'SimCity' & the rights of gamers as consumers

[DrToffnar]

“To see anyone defending EA and Maxis for the state of SimCity, even were it in perfect working order on launch, depresses me to my core. This self-flagellation-as-skincare notion, where gamers loudly and proudly defend the destruction of their own rights as consumers, is an Orwellian perversity.”
-John Walker of Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Perhaps a little extreme? Or maybe right on the money? I haven't entirely made up my mind yet.
Whilst a majority of the issues reguaring the game's lack of server space have been almost entirely resolved now, we're still left with that eternal problem of constant online DRM. And while myself aswell as many other people feel the newest addition to the franchise is a more then adequate one, the way it's so obviously been carved from day dot of it's development to foster microtransactions is quite simply unethical. These points along with a host of others really seem to give power to the above statement.

I've never really liked EA so I'm always going to be quick to judge any of there failings (for which, I'm sure we can all agree on, there are many). But I've always tried to appreciate that at there core they are a bussiness who's end goal is always to please the shareholder. But when business practices become unethical and lazy and force the paying customers into a situation where they've paid for a product that doesn't simply fall short of expectations, but pushes the boundries of there legal rights of ownership to breaking point, I think it's only fair to agree that we have a series problem that must be seen to.

Maybe we're taking this far too seriosuly. Maybe it's really not that big of a deal. Either way, it's a topic that we must continue to talk about.
What do you think???

 

[:(Rhodri:)]

I think modders will continue to rip apart all of EAs claims about Sim City, to the point that EA will be forced into making a u-turn on many of these stupid "features" or risk further alienating their audience. The game can run fully client-side with only the saves not syncing, and EA giving everyone the silent treatment is not going to shove that cat back in the bag.

 

[LateX'Dog]

Shame we can't talk about pirated copies, because that has no issues

 

[arknor]

Shame we can't talk about pirated copies, because that has no issues

there is no pirated version so stop being a troll

 

[DrToffnar]

Shame we can't talk about pirated copies, because that has no issues

That doesn't justify punishing paying customers. The only way to combat piracy is to produce a product that's worth paying £40 for, SimCity Isn't an example of that product. Isn't there already a crack available anyway?

 

[~Divine~Wind~]

there is no pirated version so stop being a troll

It is however only a matter of time, just look at the numerous incarnations for "private servers" for "Insert MMO Name"

That doesn't justify punishing paying customers. The only way to combat piracy is to produce a product that's worth paying £40 for, SimCity Isn't an example of that product. Isn't there already a crack available anyway?

It's just more rubbish in the name of "preventing" piracy.
Constantly on DRM is ridiculous, even more so when you can't even play the game at all unless their servers are workign as intended. So this is paying customers yet again getting shafted by their "protection" of their product.

Iv'e read elsewhere that EA have said in some announcement that those wanting a refund could request one. I also read somewhere that they are going to allow you 1 free game from their catalogue.

Are these right?
If so nab yer free game then request the refund

Go on hit em in the wallet

I was gonna get this to play with a few mates but the constant issues with it I think I'll not bother.

 

[arknor]

It is however only a matter of time, just look at the numerous incarnations for "private servers" for "Insert MMO Name"

Only happens if someone leaks the server code though.

someone on reddit disabled the time out limit so you can play offline for more than 20minutes but you still need to log back in to save

 

[schnipps]

I honestly don't see the problem, so i need a constant on connection, why are people so massively bothered by it? Its seems to be insulting people and getting them angry am i missing something?

 

[LateX'Dog]

there is no pirated version so stop being a troll

Hahaha, trust me there is.

 

[DrToffnar]

It is however only a matter of time, just look at the numerous incarnations for "private servers" for "Insert MMO Name"



It's just more rubbish in the name of "preventing" piracy.
Constantly on DRM is ridiculous, even more so when you can't even play the game at all unless their servers are workign as intended. So this is paying customers yet again getting shafted by their "protection" of their product.

Iv'e read elsewhere that EA have said in some announcement that those wanting a refund could request one. I also read somewhere that they are going to allow you 1 free game from their catalogue.

Are these right?
If so nab yer free game then request the refund

Go on hit em in the wallet

I was gonna get this to play with a few mates but the constant issues with it I think I'll not bother.

Yep, the free game thing is true. We should be getting more details on the 18th. It's not enough though in my opinion. I'd much rather them promise free larger city sizes and a piece of DLC and then a further £5 of the asking price on Origin for futrure buyers.

Dont ge tme wrong my friend, the game itself isn't bad. It's just suffered from some seriously lazy development in a lot of areas.

 

[arknor]

I honestly don't see the problem, so i need a constant on connection, why are people so massively bothered by it? Its seems to be insulting people and getting them angry am i missing something?

yea not everyone wants to be online 24/7 and EA wont keep the servers up forever as you probably know they usually take multiplayer servers down for their games after a year.

It also kills mods which were one of the best things about previous simcity games

 

[LateX'Dog]

That doesn't justify punishing paying customers. The only way to combat piracy is to produce a product that's worth paying £40 for, SimCity Isn't an example of that product. Isn't there already a crack available anyway?

Exactly.

EA have a track record over the years of producing complete rubbish, yet people still keep buying from them.

CD Projeckt, Valve, Bethesda and others are for me developers/publishers that i can rely upon to make a great working game.

EA are a business, run as a business and care very little about there customers. A bit like Tesco really.

 

[:(Rhodri:)]

I honestly don't see the problem, so i need a constant on connection, why are people so massively bothered by it? Its seems to be insulting people and getting them angry am i missing something?

Because it's in a game that has no functional need for one, other than to try and block pirating. They've built a game around DRM and hoped no-one would notice, as well as lied repeatedly when called out on it.

However you look at it, there is no benefit to the customer for this, and as usual pirates will be unaffected by any problems with the system.

 

[~Divine~Wind~]

I honestly don't see the problem, so i need a constant on connection, why are people so massively bothered by it? Its seems to be insulting people and getting them angry am i missing something?

I think for most its that they've paid for a game that they can't actually play due to server issues.

Can't play with friends as a server is full.

Have to start multiplayer games on new servers meaning you have to start from scratch again.

Players all over the place are having these types of difficulties and I think at one point amazon even refused to sell it til the issues were resolved. EA have technically admitted defeat due to offering refunds to unsatisfied players.

These are just the incidents I heard of, My mate bought it and it wouldn't even let him start a new game.

What if you wanted to play your game, on a train, CANT, on a plane, CANT, to pass time if yer BB is down, CANT.
You paid for something and due to the silly DRM restrictions cant play it.

Hahaha, trust me there is.

Let's leave that conversation track at this please.

 

[LateX'Dog]

I honestly don't see the problem, so i need a constant on connection, why are people so massively bothered by it? Its seems to be insulting people and getting them angry am i missing something?

The problem with always on DRM is you are at the mercy of the Publishers and there fealty to the consumer.

If the servers are down you can't play, if the servers are overloaded you can't play, if you have no internet connection you can't play.

This is not how gaming was meant to be, You put your disk in or download your game, you install it and off you go. Time and time again the best way to beat piracy is to produce a good quality game.

CD Projekt are a perfect example, they released Withcer 2 DRM free and it sold amazingly well, the player base responded appropriately, lots of piracy sites asked and begged there users to purchase a copy if they liked it to support them and even removed torresnts/nzb's to force people to buy the game.

 

[~Divine~Wind~]

CD Projekt are a perfect example, they released Withcer 2 DRM free and it sold amazingly well, the player base responded appropriately, lots of piracy sites asked and begged there users to purchase a copy if they liked it to support them and even removed torresnts/nzb's to force people to buy the game.

I didn't know that and tbh thats pretty damn good.
Does say a lot when the piracy camp try to prevent people pirating it.
Shows they have loyal customers that WANT to pay for their products

 

[mark43]

Iv'e read elsewhere that EA have said in some announcement that those wanting a refund could request one.

Yep, I read the same. But then I saw several screen shots of conversations people had where they requested one due to all the launch issues and were flat out refused. So EA just saying this to make them look better publicly, but doesn't appear to actually be true.

The problem is, as much as we hate a lot of what EA are doing. If people still buy their games and accept the T&C's then they're going to continue. I wish I hadn't purchased Sim City and should have stuck to my principals, but I just soooo wanted a new Sim City (which has turned out to be a disapointment anyway). I shall try to resist next time..

 

[maxilive]

I think everyone jumps on the EA bandwagon a little too heavily these days. I mean the Sim City launch wasn't great by any means but I don't think it was any worse than Diablo 3's plus Maxis/EA were always in constant communication plus we get a free game!

I think problems like this are just going to keep popping up with online games as how do you design the backend of a system that you have no idea how many users will use?! Plus companies can't invest in servers that would be ready to take on a 10's of thousands of players on day 1 knowing full well that the demand on the servers will fall dramatically within a month.

Valve have been really wise with this and Dota 2 with them slowly sending out beta keys so they can gauge the numbers and slowly expand their capacity. If/When Half Life 3 comes about we all know Steam servers are going to die for a few hours while everyone tries to validate their pre-load and this is on the largest gaming infrastructure their is!

These online only games like Diablo/Sim City which could work with online should still always have the option to play offline if the design fits around it, which in both games is easily do-able. Maybe not so much now as the game has been designed around always on, but when they were designing the titles when their were in their infancy they should have been developing an offline-style mode to play the game. Games like Test Drive Unlimited 2 cater for this where the game is based on online play but you can easily play offline as well.

 

[LateX'Dog]

I didn't know that and tbh thats pretty damn good.
Does say a lot when the piracy camp try to prevent people pirating it.
Shows they have loyal customers that WANT to pay for their products

We as PC gamers are loyal and we'll buy happily if a game deserves it.

But that old saying about "Once bitten, twice shy".

Too many times I've bought a game (e.g. SWTOR collectors edition at £130) for it to turn out to be nothing more then a over hyped pile of crap.

The ironic part is pirating on the Xbox360/PS3 is more rife then the PC version and copies of new games are 90% of the time leaked on them formats weeks before the PC releases.

 

[LateX'Dog]

I think everyone jumps on the EA bandwagon a little too heavily these days. I mean the Sim City launch wasn't great by any means but I don't think it was any worse than Diablo 3's plus Maxis/EA were always in constant communication plus we get a free game!

I think problems like this are just going to keep popping up with online games as how do you design the backend of a system that you have no idea how many users will use?! Plus companies can't invest in servers that would be ready to take on a 10's of thousands of players on day 1 knowing full well that the demand on the servers will fall dramatically within a month.

Valve have been really wise with this and Dota 2 with them slowly sending out beta keys so they can gauge the numbers and slowly expand their capacity. If/When Half Life 3 comes about we all know Steam servers are going to die for a few hours while everyone tries to validate their pre-load and this is on the largest gaming infrastructure their is!

These online only games like Diablo/Sim City which could work with online should still always have the option to play offline if the design fits around it, which in both games is easily do-able. Maybe not so much now as the game has been designed around always on, but when they were designing the titles when their were in their infancy they should have been developing an offline-style mode to play the game. Games like Test Drive Unlimited 2 cater for this where the game is based on online play but you can easily play offline as well.

I think the main difference with D3 was people know Blizzard will try and fix problems as soon as they can and they are always communicating with the community. This type of behaviour is what keeps people happy during times of stress.

The amount of times playing WoW over 8 years the servers have just gone down and within minutes there customer support and technical support reps where answering questions, had message alerts up in game letting you know there aware, progress of there teams and so on.

Always on DRM needs to be backed up with good customer support and a good game, otherwise like in this instance, you get a massive community backlash.