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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

#181

Post by Karunamon »

Cardeck1 wrote: post #165
jfim wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the clarification; it's pretty awful of them to have them have this copy protection mechanism and fail to allocate enough server resources for people to be able to play the game they legitimately purchased. 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…

No, it actually doesn't sound like some random MBAs.Are you one of those guys that blame MBAs for everything?The truth is we don't know what actually happened there.We'll have to wait for EA's reply on this one.It will be hard for them to recover after a huge mistake/strategy like this.

>We'll have to wait for EA's reply on this one.

If EA's usual response to criticism means anything, we'll be waiting a loooooong time...

>It will be hard for them to recover after a huge mistake/strategy like this.

You're kidding, right? They'll just release Call of Modern Madden 5: Battlefield Part 2 and the fanboys will eat it up, horrid DRM and microtransactions and all.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#184

Post by chaz »

spartango wrote: post #81

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 think there is a plausible, if imperfect, argument for doing so; Many players are involved and system resources are scarce relative to simulation complexity.

Game reviewers like Polygon knowingly played prerelease code on private development server, and reported no major issues. In addition, EA recently cut back on game features and disabled the fastest game mode to help their servers cope -- some additional indication that servers are doing a fair amount of work to service the game.

I agree it sounds like a solvable problem made difficult by overwhelming demand. And for some number of reasons, they cannot increase server capacity sufficiently to solve it. This sounds more like a failure of server engineering than an overly aggressive DRM strategy.

[1] http://www.polygon.com/game/simcity-2013/2630 [2] http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/7/4075120/simcity-servers-upda...

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#185

Post by NoPiece »

daurnimator wrote: post #170
Bud wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a) When it was in beta, there was presumably much less server load. b) The fact that a small bug in the unnecessary server/DRM part of the game could take the whole game down like this is precisely the point. You can certainly blame the whole entity for deciding to require a net connection and a server even for single-player use of the game.

but the beta had the same issues, they were never fixed before release.

Absolutely right, you could totally see this train wreck coming.

http://imgur.com/xddfMvh

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#187

Post by adeaver »

anon1385 wrote: post #110
jader201 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a web site, it's a game. It is marketed and sold as a game. It isn't even being marketed/sold as an MMO. For the most part, people think this is a single player experience with some multiplayer interactions. I haven't seen the retail packaging, but does it even state an internet connection is required? And if so, is it prominent? EDIT: According to the shot on Amazon[1], it does at least state that a "per…

So your argument is really that DRM is ok as long as the user knows about it in advance?

'web' apps are expected to work on the 'web'. It kind of goes without saying that it there is no network it can't make whatever calls it needs to in order to load data.

Games are not generally expected to require a network connection. If I take my laptop to the coffee shop without wireless I can still play Portal and Anno 2070.

Not so with the new SimCity.

Not to mention, there is an expectation that if you buy a game (especially on physical media) that you will be able to play it so long as your hardware supports it. I can still play Quake 3 for example.

With SimCity, if they ever shutter the servers or sunset the Online Service your game becomes nothing more than a pretty coaster.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#188

Post by bsg75 »

Cardeck1 wrote: post #165
jfim wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the clarification; it's pretty awful of them to have them have this copy protection mechanism and fail to allocate enough server resources for people to be able to play the game they legitimately purchased. 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…

No, it actually doesn't sound like some random MBAs.Are you one of those guys that blame MBAs for everything?The truth is we don't know what actually happened there.We'll have to wait for EA's reply on this one.It will be hard for them to recover after a huge mistake/strategy like this.

It does. Do game developers implement DRM when not required to by the bean counters?

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#189

Post by gknoy »

aviraldg wrote: post #176
pdubs wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One-time cost vs. ongoing cost for years to come? It's not as simple as you make it out to be.

Best compromise: create a "local" version of the server.

I seem to recall that the reason for the cloud based server was to leverage more number crunching power to yield better AI. Running it locally might not help. (Though, it certainly is better than no server, and it'd be interesting if they let people tune the fidelity of the processing so that it could run locally, or on a private server.)

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#190

Post by pifflesnort »

junkilo wrote: post #180
Irregardless wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EA has a reputation for being more akin to a sweatshop than a place where passionate people work on things they love, and it's been that way for many years now. I do feel bad for anyone who works in that type of environment, but I don't think many (if any) of their employees are under the impression that their work will be lauded by adoring fans. Gamers resent everything that EA stands for -- especially their constan…

Some places in EA are amazing places to work at. Others have challenges. They aren't the only game company that has seen studios do sub-standard work after being acquired.

You're seriously blaming this on Maxis?

I think the respective records of EA and a pre-EA Maxis ought to provide ample evidence of the likely culprit here.

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