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Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

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Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#61

Post by nwh »

astrodust wrote: post #7
criley wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean, when someone reverse engineers their massively multiplayer server scheme and rewrites an entire server wrapper for a game that follows the client/server paradigm? This isn't a case where a client-only software package is locked by a remote server. This is a case where core game logic is stored on servers and will have to be reverse engineered or emulated on some level to play truly offline.

It took years, but this was done with Battle.net for some older Blizzard games.

Mainly because it Battle.net is just IRC.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#62

Post by bung »

mortenjorck wrote: post #37

EA needs to pivot this game, fast. Even in the best case scenario, where the servers all get fixed this evening and the game works flawlessly for everyone for a month straight, the damage to the game's name has been done. The meme is hatched: SimCity 2013 has a highly brittle dependency on poorly-planned cloud infrastructure. There's a private region mode in the game (that you nonetheless can't use offline in the cur…

(I just have to say, to give more than just an upvote, this is a great post.)

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#63

Post by jrogers65 »

cryptoz wrote: post #14
jpwright wrote: post #5

Nitpicking: The name of the game is just "Sim City". They dropped the numbering scheme and went for a total reboot.

> The name of the game is just "Sim City" No, it's not. If you're going to nitpick, get it right. The name of the game is SimCity.

From what I can tell, OP appears to be correct in saying this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimCity_(2013_video_game)

>SimCity is ... a reboot of the SimCity series.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#64

Post by 001sky »

ghshephard wrote: post #48
cryptoz wrote: post #18

This could be a very big moment. EA is selling a completely broken product - and I mean that from the perspective of the average consumer, not the nerd who thinks all DRM is broken - and they're doing it for absolutely no reason . If this lasts long enough and gets enough press, it could actually be a turning point against DRM like this. That would be so wonderful.

The thinking goes - without DRM, some large number, X % of the games are just copied instead of purchased. With DRM, close to 0% of the the games are copied, but some large number Y % of the games are no longer purchased because people either are (A) Philisophically opposed to DRM, (B) Want to be able to play the game offline, or now, (C) Can't play the game because the DRM breaks it. The balancing act, here, is how…

Also a consideration: 866 reviews and a "1-Star" average.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#65

Post by nwh »

deoxxa wrote: post #8
criley wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean, when someone reverse engineers their massively multiplayer server scheme and rewrites an entire server wrapper for a game that follows the client/server paradigm? This isn't a case where a client-only software package is locked by a remote server. This is a case where core game logic is stored on servers and will have to be reverse engineered or emulated on some level to play truly offline.

I kind of started poking around at the backend protocol this morning. It's all websockets over HTTPS (very trendy stuff) and is hosted on EC2. I'm yet to dig much further than "let's see what this looks like in wireshark", but the behaviour and some of the errors I've observed in-game point to some kind of sync-every-now-and-then architecture. I wouldn't be surprised if it was really easy to do up a custom server for…

The "hidden" servers are probably due to the game not being released in Europe yet. I'm assuming they are reserved capacity for when hundreds of thousands of new users join.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#66

Post by jonknee »

goatforce5 wrote: post #49

Where's Steve Jobs when you need him? > Steve Jobs summoned the MobileMe team to the Town Hall > auditorium on Apple’s Cupertino campus for an obscenity- > laden dressing down. ‘You’ve tarnished Apple’s reputation,’ > he told them. ‘You should hate each other for having let > each other down.’ Then he named a new executive on the spot > to run the team.” http://macdailynews.com/2011/05/08/steve-jobs-to-those-respo...

... And iCloud is still weak.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#69

Post by pc86 »

ghshephard wrote: post #48
cryptoz wrote: post #18

This could be a very big moment. EA is selling a completely broken product - and I mean that from the perspective of the average consumer, not the nerd who thinks all DRM is broken - and they're doing it for absolutely no reason . If this lasts long enough and gets enough press, it could actually be a turning point against DRM like this. That would be so wonderful.

The thinking goes - without DRM, some large number, X % of the games are just copied instead of purchased. With DRM, close to 0% of the the games are copied, but some large number Y % of the games are no longer purchased because people either are (A) Philisophically opposed to DRM, (B) Want to be able to play the game offline, or now, (C) Can't play the game because the DRM breaks it. The balancing act, here, is how…

A lot of games are copied, but it's a fallacy to assume that pirating a game means you won't buy it, or that attempting to pirate a game and being prevented (by DRM or some other means) means you'll buy it instead.

In college I pirated games quite a bit. I never bought one, nor would I have.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#70

Post by amitparikh »

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #42

I feel bad for the game devs who got to see their hard work turn into something they don't intend. I suppose this is a great advertising technique for small firms, startups, indie shops, etc. "Don't want this[ http://amazon-pulls-sim-city ] to happen? Work for our small team. We won't destroy your work." I know it's standard to say "you get a part in the decisionmaking process!" That's part of it. But a lot of people…

Isn't this just a technical error (bug) that is a game dev's (or infrastructure engineer's) responsibility? I understand the frustration at the DRM concept, but you can't blame this on the larger entity as a whole when it was likely just a bug in some code or a small oversight.

Things were clearly working when it was in beta.

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