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Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The meme is hatched: SimCity 2013 has a highly brittle dependency on poorly-planned cloud infrastructure. To the tech-literate crowd, this will be the meme. But for the average gamer, the meme is different, and I might argue worse: Sim City simply doesn't work.
The meme I see tends to be: EA ruins everything.
Can we talk about this more clearly? This isn't strictly "evil DRM" as people are highlighting. Unlike some other games, it's not like SimCity is just phoning home to figure out if it is licensed or not, and preventing unlicensed copies. SimCity depends on EA/Maxis' server infrastructure for a great deal of storage and computation related to the macro-scale components of each game. Not only is city state synced there…
I don't think you're adding clarity here. People are upset about the lack of a single player offline mode, which absolutely is about preventing unlicensed copies. There is no technical reason for its absence. The cloud based stuff sounds great, and if it were an optional extra that was unavailable at launch due to technical difficulties, I doubt you'd see a hundredth as much bad PR.
That said, you can imagine a situation where doing these computations locally did compromise the experience for a certain spec of machines. Maxis has already explained that city size limits were imposed because the simulation didn't run sufficiently well on the low-mid spec machines above the allowed size.
As the owner of a higher spec machine, I find it somewhat silly that this couldn't just be a preference item (as AA and resolution are), but I can understand the decision to cut down the computational demands to keep gameplay smooth.
Games that have launched with framerate issues recently have met a huge amount of flak--see what's going on in the Planetside 2 community. You can argue that what's happening to PS2 is far worse: they released a poorly optimized game, and those issues prevented people from playing for months.
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.
Isn't this just a technical error (bug) that is a game dev's (or infrastructure engineer's) responsibility?
Isn't mandating the constant involvement of otherwise unnecessary tech that is known to be error prone and unreliable just the result of a poorly thought out buisness requirement?
No, its not that simple either. Because they probably did think it out, knew they were choosing the riskier technical option and expect/expected failures to happen.
My read of the situation is that they expected the rest of the game to get a better reception overall and blunt the bad PR from the inevitable failures caused by the always-on/centralized aspects.
Can we talk about this more clearly? This isn't strictly "evil DRM" as people are highlighting. Unlike some other games, it's not like SimCity is just phoning home to figure out if it is licensed or not, and preventing unlicensed copies. SimCity depends on EA/Maxis' server infrastructure for a great deal of storage and computation related to the macro-scale components of each game. Not only is city state synced there…
The problem is that most people's perception is that it really doesn't need to, that the core engine could have been implemented to run entirely locally and the online-only features would be optional.
It's all well and good if the game has social features or other enhancements that are only enabled if you are online. But could the game have been implemented such that the core single-player gameplay is available without an internet connection?
Most people perceive the answer to that question to be "yes". If the answer truly is yes, then implementation of the game in this way is DRM.
>> this is a primarily multiplayer game
If that's true, I'd say the one-star reviews are just as justified. This game was marketed as the continuation of a series that has been predominantly single-player. I'd say there's a reasonable expectation that the game should work without an internet connection. I wouldn't expect World of Warcraft to work without an internet connection, but I expect SimCity to. I wouldn't expect Dead Space 3's co-op to work without an internet connection, but I would expect the single-player campaign to work without one, and it does.
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.
Some companies are just better than others at getting it right the first time (or second, or third).
I just wish this hadn't happened with SimCity. I really liked that title.
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…
Remember EA is a business, not an offshoot of Reddit/HN. Imagine you're the SimCity product manager and the choice was between a massive refactor or provisioning a bunch of new servers. Which would you choose? I'd love to agree with you, but I just dont think its plausible.
As a game author I am very ashamed of what the industry has been doing in the last few years. It started with FPS mania... Then crazy DRM that destroyed your PC (Starforce I am looking to you). Then... more crazy DRM! (SecuROM, that for example refused to launch Spore on dual-GPU laptops). Then online only DRM... Then DLC mania (Horse Armor, I am looking to you... unfortunately as the harbinger of something much wors…
The title of the 5-star review Amazon highlighted as the helpful is delightful: "Got me off my video game addiction!" If there isn't some kind of anti-DRM movement surrounding these review this game might break some kind of record for worst reviews. As of now there are 737 1-star reviews.
Spore (the last Big Game released by Maxis through EA) is currently holding that record, I believe. By September 14, 2008 (ten days after the game's initial Australian release), 2,016 of 2,216 ratings on Amazon.com gave the game one out of five stars, most citing EA's implementation of DRM for the low ratings. [1] Spore's DRM issues were different, however. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spore_(2008_video_game)#DR…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think you're adding clarity here. People are upset about the lack of a single player offline mode, which absolutely is about preventing unlicensed copies. There is no technical reason for its absence. The cloud based stuff sounds great, and if it were an optional extra that was unavailable at launch due to technical difficulties, I doubt you'd see a hundredth as much bad PR.
Isn't: > We can argue about whether these things should be computed and stored in the cloud, but I think there is a plausible, if imperfect, argument for doing so Conceivably true? We could be in a world with no DRM, but there would still be a market trend moving games towards a more social, connected and integrated experience; and some developers will be looking at ways to fundamentally build their new games in a wa…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know about this specific instance, but from what I recall from working in the video game industry, devs don't deal with copy protection; it's something that's done prior to mastering where they put your executable through SecuROM or whatever and it spits out a new binary that has copy protection/CD checks/online auth or whatever junk the publisher wants to add.
This isn't the case here. The game does significant processing on their servers, to make it useless as soon as they turn their servers off, which AFAIK they haven't promised to keep up any certain amount of time.
It sounds as if some random MBAs said that they really need that server-side undefeatable copy protection, then balked at the price of actually purchasing enough resources for it and decided to skimp on that.