It may seem shocking, but this happens throughout industries (and indeed with governments up to a point - the luxury of silence isn't always available).
The Power Of Silence: Why The SimCity Story Went Away
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Re: The Power Of Silence: Why The SimCity Story Went Away
#12I think the simpler alternative is that it's just not a very interesting story. A game company trying to cover their asses for a bad launch of an unpopular design lied their asses off. So what? They seem to have got the server issues under control now, and people are enjoying the game, so it's no longer got the power of public anger behind it.
Re: The Power Of Silence: Why The SimCity Story Went Away
#13I'd been wondering why all the news suddenly dried up. Illuminating article.
Re: The Power Of Silence: Why The SimCity Story Went Away
#14While the story went away, did the problem for the company? I personally didn't buy SimCity and I know several people that didn't because of what was up in arms at the time.
To me the damage is done. I won't bother complaining or yelling. I just won't pay $80 and if certain organisations keep associating themselves with poor releases/games why would anyone keep handing over their money.
Especially when you're releasing something like the next SimCity sequel which plays on older gamers' nostalgia, why would people pay for SimCity 2 in a years time if they remember how poorly this one was sent out into the wild?
Re: The Power Of Silence: Why The SimCity Story Went Away
#15That might simply related to the fact the SimCity is a failed game, people stopped playing it and moved on.
There are bigger news to run.
Re: The Power Of Silence: Why The SimCity Story Went Away
#16There is an easier answer in all of this. RPS is out of news and trying to bring back to life a story that got them a lot of clicks. Other than when they are attacking someone, I don't see a lot of RPS links making the rounds.
Re: The Power Of Silence: Why The SimCity Story Went Away
#17I can't speak to the media/publishing side of things, but personally I stopped talking about SimCity because I stopped playing it.
Looking back at the whole fiasco, I'm positive that the always-online requirement and server overload will forever define the game, but there was a much bigger problem lurking below that issue, which is that the game sucks anyway even if you disregard the early technical issues and the politics around "always-on".
It is, IMO, by far the least fun Maxis "Sim" game I've ever played, and that holds even if you include Spore.
Re: The Power Of Silence: Why The SimCity Story Went Away
#18The me the kicker was in the comments (one of the first few):
"JarinArenos says:
I browse plenty of gaming sites… but stories like this are why RPS is the only one that gets AdBlocker disabled"
LOL, this is the audience we're talking about here - people who proudly proclaim to the world how they support their causes by gasp disabling AdBlocker! I can see this guy sitting there, basking in his own self-righteousness, how he's such a good guy for allowing some ads (all of which he ignores) to be shown. And then people wonder why companies need to turn to always-online DRM for their software? Ever wondered why the world is turning SaaS-only, with all it's negatives? See it epitomized here.
PS thinking of it (and OT), isn't there an AdBlocker version that overlays ads with a white float, rather than not downloading them at all?
Re: The Power Of Silence: Why The SimCity Story Went Away
#19"That the claims weren't true does not provide room to conclude that [Maxis studio head Lucy] Bradshaw was 'lying' [...] such accusations don't help this discussion." What!? Perhaps part of the reasons evil triumphs in media situations like this is that "good" white knights like the author carry water for people who, like Bradshaw, objectively make the world a worse place. Hanlon's razor is irrelevant here. Regardles…
Bradshaw, objectively make the world a worse place
I'm a huge Sim City fan and I'm really upset I'm not getting the Sim City game I wanted, but let's keep some perspective here. Bradshaw and anything that EA/Maxis says or does has absolutely no effect one way or the other on the world.
Re: The Power Of Silence: Why The SimCity Story Went Away
#20The me the kicker was in the comments (one of the first few): "JarinArenos says: I browse plenty of gaming sites… but stories like this are why RPS is the only one that gets AdBlocker disabled" LOL, this is the audience we're talking about here - people who proudly proclaim to the world how they support their causes by gasp disabling AdBlocker! I can see this guy sitting there, basking in his own self-righteousness,…
The world is turning SaaS-only because it's easier to do business when you have predictable monthly income, processes that are easily debuggable because they are only on your platform, and a far simpler customer support scenario (fixing one person's bug is fixing all persons' bugs). SaaS is basically wholly unrelated to blocking ads.
What should this guy do to meet your approval? Unblock and click every ad? AdBlock gives users more power to enter into agreements with websites that are respectful with their users' attention and reject websites that are not. Use a website occasionally? Add them to the whitelist. Meanwhile you never notice the scummy websites that have giant ads mid-article nor the 20-year-olds in your area trying to meet you for sex.