Wyndstryker
Member
Did EA even stress test the servers?
You would think they would do something as practical as that first.
You would think they would do something as practical as that first.
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EA suspends SimCity marketing campaigns
- Thread starter iMax
- Start date
Written by Dan Stapleton (former editor in chief of gamespy). He writes pretty good stuff.
OldJadedGamer
Banned
No one should be supporting games with always on DRM.
ForteanMan
Member
I agree, but the ridiculous level's of nerd rage that some were expressing following ME3 made it seem like the end of the world was nigh. Although I may have just given myself a clue as to why that was, nerd rage and all.
I haven't personally experienced either, but I could see how there is a difference in the two from a functionality standpoint. I was speaking merely as an outsider of both events looking in at them.
Deadly Cyclone
Pride of Iowa State
I think it's more on EA, and there's reason for this hate.
I agree. Those self-entitled babies knew this could happen and should have voted with their wallets accordingly. Furthermore, if they're so smart about videogames and think this one is bad, why don't they make a better one?
MMBosstones86
Member
problem isn't so much the DRM online check, its that they store all this shit server side to make it 'connected'.
It's just nuts that they apparently had no idea how many people were going to be trying to get on. Didn't they have 2 beta weekends? Just baffling.
GitarooMan
Member
This has probably already wrapped up the fail of the year award.
JakkuFurosu
Member
ThreePiMatt
Member
Bear in mind, that article is former PC Gamer reviewer and former Gamespy EIC, Dan Stapleton. He's good people.
But EA should have suspended the commercials before the game launched on account of the fact that the commercials were awful and that dude from Workaholics is absolutely insufferable. Bad commercial. Bad. Bad. Bad.
Can Crusher
Banned
Nerd rage, really?
Why not just call it fan rage? That being the most apt description and all. Or was it the first time you saw a fan base reacting vocally and negatively?
And of course you can see the difference between the two, they are nothing alike.
I'm sure EA, and players, are scared of whatever they will release in March 2014. 2012 had the ME3 ending fiasco. 2013 had the shit online DRM of SimCity disaster. What will March 2014 have in store for us?
JetBlackPanda
Member
this entire thing is bullshit.. All of it..
I still play Diablo II sometimes.
In 15 years can I play Diablo 3? or Sim City?
Online DRM is complete and utter bullshit. This industry is going bananas.
I still play Diablo II sometimes.
In 15 years can I play Diablo 3? or Sim City?
Online DRM is complete and utter bullshit. This industry is going bananas.
It's so amazing that EA is proving to be the worst kind of awful here.
How many servers did they have at the ready?? It's as if they only expected to sell 10,000 copies of Sim City. I am absolutely amazed at how ill-prepared EA was for the launch. This is text book horrible and I will not buy this or any Origin DRM game. Will not.
How many servers did they have at the ready?? It's as if they only expected to sell 10,000 copies of Sim City. I am absolutely amazed at how ill-prepared EA was for the launch. This is text book horrible and I will not buy this or any Origin DRM game. Will not.
SolidSnakex
Member
It definitely wasn't this bad. People were really disappointed with ME3's ending. People are pissed about this. They've spent $60 on something that doesn't work like it should. And they can't even get a refund for it. I really can't remember the last time the handling of a game really pissed people off this much.
Whiskeymatt
Member
Oh definitely. It's even better that it's happening to EA.
LightofRohan
Member
Damn, this is such a disaster.
Poor SimCity is just sitting in the middle of this all going, "WAZ GOIN ON! I JUZ WANA BUILD CITIEZ".
Poor SimCity is just sitting in the middle of this all going, "WAZ GOIN ON! I JUZ WANA BUILD CITIEZ".
presumably it gets more investment money and you get a higher quarterly bonus or something idk lol
Beelzeboss
Member
You guys should look on the bright side. Sure your game is broken and not working right now but at least pirates will never get a hold of it.
yeah I forgot that no one ever reverse-engineered MMOs lol
SteveWinwood
Member
oh don't worry they had 3 betas everything will be fine
ForteanMan
Member
To be fair I was speaking anecdotally of one of my friends who was quite enraged by the ME3 ending debacle and yes he is a huge nerd. So it wasn't really a stretch for me to call it nerd rage. But really I think you're just arguing semantics at that point.
Anyway, back OT; I'm interested in seeing how EA handles this situation from this point moving forward. Apparently all of their patches thus far have been for naught. It will also be interesting to see what effect this has on future DRM and always-online discussions moving forward.
SnakeswithLasers
Member
It's not perverse in any way. Always-online DRM that streams content is a consumer unfriendly move that deserves as much negative PR as is humanly possible.
This is what I believe. The game sold well beyond their expectations to the point where they are having to play catch-up with the infrastructure. People eagerly throwing money at them so hard that they can't keep up is hardly teaching EA a lesson.
This will definitely hurt them in the future.
I for one will not get another EA game until they redeem themselves.
I just have a problem with calling it "DRM", because this isn't a case of simple DRM, as noted in this article: http://www.vgrevolution.com/2013/03/what-game-publishers-can-learn-from-simcitys-troubled-launch/
If people just want to throw out "DRM" as a boogeyman word to describe what is going on here, well, can't help that I suppose.
Well after D3 i decided not to buy any more of this shit infested games, so i don't really know how bad is SimCity, but what i do know, is that a lot of people had problems the weekend of the release of D3, and the game was released on tuesday.
So it wasn't 1 or 2 days of problems like another poster has said.
Interfectum
Member
I'm not. Hopefully the people who supported this shit will know better next time.
This shit needs to die. The sooner the world understands it, the better.
Way ahead of you. I've been clean for a year!
ForteanMan
Member
That's the other aspect that has stood out to me. The horror stories of people being unable to get refunds? I can't imagine how upset I would be if it were me in this situation. Honestly though, it's the reason I don't purchase games that have the kind of always-online things that SimCity has. Not that there's been a game with that feature so far released that's interested me necessarily. Since I always tell people to vote with their wallets, I personally wouldn't purchase a game that had that requirement, not matter how badly I wanted to play it. Some of this feels like it could have been a 'nbuyer-beware' situation. Not saying any, or all, blame is on the customer. But, given how big of an issue D3 was last year, the reality was there.
It would be impossible. These games are designed from the ground up to leverage the new and exciting possibilities of online social interaction and rapidly deployed content updates. While the early growing pains are regrettable we can look forward to a fantastic rich experience bolstered by our cohesive connected infrastructure. When Diablo III transitions to Playstation 4 it will also require... oh.
this looks more and more like it's going to take weeks to fix, and not days. good times. and all because of trying to save some money.
embrace it! because it won't.
SteveWinwood
Member
I don't think you quite get it.
The fact that it is online at all (the reason we're in this mess in the first place) was a form of digitally managing the rights of people to play the game. DRM is DRM. Functionally and literally.
Reallink
Member
I'm pretty sure "DRM" is just being used as a catch-all term for not being able to play the game on your local machine sans internet connection. In other words, "DRM" is why no offline single player mode exists. It seems like this should be obvious to everyone, but the internet is never without it's arguers of semantics.
Visualante2
Member
Rename Maxis EA Clown College
Now Amazon has stopped selling it maybe we should target other major retailers and ask them to stop selling it also.
Now Amazon has stopped selling it maybe we should target other major retailers and ask them to stop selling it also.
Splitting hairs. Its a singleplayer game requiring online connection as a way to deter piracy. That decision is a form of drm.