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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

#441

Post by toyg »

ececconi wrote: post #46

Amazon is still selling the physical version. Why would they pull the digital download and not the physical copy? Is it because there are different people responsible for it?

From what I've read, EA is directly refunding customers of physical disks -- I guess they're forced by some law or another. No such luck for digital downloads: EA is refusing all refunds for them. Amazon dipped into their pockets for a while, returning money to disgruntled customers and taking a hit for EA, but clearly it was getting too much.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#442

Post by toyg »

andylei wrote: post #225
toyg wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. One thing is to offer a "social mode", even to push it hard in terms of marketing or menu placement or whatever, another to require a connection at all times, even in "sandboxed mode" where you're not going to interact with anyone else -- which is completely preposterous, and it's done only because of DRM. If the problem was "going social", you'd see more p2p and lan-gaming features, rather than "let's all connec…

> to require a connection at all times, even in "sandboxed mode" where you're not going to interact with anyone else -- which is completely preposterous this is not preposterous at all. if all the simulation happens on the server side, its not necessarily trivial to have that run on the client. maybe the server requires unix. maybe the server requires an oracle database.

The simulation happens locally, it's only saved server-side at point-in-time; which is why people are losing hours of gameplay to failed saves.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#443

Post by astrodust »

nwh wrote: post #61
astrodust wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Mainly because it Battle.net is just IRC.

I mean of the actual game back-end for things like Diablo, Starcraft and Warcraft II. There was a complete replacement for Battle.Net that, unfortunately, ended up mired by legal concerns.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#444

Post by itsybitsycoder »

ardacinar wrote: post #239
estel wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when are they available for free?

I think SimCity 2000 was considered abandonware, or was it only the first SimCity game? I'm not really sure about it. But the first 4 games are definitely playable without any internet connection whatsoever.

Abandonware isn't actually a legal concept so whether it's considered abandonware would be up to the person you ask, I guess.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#445

Post by PeterisP »

VMG wrote: post #405
Goronmon wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main difference is that Steam's DRM, if it requires an online connection, only requires it in order to start the game up. Once you are in-game, you aren't booted from the game if you lose your connection while playing. That isn't the case when playing games like SimCity and Diablo 3. Though, it SimCity's case it seems to be worse as I've heard people losing saves occasionally. I don't remember too many people los…

I'm not sure you can call DRM "Defective by Design" then. It works for Valve and they are making a lot of money by stifling piracy with it. The problem with EA then isn't DRM but badly implemented DRM.

People often buy slightly defective products when they're competitive in other features - that doesn't change the fact that any game would be a higher quality, more desireable product if the DRM was removed.

The "defective by design" refers to features unwanted by customer, but intentionally designed by manufacturer.

Examples in the physical world are specific short-lived parts in consumer appliances to reduce their longevity and increase sales - as it's better for manufacturer if a washing machine lasts 5 years but not 10; or new printers being sold with half-full cartridges to facilitate sales of replacements. Quite useful to the producer, but nonetheless despiceable.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#446

Post by robinh »

danso wrote: post #232
robinh wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I mean, besides the DRM." But that's the core issue, really.

No, the core issue is: the game doesn't work. Lets face it, gamers would still be buying the game with DRM if it didn't crash. If what you mean is: "Crashing (to the point of unplayability) is an inherent consequence of DRM"...the many wildly successful games that have DRM would indicate otherwise

I didn't mean any of that. I meant that DRM is the reason one would implement constant-onlineness into a game that should also (mostly, even) work as a single player game. My apologies if my use of the word 'issue' suggested something different.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#449

Post by lostlogin »

archangel_one wrote: post #229
aqme28 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is incredibly likely they were forbidden by management from answering those questions.

Kind of defeats the purpose of doing an AMA if you're not allowed to answer any of the interesting questions. I sympathise if that was the case, but people should remember what the second 'A' stands for.

Yes, the Ask Me Anything, does not get answers. I noticed this too when former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark was on recently. The AMA wasn't what I'd hoped for at all. Weak. When asked about Kim Dotcom saga the following appears: [–]HelenClarkUNDP[S] 229 points 12 days ago While you can ask anything - don't expect me to dive back into Kiwi political debates! Been there, done that!

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#450

Post by spartango »

overgard wrote: post #380
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…

Honest question: have you played the new game? I got a few hours in before I ran into the issues everyone outlined, but after having built a pretty sizable city, my impression is that the multiplayer/online aspects of the game are pretty much worthless. It feels more like a feature box being checked than a core element of the game. I get the impression that they tried, but it ultimately feels incongruent with the cor…

I've been playing the game for the last few days with a handful of friends. What I've found is that without the region dynamics, my cities have comparatively stunted growth and seem to be deficient in a few areas. Even with regions that I try and manage myself, the time freezing mechanic in unmanned cities makes progress much slower.

When my friends are building cities around me, we move really fast and the supply chain and people sharing mechanics can create some truly startling results. It's a very different experience from SC4, and I'll say its only a bad thing if you play alone.

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