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

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#371

Post by jiggy2011 » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 5:25 AM UTC

I'm going to disagree slightly.

The primary "DRM" in this game is not DRM in the sense of something that attempts to control your computer in such a way as you can not make copies or run an unauthorised version.

The DRM here is about moving game logic to a server under EA's control. I think this is the correct way to do DRM in that it works and does not require locked down client platforms or invasive rootkits.

I would much prefer to pay for something as a service than have some third party try and take control of my computer. After all, people don't complain about 37 signals , google or World of warcraft for their business models which essentially amount to the same sort of "DRM".

The issues here seem to be that:

EA didn't plan for the demand and make sure that enough servers were available.

Since there is no monthly service fee, there will come a point at which it is no longer economical for EA to run the servers. This will make the game unplayable unless there is some plan by which they will release the server software for download after X years.

There are certain expectations built around the SimCity brand, mainly that the games have high and timeless replayability and that they can be played in isolation. I wonder if the game had been named "Simcity online" would have changed the reception?

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#372

Post by dpiers » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 5:32 AM UTC

yarou wrote: post #360

_delirium wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My own personal anecdote is that most of my Bay-Area game-industry contacts were at Maxis: around 8-9 of them. And precisely none of them are still with EA today. Some have left to freelance, some to do indie games, some to do regular tech jobs outside the game industry entirely (e.g. would rather work for Lockheed than EA).

Whoa, Lockheed. Talk about a complete shift in career(s)...though I suppose programming UAVs is in some perverse way reminiscent of game programming. :)

Former game-dev here: Simulation programming is one of the most viable exits for developers looking to get away from the game space.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#373

Post by meisterbrendan » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 5:48 AM UTC

Here's a thought: if you can't get your act together with servers during a launch, stagger the launch. IE, when you buy your game, you have a place in a queue, and when there is enough server capacity to support you, you are let into the system. That way, you can change gamers expectations such that they are being let into an exclusive party, not that the game that they purchased is defective.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#374

Post by jiggy2011 » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 5:57 AM UTC

baddox wrote: post #249

gknoy wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to recall that the reason for the cloud based server was to leverage more number crunching power to yield better AI. Running it locally might not help. (Though, it certainly is better than no server, and it'd be interesting if they let people tune the fidelity of the processing so that it could run locally, or on a private server.)

I highly doubt they are providing server resources for every player that are more powerful than the player's desktop or laptop computer. Surely that would be extremely expensive.

Your probably right, but maybe if you are doing all the calculations for everyone in one place you can start to make large scale use of dynamic programming techniques over time?

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#375

Post by jiggy2011 » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 6:07 AM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #260

spartango wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an over-simplification of the performance demands of the game. Keep in mind that there are many levels of computation involved in the simulation, from rendering loads to inter-agent complexity, to city management (i.e. taxes). It all adds up, and the graphics needs alone are the limiter in most games. But beyond the "feather that broke the camel's back" rationale for offloading compute, keep in mind that ther…

Really? You're suggesting they use a software renderer instead of the GPU? Even if 70% of the CPU was wasted on a modern machine, that's like a quarter core per user that they'd need to rent from Amazon. I don't think so. As far as the multiplayer, I don't think anyone has a problem needing servers for multiplayer. All I'm saying is that the suggestion that computations need to be done online to save local CPU, even…

I doubt they are using EC2, probably buying servers in bulk from IBM or whoever.

When you centralise you also have other advantages, such as being able to cache the results of previous computations. So if you can structure the computations in such a way as to be fully or partially reusable you can memoize and scale much better.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#376

Post by theg2 » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 6:21 AM UTC

LandoCalrissian wrote: post #287

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 shed a tear for Westwood studios.

Westwood was failing and wasn't going to survive on it's own. It's a sad fact but EA bought them up in order to save the franchises and the jobs of many developers.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#377

Post by benologist » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 6:30 AM UTC

gknoy wrote: post #189

aviraldg wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best compromise: create a "local" version of the server.

I seem to recall that the reason for the cloud based server was to leverage more number crunching power to yield better AI. Running it locally might not help. (Though, it certainly is better than no server, and it'd be interesting if they let people tune the fidelity of the processing so that it could run locally, or on a private server.)

Right, and Diablo 3 was online-only to solve the problem of not being able to play with your friends.

And I forget what the excuse was for Command & Conquer 4.

It's just DRM first and foremost.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#378

Post by rurounijones » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 7:03 AM UTC

derefr wrote: post #367

rurounijones wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SaaS Game, very well put! Do we need a new acronym for games that required black-box server side components (Not just DRM but entire chunks of game code) not controlled by the consumer? GaaS? (Game as a Service)? Ubisoft did the same thing with the last silent Hunter game IIRC.

80% of mobile games are already precisely this, without requiring the coinage of a special term for it.

I was being facetious when I said it.

I was also thinking about PC Games mainly when I said that since it still (touch wood) a rare situation.

To be honest, mobile gaming didn't even appear in my PC-master-race-gaming mind :p

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#379

Post by bluedanieru » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 7:05 AM UTC

badloginagain wrote: post #311

LandoCalrissian wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It kills me a little inside to know this is probably 100% correct.

It's actually very unlikely. What is likely is that all the tech guys will be laid off because SimCity didn't meet financial expectations.

This isn't a bad thing. EA should fire all it's developers, designers, sales people, management, liquidate its assets and distribute the proceeds to its shareholders, and quietly go out of business.

Really, the tech guys that got laid off will almost certainly go to find better jobs. Almost by definition, since they won't be making games at EA anymore.

Re: Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

#380

Post by overgard » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 7:38 AM UTC

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 core mechanics.

There's another element, which is a bit hazier, but being that this game is a sequel, there are certain expectations that people come into it with for a Sim City game -- expectations which aren't met. Sim City is a game about playing mayor, and all the social nonsense is sort of getting in the way of that experience. Especially since the whole "online" aspect has kept me from playing it today AT ALL, because the "server is full" -- despite the fact that I played 10 hours yesterday and felt no need to interact with anyone. I'd happily leave behind the whole social nonsense and just play the damn game if it would let me.

This isn't a proper Sim City game. It's like going to a restaurant and ordering spaghetti, and getting something entirely different. Sure I want the restaurant's take on spaghetti, but you can't stray too far without inventing a new dish. I wanted spaghetti, and instead I got mac and cheese. Some people might like mac and cheese, but that's not what I came here to get, and I'm disappointed.