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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

#201

Post by Skoofoo »

SquareWheel wrote: post #130
kevinalexbrown wrote: post #42

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…

Maxis has totally ignored the issue. Look at their Reddit AMA when nearly every question was regarding this, and they didn't even acknowledge it. Perhaps they were under legal obligation or pressure from EA, but I find it hard to feel sympathy.

They did an AMA but weren't comfortable talking about that? Talk about foresight.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#202

Post by robinh »

danso wrote: post #196

I haven't been paying much attention to SCV except that it seemed to be generating a lot of hype and excitement...so I'm kind of confused why the game has to be so intricately tied into whatever (apparently faulty) online service that EA has setup. I mean, besides the DRM. I don't get why my fake city has to be attached to a world of fake cities if all I want to do is play in the sandbox. Didn't the designers/executi…

"I mean, besides the DRM."

But that's the core issue, really.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#203

Post by robinh »

anon1385 wrote: post #96

When a game requires an internet connection to work we call it DRM and slam it. When a text editor or spreadsheet requires an internet connection to run we call it innovation.

There is a significant difference between wanting to do something locally and an internet connection being required and wanting to do something on the internet because it works better than what you have locally.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#204

Post by potatolicious »

res0nat0r wrote: post #52
cryptoz wrote: post #18

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.

So there was a big server meltdown during the Diablo 3 launch, is this the same thing? I'm not sure how long the Sim City servers have been down but is this just initial launch problems? I'm surprised Amazon has done this as they didn't do the same for D3. How long have logins been totall down for now? Also I think it would be helpful for reviews like this on Amazon and Spore to restrict the reviews to only verified…

SimCity's problems were much like Diablo 3's character creation problems at launch.

With Diablo you had a hell of a time just getting a connection to a server - but once you were in you got to play (laggy though it may be).

With SimCity you'd bash your head against your computer connecting to a server, but even after you do that every step could possibly fail because it was doing something substantial to an internal database (presumably) that doesn't scale - creating a city, taking over a city, joining a region, etc etc.

See even once you're past the dreaded "wait 30 minutes for your turn", there's still no guarantee your game will even be functional.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#205

Post by MartinCron »

roc wrote: post #162
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…

> "Takeover by EA is usually considered a death knell for game studios..." Further to this point: Maxis, makers of Sim City, were notable for a long time as being the glaring exception when it came to EA's habit of buying and squeezing studios to death. But the writing was on the wall when THE SIMS hit so big and was.. "exploited"[1] so heavily. And when Will left... well, it's just flat-out inconceivable that anyone…

I remember when The Sims was first announced, where Maxis was saying "And most of the game isn't even done yet. We've got loads of new stuff we'll release for free online!" which turned into dozens of boxed expansion packs.

Yuck.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#206

Post by pwthornton »

fusiongyro wrote: post #173
mmatants wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The result is that we are increasingly switching to renting our music via services like Rdio and Spotify. And I can't say that this trend is all bad. I know what I pay for (temporary access), and I'm OK with that.

Apple seems to still be doing alright selling digital music, and they voluntarily stopped using DRM.

Apple didn't voluntarily stop using DRM; they convinced the labels to stop requiring it. Piracy isn't Apple's concern, but the user experience is.

This is in service of saying that DRM isn't in the user's best interest and even big companies that care about user experience don't like DRM. Apple didn't ship DRM on its OSes when they were DVD based either. Yes they probably lost some sales due to piracy, but not having to deal with serial numbers is big for users.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#207

Post by eswangren »

gambiting wrote: post #136
cnlwsu wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diablo 3 was pretty horrible at first too for the same reason. I don't know if you will call that a success or failure though.

I've had Diablo 3 since day one and played successfully to level 60 with two characters, never had any problems with connection. And SimCity doesn't work sometimes - it just doesn't work at all.

BS. I was on at midnight release night. No one could play reliably. It was hit or miss for a week after that. Besides, the game itself was ruined by the AH and the RMAH, regardless of whether or not the servers were holding up.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#208

Post by cmelbye »

I was initially apprehensive about the server-based architecture of the game. However, after playing it for a few hours and being pleasantly surprised, I can now see why they did it. There's a concepts of multiplayer regions with cities that contact each other, and it's more than simply visiting the city.

It's a full economic simulation in which you can sell excess electricity supplies to other cities, lend them public services such as police or fire protection, build mass transit like commuter rail between cities, etc. Long story short, I was surprised to find that there are a lot of features that legitimately need a server. I initially expected the server-based system to be purely for the purposes of DRM, but anyone playing it can probably determine that it's a bit more than that.

Now if they can wrinkle out the bugs and get the servers running (which is, don't get me wrong, a huge huge huge issue right now), I'll be happy.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#209

Post by n3rdy »

anon1385 wrote: post #96

When a game requires an internet connection to work we call it DRM and slam it. When a text editor or spreadsheet requires an internet connection to run we call it innovation.

> When a text editor or spreadsheet requires an internet connection to run we call it innovation.

I would be raging if my text editor required an internet connection for me to access my local files. Al Capone rage even.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#210

Post by MartinCron »

speeder wrote: post #39

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…

It started with FPS mania

You could go a bit further back and say it started with Atari 2600 era shovelware.

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