'SimCity' & the rights of gamers as consumers

[TW]Fox · 14 Mar 2013 at 14:14

Newbie007 said:
Additionally, why people expect an 'online' game to work 100% straight out the bat on launch day is beyond me.

Because its a commercial product. Test it until you are certain it will work on launch day. Don't blame anyone else for crappy demand forecasting.

Unless there is a discount for people who buy it on launch day it should function as well on Day 1 as it should on Day 200 or Day 2000 (By which time it'll be useless as the servers will be shut off).

DrToffnar · 14 Mar 2013 at 14:37

[TW]Fox;23936455 said:
Because its a commercial product. Test it until you are certain it will work on launch day. Don't blame anyone else for crappy demand forecasting.

Unless there is a discount for people who buy it on launch day it should function as well on Day 1 as it should on Day 200 or Day 2000 (By which time it'll be useless as the servers will be shut off).

Exactly. It stuns me that people can be so blazay over the fact they've clearly been bent over and royally ******. It's all very well saying 'Dont purchase when there's clearly problems', but how does that help people who've purchased on release date?

jonneymendoza · 14 Mar 2013 at 14:43

schnipps said:
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 wonder how these "haterz" of this game managed to read "internet forums" and post at the same time.. :confused:

arknor · 14 Mar 2013 at 14:45

Newbie007 said:
+1

Additionally, why people expect an 'online' game to work 100% straight out the bat on launch day is beyond me.

theres a reason games have load tests and beta tests.

The game clearly launched before it was ready and it's far from a finished product considering how slap dash the AI is

dave1983 · 14 Mar 2013 at 15:16

The always online isn't an issue itself it's more VFM "Value for Money"

Are you getting your monies worth and good value. My opinion i don't think it's good value for money based on playing the game. for one it's definately not "Sim City" in comparrison to the previous titles, it seems more like a facebook/lower end PC market game. Another example's is the DLC £5.99 for extra textured buildings i don't feel is good value against the play time i would use, been playing for about a week and already getting boored due to map limitations and linear.

Bubo · 14 Mar 2013 at 15:39

Were the initial problems with this game made any worse due to people around the world circumventing staged release times via VPN or other tricks? Probably not significantly in this case, but it can't have helped surely? Maybe for some games there will be a tipping point of some sorts after a certain number of users its either go or no go? Is this going to happen every time an always on DRM game gets released? I.e. those who think they are entitled jumping the queue and help to cause these problems?

DrToffnar · 14 Mar 2013 at 15:44

dave1983 said:
The always online isn't an issue itself it's more VFM "Value for Money"

Are you getting your monies worth and good value. My opinion i don't think it's good value for money based on playing the game. for one it's definately not "Sim City" in comparrison to the previous titles, it seems more like a facebook/lower end PC market game. Another example's is the DLC £5.99 for extra textured buildings i don't feel is good value against the play time i would use, been playing for about a week and already getting boored due to map limitations and linear.

£5.99 for some retextures??? If this is true then it might be the most disgusting thing ever to have befallen the industry.

arknor · 14 Mar 2013 at 15:54

dave1983 said:
The always online isn't an issue itself it's more VFM "Value for Money"

Are you getting your monies worth and good value. My opinion i don't think it's good value for money based on playing the game. for one it's definately not "Sim City" in comparrison to the previous titles, it seems more like a facebook/lower end PC market game. Another example's is the DLC £5.99 for extra textured buildings i don't feel is good value against the play time i would use, been playing for about a week and already getting boored due to map limitations and linear.

The good vs evil dlc thing is worthless as well glad I didn't pay extra for it

mark43 · 14 Mar 2013 at 16:00

arknor said:
theres a reason games have load tests and beta tests.

The game clearly launched before it was ready and it's far from a finished product considering how slap dash the AI is

Yep, and interestingly the beta clearly highlighted the server issues, yet they obviously didn't properly address this.

thingemajib · 14 Mar 2013 at 16:09

Personally I've accepted that the launch was a fail, but the worst of that is over. The real question is what next? The game still has a couple of blatant bugs that stinks of 'rushed-to-make-release-day-itis' to me. I couldn't really care about a free game, if they really want to make it up to us, they'll fix em asap, maybe even a couple of free DLCs to sweeten the deal. However I somehow doubt they'll go as far as an offline mode at this stage :/

GIBURROWS · 14 Mar 2013 at 16:11

With you always being online for a game is there a way of them using your bandwidth or snooping around? I have not and will not pay full price for a game with DLC(luckily SimCity sounds awful) it is just a shame that DLC used to mean extra missions or maps but now it seems to mean you can actually have a complete game to play despite the £40 you paid in the first place.

I loathe EA for buying up the greats for the name and then trying to con everyone into buying third rate trash.

arknor · 14 Mar 2013 at 16:16

thingemajib said:
Personally I've accepted that the launch was a fail, but the worst of that is over. The real question is what next? The game still has a couple of blatant bugs that stinks of 'rushed-to-make-release-day-itis' to me. I couldn't really care about a free game, if they really want to make it up to us, they'll fix em asap, maybe even a couple of free DLCs to sweeten the deal. However I somehow doubt they'll go as far as an offline mode at this stage :/

Without a fix to the AI and bigger cities it will be the last EA game I buy on release again

I've defending EA and origin in the past but my faith in them delivering a product that meets expectations and promises is dead.

they just seem to cut corners and dumb everything down as much as possible since BF2

Moothead2 · 14 Mar 2013 at 16:24

LateX'Dog said:
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.

HAH!

Xordium · 14 Mar 2013 at 16:25

~Divine~Wind~ said:
Ah that's a bit rubbish, I heard it was just a game of your choice from their catalog.

Sorry I was just joking should have made it more obvious.

DrToffnar · 14 Mar 2013 at 16:27

Moothead2 said:
HAH!

Lol indeed! Though I assume he meant a good solid game after a few weeks of bug fixing xD Bethesda games only ever have cute freaky bugs anyway. Zero Punctuation said something about the bugs in Skyrim that summed it up... something about kittens...

francky · 14 Mar 2013 at 16:42

When a company gets to the size of EA, where they predict an annual turnover of $3.9 Billion for 2012 and exceed that by actually turning over $4.2 for that fiscal year....EVERYTHING they do is about increasing that turnover year by year.

They arent gamers, nor do they care about your opinion on how or what you think of their games....if an IP starts to slump they slack it off and pump millions into something else (Dead Space for example).

The sad reality is that companies like this, just like Microsoft rely on hype and marketing to achieve sales figures and they do so VERY well.

If you read their end of year 2011 annual report pre-orders were up 700% than expected on BF3.

I work in the same building as Take Two Interactive in Windsor.....the ENTIRE building is filled with corporate 40-60 year old men and women in suits, that sit in meetings with power point presentations on up and coming games, usually stating about how to market the games.....these are the sort of people that make the decisions your moaning about and it will never change.....im sure EA games would be even worse.

Showboat · 14 Mar 2013 at 16:44

I feel for anyone who paid full price for this, i got it in India for £18 and it was probably a fair price.
Hope i still get a free game!

mark43 · 14 Mar 2013 at 17:19

I think they should be forced to write the 'requires permanent online connection' warning on the box much larger. It can barely be seen, I realise we were all aware but I'm sure some people could have been caught out.

Also, what are the 26 awards they are bragging about on the box? Maybe people need to stop with awards like 'most anticipated game' if they're going to use these to market their products.

carlazai · 14 Mar 2013 at 17:31

DrToffnar said:
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.

This is the answer to me. I couldnt give a toss about a free copy of DA or ME (dont float my boat), what i do want is a sim city that has huge maps with unlimited resources so i can create pieces of art, not postcards.

carlazai · 14 Mar 2013 at 17:34

maxilive said:
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.

Do you know how cheap and flexible Amazon server space is? If you don't then i think you had better do some reading up before posting rubbish again