Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#261

Post by Kequc » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 11:50 PM UTC

mortenjorck wrote: post #37

EA needs to pivot this game, fast. Even in the best case scenario, where the servers all get fixed this evening and the game works flawlessly for everyone for a month straight, the damage to the game's name has been done. The meme is hatched: SimCity 2013 has a highly brittle dependency on poorly-planned cloud infrastructure. There's a private region mode in the game (that you nonetheless can't use offline in the cur…

The game sold more than a million copies and gamers are notoriously short term memory combined with short term attention span. Not only will this game start working fine after half the people who bought this game forget about it in a week. But the people who bought it and are mad about it now, won't be in a week.

The same thing has been happening for a long time. If you are a gamer, you are sharing space with petulance. You can pretend all you want that games are designed and built with an adult in mind but adults aren't the target market.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#262

Post by RexRollman » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 11:52 PM UTC

MartinCron wrote: post #205

roc wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.

Really? Wow, what a bunch of jerks. I am surprised that anyone even wants to buy a game from them after something like that.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#263

Post by DigitalSea » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 11:53 PM UTC

wmf wrote: post #233

DigitalSea wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All DRM is eventually bypassed, why do game studios even bother?

In this case it's not just DRM; SimCity has social features that clearly require a server.

A social feature that isn't even relevant in solo play. You shouldn't need a network for single play.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#264

Post by DigitalSea » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 11:54 PM UTC

s3graham wrote: post #253

DigitalSea wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All DRM is eventually bypassed, why do game studios even bother?

Because every hour after release that it's not-yet-cracked equates to a substantial improvement in lifetime revenue. They're not stupid, they know it's getting cracked. It's just a play for more time.

Maybe the case for non EA games, but considering people won't get to play Simcity within the next 2 weeks or so, there'll be a cracked version out by then. EA have brought themselves nothing but trouble in this situation and being the out-of-touch company they are, they deserve every loss of sale they get.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#265

Post by sshumaker » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 11:58 PM UTC

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…

That's slightly revisionist history. EA bought Maxis when they weren't in great financial shape (it didn't help that basically every Friday was spent at the bar). It's true that the Sims was a huge success that EA didn't anticipate (they repeatedly tried to kill the project), but the jury is still out if Maxis would have survived long enough to release it without EA's funding and support.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#266

Post by dalore » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 11:58 PM UTC

cbs wrote: post #143

amitparikh wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this just a technical error (bug) that is a game dev's (or infrastructure engineer's) responsibility? I understand the frustration at the DRM concept, but you can't blame this on the larger entity as a whole when it was likely just a bug in some code or a small oversight. Things were clearly working when it was in beta.

No, its not that simple. Isn't this just a technical error (bug) that is a game dev's (or infrastructure engineer's) responsibility? Isn't mandating the constant involvement of otherwise unnecessary tech that is known to be error prone and unreliable just the result of a poorly thought out buisness requirement? No, its not that simple either. Because they probably did think it out, knew they were choosing the riskier…

Yep. There were probably tech guys who said you shouldn't do it, but the tech guys that said you can probably got the promotions.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#267

Post by MartinCron » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 12:01 AM UTC

treeface wrote: post #117

lost_name wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spore (the last Big Game released by Maxis through EA) is currently holding that record, I believe. By September 14, 2008 (ten days after the game's initial Australian release), 2,016 of 2,216 ratings on Amazon.com gave the game one out of five stars, most citing EA's implementation of DRM for the low ratings. [1] Spore's DRM issues were different, however. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spore_(2008_video_game)#DR…

I actually legitimately hated Spore for its gameplay. So much promise and hype...such poor execution.

Spore was really great in that different people could learn to hate it in completely different ways.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#268

Post by hkolek » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 12:03 AM UTC

cmelbye wrote: post #208

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 publ…

> 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.

That was already possible in Sim City 4. Even in older versions (Sim City 2000 iirc) you had neighbor cities and could buy and sell utilities. Those features work just as well when controlled by AI. There is just no reason not to implement it aside from the DRM benefit.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#269

Post by FireBeyond » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 12:07 AM UTC

goatforce5 wrote: post #49

Where's Steve Jobs when you need him? > Steve Jobs summoned the MobileMe team to the Town Hall > auditorium on Apple’s Cupertino campus for an obscenity- > laden dressing down. ‘You’ve tarnished Apple’s reputation,’ > he told them. ‘You should hate each other for having let > each other down.’ Then he named a new executive on the spot > to run the team.” http://macdailynews.com/2011/05/08/steve-jobs-to-those-respo...

Sorry, but no.

I should not hate people because we weren't able to develop another new product that made you another billion.

That's not a healthy work/life balance, that's a cult.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#270

Post by chongli » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 12:10 AM UTC

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.

The purpose of the AMA was to promote the game, not satisfy readers' questions. This is the case for all political/corporate AMAs.