Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

SimCity Burning: A Warning to Publishers on The Dangers of Always-Online DRM

ign.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 207 posts

Re: SimCity Burning: A Warning to Publishers on The Dangers of Always-Online DRM

#11

Post by ryusage »

error54 wrote: post #8

Can someone explain what exactly happened with SimCity? From the article I gather that it had something to do with DRM but the author never explained what exactly made it unplayable.

You have to be connected to their servers to play it, just like you would with an MMO style game. Unfortunately, just like an MMO style game at launch, their servers are totally overloaded right now and many people are just completely unable to play the game.

The uproar is because the online requirement isn't inherently necessary to the gameplay (although EA has done their best to add some multiplayer aspects). It's primarily a business decision intending to make it more difficult to pirate or buy the game used.

Re: SimCity Burning: A Warning to Publishers on The Dangers of Always-Online DRM

#12

Post by jfoutz »

If anyone could achieve a decent launch, it's blizzard. They have a lot of money and talent, and a real attention to detail. They're willing to wait to ship games "till they're ready"

But launch still eludes them. I've purchased every game through Diablo 3, but that put me off the whole thing. Heart of the swarm will be the first Blizzard game i just don't bother with. The launch will be a disaster. Since they've taken away any reason for me to get excited about the launch, i've found that really leaks over into my excitement about the game.

Good luck to EA, good luck to Blizzard, you've committed your businesses to a technical infrastructure you're just not competent to build or manage. Seems like a risky strategy to me. Especially because games aren't really that important. It's not critical like food. There are a bunch of other offerings available.

Re: SimCity Burning: A Warning to Publishers on The Dangers of Always-Online DRM

#14

Post by ry0ohki »

Can someone confirm that the online mode offers nothing but DRM? The fact that they had to disable Cheetah speed makes me think they really are offloading some of the game simulations to the servers. It certainly feels like a much speedier game then SimCity 4 (when it works).

Re: SimCity Burning: A Warning to Publishers on The Dangers of Always-Online DRM

#15

Post by potatolicious »

mikeash wrote: post #9
kyrra wrote: post #3

Having played simcity as much as the servers have allowed since launch, there are definitely a number of online tie-ins. I'm sure they could have done it with player run servers or LAN type connectivity, but it removes the social aspect of the game. I rather line being able to look at the leader board, then load the cities listed there to see what they look like. Playing with a few friends in a region is a pretty coo…

Surely those tie-ins could have been written to degrade gracefully when the servers are unavailable, rather than just refusing to run the entire game.

I'm mixed on this. I really dislike online DRM, but one of the greatest weaknesses of SimCity 4 was that the average home computer had no hope of simulating a large city.

This is still true today - while most computers could handle the graphics engine behind it, the simulation engine would still eat your machine for lunch.

Moving the city simulation server-side certainly has its justifications - it opens up the field to more players with weaker machines.

That being said, it's hard to imagine that, given the ginormous increase in CPU performance between SimCity 4 and now, that they couldn't have made a simulation engine fast enough (and optimized enough) to run offline.

Re: SimCity Burning: A Warning to Publishers on The Dangers of Always-Online DRM

#17

Post by s666 »

ry0ohki wrote: post #14

Can someone confirm that the online mode offers nothing but DRM? The fact that they had to disable Cheetah speed makes me think they really are offloading some of the game simulations to the servers. It certainly feels like a much speedier game then SimCity 4 (when it works).

there is no "offline" mode, its all online and it all doesnt work

Re: SimCity Burning: A Warning to Publishers on The Dangers of Always-Online DRM

#19

Post by ryusage »

It's an interesting case study. This happens with nearly every MMO and people grumble but accept it. Within a couple weeks, the server issues are mostly resolved and people don't think about it anymore.

And yet, people are pissed about this. The fact that people see the game as single player seems to make a huge difference. It seems the lesson is that, if you want to do the always-on thing, you need to design your game so that it doesn't even make sense to play it alone.

I'm really curious to see what SimCity's sales are like in a month though. I wouldn't be too terribly shocked if people just sucked it up and bought it anyway as long as the servers are stable. If that happens, then maybe EA didn't make such a mistake after all?

Re: SimCity Burning: A Warning to Publishers on The Dangers of Always-Online DRM

#20

Post by FireBeyond »

kyrra wrote: post #3

Having played simcity as much as the servers have allowed since launch, there are definitely a number of online tie-ins. I'm sure they could have done it with player run servers or LAN type connectivity, but it removes the social aspect of the game. I rather line being able to look at the leader board, then load the cities listed there to see what they look like. Playing with a few friends in a region is a pretty coo…

I'm yet to get on. 80 minutes and counting in a queue.

...

Then I got in. And got booted from the tutorial because I couldn't visit another city due to the servers.

Color me unimpressed.

Post reply on HN