buy something from EA just for the fuck of twisting your nuts
Mod this Funny! I'm still chortling at the though of someone buying an EA game to spite someone else. :-D
They obviously thought... (Score:5, Funny)
... that with all that really bad DRM shai'te no one would actually buy it... so they were not prepared for actual sales.
Reminds me of some of the Amazon comments (Score:2)
At least on Amazon.de there were a couple of comments to the effect of, "Well, they couldn't have guessed that all the idiots who paid a lot of money for a game actually intend to play it." :p
Vote with your wallet (Score:5, Insightful)
Eventually the game manufacturers will learn.
Re:Vote with your wallet (Score:5, Insightful)
There's an easy fix to this: Never, ever, ever buy a game that has always on DRM.
Eventually the game manufacturers will learn.
We HAVE voted with our wallets. And we're getting clearly outvoted, else publishers and developers wouldn't keep doing it.
Re: (Score:2)
Mycroft
Re:Vote with your wallet (Score:5, Insightful)
All the retailer sees is a slight dip in sales for campaigns that start after something has been on the market for a while. If it's a new product, sales just aren't as high as they could be, but the retailers have no idea what it could have been.
Not buying the product is INVISIBLE TO THE RETAILER. Unless, as I stated earlier, you can virtually wipe out all sales, something that is virtually impossible. (Ebola plague juice being an exception.)
Here's the best way to get it through their thick adamantium plated marketing spin enhanced skulls. COMMUNICATE!
Email, in large enough quantities, can get their attention. However, some companies kind of ignore or filter that stuff, and besides, they are wary of scriptbots spamming them.
Dead Tree Format Snail Mail may be old fashioned, but companies will pay a LOT more attention to it. I've seen email campaigns that got thousands of responses that got ignored, when a letter writing campaign of 60-80 letters got an immediate and positive response for the same issue.
Here's another hint. Don't attack, insult, or threaten them. That's another fast way to get you attempt neutralized, and maybe even get some cops knocking on your door. That doesn't mean you can't tell them what you don't like, how you feel about it, and what you think is a better idea, just be polite and civil about it.
You see, the person reading the mail, usually isn't the person in charge. Though they may forward your mail up the chain of command. Attacking that person is NOT going to help you, in fact, that kind of stuff usually makes them roundfile your letter. (Yes, that means throw it away, or if that's illegal, throw it into the dusty box in the backroom that nobody ever looks in.)
You being an impolite thug with lots of profanity and the like will get a similar response to attacking people.
And I wish I didn't happen to mention it, but don't make threats. Either physical or legal. Physical threats will get you in a permanent troublemaker file where you will be ignored by everyone except the police. And yes, they do occasionally respond to these kinds of threats with investigations and arrests.
As to legal threats, they are a different problem. You may get ignored, depending on the details, but most likely you will get sent to the legal department that will decide how valid your threats are, and proceed from there. As to proceeding from there, nothing will ever happen until the legal paperwork for a court date or whatever shows up. You can't bluff a lawyer with legal threats, you actually have to follow through, and of course, taking legal action against a company is not what writing to them is for. Legal threats will get even less attention from a company than physical threats, and neither one will advance your cause.
One final note for everyone. A well written letter is good, but a thousand identical letters isn't a thousand times better. Have a skilled writer make a template or example for people to use, but everyone should personalize it to make each letter unique, but clear and to the point. After all, the same exact letter over and over will just be treated as spam.
That's about all I can say, other than I'm as sick of hearing people say vote with your wallet, because it just doesn't work.
Re: (Score:2)
There's an easy fix to this: Never, ever, ever buy a game that has always on DRM.
Eventually the game manufacturers will learn.
We HAVE voted with our wallets. And we're getting clearly outvoted, else publishers and developers wouldn't keep doing it.
In the eyes of an EA exec (Or MPAA/RIAA, etc) Any and all lost sales are due to piracy.
Re: (Score:2)
To EA, that means you didn't vote with your wallet but clearly that you copied it and that their DRM is not invasive enough.
I have no idea what else they could come up with, though. Maybe next you'll need a webcam and face recognition software making sure that it's really YOU who play.
Vote with your VOTE (Score:2)
There should be legislation that forces purchased software (licenses) must be transferable (striking all EULAs restricting that), and if someone buys add-ons for software and subsequently transfers that software, those addons must be transferable with it (even if from different companies). That would include downloadable content.
The whole ability for companies to be able to write felonies into their EULAs through abusing of the Computer Crime "illegal access" and requiring online connections needs to stop.
W
Re:Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is to say EA hasn't learned at all. I'd love a new SimCity game, but I won't buy it in this state. So not only did they spend the money to make it unplayable, but they lost some numbers of sales. I am hard-pressed to believe the *real* losses from piracy (i.e. those who would buy the game, but don't) are greater than the losses they are creating for themselves.
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The little devil inside me doesn't think that they "outsold their expectations", but simply that they knew people would put up with any crap anyway, that their current server makeup will suffice in a month or two and that there's no need to put in more just 'cause their customers are pissed off. They'll come back anyway, they're dumb enough.
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Well a SNAFU like this will get more people to understand what the nerds have been complaining about. Hopefully the number of people the are discontent with DRM will grow large enough that it can't be ignored.
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Single player = local play. If a company wants to redesign that then they need a new name for it so it's clear.
MMOs do not have single player modes, so there's no expectation of local play.
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If a game is supposedly one that I play alone, it is a single player game. And in a single player game I guess I should be allowed to expect that I don't need someone else telling me I may play it.
We are sorry our products are so shitty. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:We are sorry our products are so shitty. (Score:5, Insightful)
You, sir, are an optimist.
The actual wording is pretty smarmy. Using the word portfolio leads one to believe one will be able to select any title from their portfolio. But read it carefully and you'll see not only does it not say that, it doesn't say you will have ANY choice as to which game.
Re: (Score:2)
In order to make you feel better, please choose one of our other shitty products. Two shitty games are better than one!
And good luck getting to the activation server.
Free Single Player? (Score:5, Insightful)
What about a Simcity 4.5? or simcity 4 source code (Score:2)
What about a Simcity 4.5? or simcity 4 source code?
Even if out looking at the DRM simcity 5 is to dumbed down and the city sizes are to small.
Now I used to play simcity 4 + NAM and other plugins But it needs the source code to fix stuff.
The simcity 5 beta made my move from maybe buy to not buy and buy a different game.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Free Single Player? (Score:4, Informative)
"adding multiplayer" implies nothing was subtracted
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Multiplayer Sim City does sound interesting, I agree, but they've gone about doing it in entirely the wrong way.
A much smarter way would have been to implement save-games in a Git-like fashion, where you can pick and choose which people to play with.
This obviously won't work for a real time game, but for games like Sim City and the like, it'd work just fine. Hell, a Civilization style game could work fine as well.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's like offering the drowning guy another stone and chain for the other ankle.
The better product (Score:5, Insightful)
And they keep bitching at me when I write up that piracy has moved past "free" and now is about a demonstrably better product. Free is almost lost in the noise now. The state of modern consumer fleecing has gotten painful to watch.
Re:The better product is city in motion 2 (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The better product is city in motion 2 or some of ideas on kicker starter.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1584821767/civitas-plan-develop-and-manage-the-city-of-your-d [kickstarter.com]
http://www.train-fever.com/ [train-fever.com]
yeah? (Score:2)
> They are unrepentant about the always-online requirement though.
And I am equally unrepentant about not buying any more of their stuff.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
The good news is that SimCity is a solid hit in all major markets.
Gamers don't care about that. The good news would be your mess is un-f'd.
Actually, I think this is a great example of why digital downloads (of anything) shouldn't cost as much as the same thing distributed on disk. Obviously the net worth of the digitally distributed version of these games is such that EA can pass out a
Re:EA's Lucy Bradshaw's post (Score:5, Informative)
So what went wrong? The short answer is: a lot more people logged on than we expected. More people played and played in ways we never saw in the beta.
Beta tester here: Maybe if their beta lasted longer then 24 hours they would have seen this coming.
Re: (Score:3)
I really cannot help but comment. I usually don't even bother reading through marketing drivel, but I just cannot resist in this case. Also, I'm usually not one to weigh someone's words, but in this case I will. Mostly because with press statements by big companies it can usually be said that these are very, very carefully worded and reread a few times before being pushed out the door.
POSTED BY Lucy Bradshaw ON Mar 8, 2013
A SimCity UpdateAnd Something For Your Trouble
Here’s a quick update on the problems we were experiencing with SimCity – and a little something extra for people who bought the game.
The server issues which began at launch have improved significantly as we added more capacity. But some people are still experiencing response and stability problems that we’re working fast to address.
So what went wrong? The short answer is: a lot more people logged on than we expected. More people played and played in ways we never saw in the beta.
No kidding? You saw more people play than were in the beta? Now, I may be working in the wrong field in IT, but isn't that t
Amazon ratings (Score:2)
Rating systems, especially on amazon, are far from accurate.
Many people use ratings solely for retribution when they really have an issue with a product or the way they were treated, even when they wouldn't normally rate a product. This is one of the reasons yelp ratings have such issues -- yelp tried to deal with the retribution aspect by disqualifying singleton bad ratings. This means the person that had a really bad experience and posted about it never gets heard, and is buried by people who give several
Fuck em (Score:2)
If I cant even play a single player game off-line I wont buy it. Fuck em I hope SimCity crashes and burns hard.
BTW I have purchased all of the other SimCitys as well as some of the side games, BUT I will NEVER buy SimCity again until they remove this allways on DRM crap.
PS. Did I mention FUCK EM.
Pet Hotel Tycoon! (Score:5, Funny)
I expect, given EA's greed, that this will be the "free game" they give to every victim of their ineptitude. ...that or they'll give away free copies of Star Wars: The Old Republic
Re: (Score:2)
that or they'll give away free copies of Star Wars: The Old Republic
No shame there. That might very well be the best game in their portfolio :)
Well, take a look at how much they charge for that game, though. I'm not sure EA can afford to do that.... oh wait....
Would have liked to play it... (Score:5, Interesting)
but I'm already boycotting any always connected games or any other product. I can live without, plenty of other good games available, plus my back catalog of awesome games that i always go back to, and thanks to visualization, i can always return to even the oldest ones.
After the Bioware debacle where they disabled their authentication servers (fortunately games still playable online) and Gamespy shutting down their old servers (without the publishers releasing patches to enable online matchups without gamespy - eg: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance), I'm totally against any form of always-on connection.
I'm not even willing to trust Steam now. I believe Gabe is a good man, and as long as he is at the helm things will be cool, but one day he will be gone, and when the first profit oriented CEO takes over, it will just turn into another EA or Ubisoft, and at that point, support for old games will suddenly disappear, and one by one, those games you paid for will no longer work. Or at least that is my guess... i'm not willing to risk it. I want the games i bought to be mine.
Re: (Score:2)
LOL... And, just to reinforce my belief, my internet just dropped 2 seconds after making this post. If I was playing an always online game at that point, my game would have either stopped/lagged badly/or maybe just crashed.
Re: (Score:3)
Erm, if I'm disconnected when I launch it, I get asked if I want to start it in offline mode.
This is why I don't buy games very often. (Score:5, Interesting)
I have the income to buy them. I have the desire to play them. I have the computer hardware to play them. And I won't pirate them.
But I won't pay you $50 or $60 and be rewarded with the very kind of stress that I've purchased the game to temporarily escape from. You're not going to stop the pirates, but you are going to stop me.
Consolation: You get a game you don't want? (Score:5, Insightful)
All in all (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The sad part is, there isn't. What I've seen so far is that the game was dumbed down enough that even SC2000 looks complicated in comparison.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Poor Maxis, i feel so bad for them.
It's sad how often this [minus.com] can reasonably be updated.
The great thing about mobile games (Score:4, Interesting)
A really great aspect of mobile game development is that while game makers can expect you probably will have networking, they can't rely on it always working. So while they can build features that make good use of networking they can't really make games that don't work when disconnected.
Meaningless (Score:2)
They are unrepentant about the DRM issue that caused the problem and have been busy spinning it as a popularity issue instead. They have no plans or intention of changing their ways and hope that this offering smooths over a public relations debacle.
This game, and EA themselves need to be boycotted for the good of the industry until such time as EA repents and changes their ways. A grassroots boycott that costs them far more money than their imaginary losses from piracy is the only thing that can get them t
This is almost like... (Score:2)
I've found the game! (Score:2)
Here's the free game EA will be offering. [youtu.be]
They've learned nothing (Score:2)
And as a result, I'll continue to not buy the game.
Sooner or later EA is going to piss off too many people with shoddy service, and they'll be in real trouble. It'd actually be nice if the game tanked due to nonsense like this: it'd be a warning to the rest of the industry.
This is equivalent to "Let them eat cake" (Score:2)
buy one turd get another one free? No thanks. (Score:2)
EA can suck my arse (Score:2)
I am not paying 60 bucks to be at the mercy of your servers just to play sim fucking city, and tanks for renforcing that to me by not being able to keep up with demand of your own product, did you not look at how many copies you sold?
Single player for On-The-Road (Score:3)
I often travel a few hours by train or other measures, where I have lots of free time on my hands. I would have loved buying simcity 5, and very nearly did, but then heard about the always on requirement. Which frankly, just doesn't make sense for this kind of game.
Also losing my save-state when the internet connection at home goes down: Who designs crap like that?
another EA game? (Score:2)
More of the same (Score:2)
The problem becomes that regardless of how this works out, EA isn't accountable. If you boycott the game and don't buy it, EA assumes this is entirely the fault of the game or developer. If you do buy it, EA thinks you're apathetic or complacent about whatever silly DRM they've employed and will continue using and/or cooking up crappy new anti-consumer methods. Unfortunately, the better scenario is buying the game. You have to support titles and developers you like, despite the evil publishing facility