The SimCity debacle

[AEmer]

So I've been loosely following the simcity issue that's been going on since a bit before the launch of the game, and I'm curious to hear what people here think about it.

A quick summary goes as follows:

The latest simcity game requires always on internet to play, and it's distributed through Origin. Prior to the release, the developers defended this by arguing that they were using their own servers to do calculations to lower system requirements. On release, their servers weren't ready to handle capacity - at all. They also didn't accept refund requests in spite of the game being unavailable - and still don't. Subsequently, a modder figured out that the game could be run in offline mode perfectly well - that servers weren't used at all, and that the developers had lied. Further, it was discovered that the always on functionality essentially enabled player griefing - which is to say, it allowed players to get their (single player) cities hacked by other players while they weren't even playing. In response, the developers admitted that they could have designed the game for offline play, but chose to deploy it as online only on purpose, and not for performance reasons either; they took pains to describe how EA apparently wasn't the reason for the choice. Further, EA is giving away a free game to all who purchased simcity - with the possible choices including mass effect 3 and deadspace 3. Finally, it appears that EA's president has just formally resigned.

I think the whole thing is bloody brilliant - I like that EA is eating a shitstorm over this kind of dickish behavior. But then - I haven't personally bought the game, and I won't, so I can't say it even remotely matters to me.

[Jaedar]

It's kind of amazing how seemingly everyone from regular people to the game journos came together to just hate this thing. Always online with superfailed launches have happened before, and it never created this much vitriol before. I guess this was just the last drop, and everyone just hates EA by default.

About Riccatello leaving though, I always thought he was a bad dude who liked to fondle DRM improperly, but apparently he was like the one dude at EA who thought: "New IP's may be kind of cool". So the company might become even more shit now that he's left. If I were bioware I'd be quaking in mah boots. Also if I was aligned with ea at all cause they seem to be going down.

[AEmer]

I think what really did it is the lying.

Catching them in an outright lie is a bridge too far for most people to stomach.

[gamer0004]

I never cared for simcity, so I'm just enjoying the spectacle, munching crisps.

I am really surprised though that there were people excited for this game. This is EA, I mean come on. I didn't expect any better from them.
In fact, when hearing about the multiplayer bullshit, I reckoned it would be some kind of free 2 play crap. So actually it's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

[Cybernetic pig]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... -LE0ycgkBQ

[Cybernetic pig]

http://www.develop-online.net/news/4338 ... s-in-house

[gamer0004]

Oh EA, you never cease to amaze me... What a stupidly managed company that is.

[AEmer]

And there it is. The whole reason for the online only play requirement.