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[sk3tch]

For those interested in supporting quality games journalism. Support RPS.

I donate $2 a month to them.

Thanks - subscribed. If nothing else, it will remind me to visit their site more often..rather than waiting for stuff like this to be posted on GAF. These guys are great.

 

[firehawk12]

I guess it makes sense for this to boil over into its own thread now. lol

 

[Neuromancer]

John Walker doing the Lord's work here.

 

[Htown]

simcity.getFudgedPopulation() !?? by the gods of programming, that's fucking hilarious.

it's ridiculous.

from what I remember of what I saw posted here from the leak, low population numbers are accurate, but as the population increases they basically add a mulitiplier to make the numbers much higher than they are.

the folks who did the offline patch also got the game to display the correct population number, I believe.

obviously Maxis's thought process was that they could make people feel better about the small city size by inflating the number of sims that "live" in the city.

unfortunately, if you're asking a player to make decisions for a simulation, feeding them false information is a good way to make sure they have a bad time

 

[antitrop]

This thread reminded me that I need to bookmark Rock, Paper, Shotgun, follow @rockpapershot and @botherer, and whitelist adblock the domain.

 

[Dibbz]

They need access to the game content, otherwise they would have to wait until after release like your average joe. That is the leverage publishers have, along with granting exclusives. Pre-release content and exclusives gets you the readers and page impressions you need to keep the site running.

RPS is focused purely on PC and they don't have a huge staff.

Personally I don't see that as a plus. I don't want to read an exclusive that tells me how good the game is. Gotta get dat ad money though I suppose to support their bloated company.

 

[outunderthestars]

Personally I don't see that as a plus. I don't want to read an exclusive that tells me how good the game is. Gotta get dat ad money though I suppose to support their bloated company.

Not true. Take your favorite series. Now if IGN has an exclusive preview/unveiling of a new title in that series, you're telling us that you wouldn't go see the story and screenshots?

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

Not true. Take your favorite series. Now if IGN has an exclusive preview/unveiling of a new title in that series, you're telling us that you wouldn't go see the story and screenshots?

that is what gaf is for

 

[rohlfinator]

Bravo. Glad there's someone in the games press that still has the consumer's back on this kind of stuff.

On his twitter he mentioned that it's not an MMO, which has "massively" right in the name. Eeeeeexactly. This is a game where you can play by yourself just like you did with regions in SC4... or you can play with a group of people that you're mostly shut off from except for the cities closest to you. This is as much of an MMO as a game of Goldeneye is.

Yup. The continued dilution of the "MMO" term by companies that want to justify their DRM is getting ridiculous.

 

[Reallink]

Diablo 3 sold over 10 million units guys. 10,000,000 units. EA doesn't give a shit about this "scandle". They would do the same thing tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that.

 

[Hot Coldman]

Not true. Take your favorite series. Now if IGN has an exclusive preview/unveiling of a new title in that series, you're telling us that you wouldn't go see the story and screenshots?

I'd have done this last decade, but nowadays? Eh, just watch a trailer or wait for some gameplay footage.

Everything gets pasted to GAF, anyway.

 

[unbias]

Not true. Take your favorite series. Now if IGN has an exclusive preview/unveiling of a new title in that series, you're telling us that you wouldn't go see the story and screenshots?

Heh, the odd thing is game companies are starting to remove the middle man and doing the PR themselves. The news about Chris Priestly moving to a new role of community manager, I found interesting.

I'm almost wondering if a lot of games media is essentially taking jobs away from themselves, due to how PR oriented they are. To the point now, where it seems companies are becoming even more insular in how it generate word of mouth/hype.

 

[SimplyJah]

I've been enjoying his perspective with regard to SimCity. RPS is probably the last bastion of gaming news I spend any part of my time reading, hope he doesn't let up any time soon!

 

[Dibbz]

Not true. Take your favorite series. Now if IGN has an exclusive preview/unveiling of a new title in that series, you're telling us that you wouldn't go see the story and screenshots?

It's true. I don't care about articles telling me how great something is. I'll use GAF for screenshots and trailers and that's it. 99% of stuff posted before a games release is hyperbole and I'd rather not bother wasting my time. Maybe I'm weird I dunno that's just the way I do things these days. I don't have much money anymore so I can't get caught up in the hype for my own sake.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

I can definitely understand where you are coming from, his tone of some of his articles changed a lot, specially after the Wainwright thing, some people think he is biased and extra snarky toward big developers but I think it might just be rightfully based on some of the ill-will they have generated. He obviously disliked the direction SE is taking with their reboots of Hitman and Tomb Raider, but it has become more prominent because most journalist of UK are terrible whores of publishers and he has knack for pointing it out.

And to be fair, people wanted him to be the spokesman of ethics after their readership called him out for not using his site initially as a soapbox for Dorite-gate. Shame that like all great game journalists, he will probably "move up in" a couple of years like the future community managers that he loathes so much strive for every day. I think he is already doing some writing for the new Dreamfall.

Why would he do that? I'm pretty sure he makes enough money to sustain himself off RPS alone.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Kieron Gillen works for Marvel these days. You get a job that moves you up a couple notches or fulfills some dream, I don't see why you wouldn't take it.

Becoming a community manager is not a "move up" from owning and operating a pretty successful and well respected website.

Actually creating video games or going to write comic books may be, though.

 

[CrunchyFrog]

That's a photo of a house in the Mid-City neighborhood of New Orleans following hurricane Katrina. (knew I recognized it somewhere). The comparison works on so many levels.

 

[Revven]

John Walker is looking like a swell journalist, telling it like it is. Sadly it seems the common sense thing to do is actually above and beyond the other media outlets. =\

It makes me feel horrible for ever supporting places like IGN when I was younger. But I guess that's just part of being young; you're naive for awhile.

 

[unbias]

This last year and already this year, as really had me follow all those games media personalities, that I have never really liked, on twitter. Simply following them on twitter does just such a great job at showing how little separation there is from the people who review games, and those who make or publish them. I dont even need scandals anymore, thanks to twitter, all I have to do is see how the relationships are between media, PR, devs, and publishers.


SimCity, to me, has been the best game in a long time that has done such a good job at showing how detached games media and the game industry is from the consumer. No one, outside of a select few actually looked at the game in a objectionable(or even subjection) way of seeing if their current system, in regards to SimCity specifically is consumer friendly. Almost every response from everyone who has commented has been "always online DRM in the game wasn't the problem, just that it wasn't done well", essentially saying like John said, "teething problems".

 

[Garcia]

Holy shit, I love him already. That's exactly what game journalism needs these days.

 

[Zabka]

Diablo 3 sold over 10 million units guys. 10,000,000 units. EA doesn't give a shit about this "scandle". They would do the same thing tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that.

Shit candle?

 

[Mr_Appleby]

it's ridiculous.

from what I remember of what I saw posted here from the leak, low population numbers are accurate, but as the population increases they basically add a mulitiplier to make the numbers much higher than they are.

the folks who did the offline patch also got the game to display the correct population number, I believe.

obviously Maxis's thought process was that they could make people feel better about the small city size by inflating the number of sims that "live" in the city.

unfortunately, if you're asking a player to make decisions for a simulation, feeding them false information is a good way to make sure they have a bad time

yeah i saw that in the other thread, crazy. it's like they got 90% through development, suddenly realized the population sizes were tiny and for whatever reason the architecture wouldn't allow for a proper increase, so they just chucked in a multiplier on the displayed figure. amazing.

 

[unbias]

yeah i saw that in the other thread, crazy. it's like they got 90% through development, suddenly realized the population sizes were tiny and for whatever reason the architecture wouldn't allow for a proper increase, so they just chucked in a multiplier on the displayed figure. amazing.

Maybe John accidentally stumbled on to something, maybe this was originally going to be FTP or something along the lines of a facebook game?

 

[Evlar]

This snappy comment accurately reflects my view of the topic:

16/03/2013 at 00:38 Meat Circus says:

Christ, these people are so fucking inept they can’t even convincingly lie to a credulous audience of gamers whose brains have been addled by decades of PR bullshit.

 

[Barkley's Justice]

what doea fta mean

 

[speedpop]

John Walker always deserves a brofist.

 

[unbias]

what doea fta mean

From the article.

 

[Uthred]

yeah i saw that in the other thread, crazy. it's like they got 90% through development, suddenly realized the population sizes were tiny and for whatever reason the architecture wouldn't allow for a proper increase, so they just chucked in a multiplier on the displayed figure. amazing.

Its a bit more nuanced than that it seems, the "real" figure is actually the number of agents/actors in the city. Your city does have, say, 100,000 citizens but only a certain percentage of these are being fully simulated, that percentage is the "real" population that people have "found". It was also in the paper about Glasbox presented at GDC before the game came out. It's still a more interesting way to simulate the populations behaviour than the abstract stuff from, say, SC4. So the populations shown by the game are actually correct, its just that the full population isnt being simulated.

 

[Slavik81]

A brilliant piece. I haven't bought SimCity yet, and it sounds like I never will. Not unless they fix all the simulation problems and remove the online requirement.

For those interested in supporting quality games journalism. Support RPS.

I donate $2 a month to them.

I suppose RPS can have my $60. EA clearly doesn't deserve it.

 

[rohlfinator]

Maybe John accidentally stumbled on to something, maybe this was originally going to be FTP or something along the lines of a facebook game?

I doubt it was ever going to be a Facebook game -- no way would it be able to run that simulation in JavaScript or Flash with any kind of decent performance.

 

[Roto13]

I doubt it was ever going to be a Facebook game -- no way would it be able to run that simulation in JavaScript or Flash with any kind of decent performance.

Well that doesn't really matter since the simulation is all run on EA's serv-

oh.

 

[unbias]

I doubt it was ever going to be a Facebook game -- no way would it be able to run that simulation in JavaScript or Flash with any kind of decent performance.

I doubt it too, however early design decisions could have been thought of and tried, internally, but FTP wouldn't surprise me, which normally means built for all sorts of PC specs.

 

[Open Source]

Good stuff. I feel as cheated by SimCity as by any other game since Hi-Octane, which I also bought at full retail price.

 

[Nert]

We really need more sources like Rock, Paper, Shotgun around. This kind of writing should be the norm for any publication that claims to have the interests of their readers at heart.

 

[Mr_Appleby]

Its a bit more nuanced than that it seems, the "real" figure is actually the number of agents/actors in the city. Your city does have, say, 100,000 citizens but only a certain percentage of these are being fully simulated, that percentage is the "real" population that people have "found". It was also in the paper about Glasbox presented at GDC before the game came out. It's still a more interesting way to simulate the populations behaviour than the abstract stuff from, say, SC4. So the populations shown by the game are actually correct, its just that the full population isnt being simulated.

real talk time? i do some work in intelligent systems/agents. it is a very interesting way to do things I agree, I'm fairly new to it still and it's a pretty cool field to be in, I'll have to look up that paper as I wasn't following at the time. however from everything i'm reading they've made a bit of a mess of it eg: the pathing/empty jobs/houses issue. besides which, there's no reason, outside of CPU cycles, you couldn't simulate eg. 1% of your population as individual agents and the other 99% as massed blocks. That to me is the absolute most obvious thing to do. but that's not really my point. my point is when you write a function called game.fudgeTheNumbers() I'm going to have a really good laugh at your expense. what is "real" population anyway? do those non-agent populations have any influence on the city? because if not, that's not real population to me, that's just adding a couple of extra zeroes to the displayed number and calling it a day.

edit: I would be very interested to know if the number of agents scales with the performance of the host machine, it's quite common to downscale AI to lowest-common-denominator, because unlike having better graphics, having better AI can substantially change how a game plays so the tendency is to keep it all at the same level, hence target the lowest perfomance profile. But in this case I think you could get away with having more agents on more capable machines without degrading the lower-end experience. At least if you attempted to simulate both ways you could find a balance suitable to the machine.

 

[rohlfinator]

there's no reason, outside of CPU cycles, you couldn't simulate eg. 1% of your population as individual agents and the other 99% as massed blocks.

How would something like that work?

when you write a function called game.fudgeTheNumbers() I'm going to have a really good laugh at your expense. what is "real" population anyway? do those non-agent populations have any influence on the city? because if not, that's not real population to me, that's just adding a couple of extra zeroes to the displayed number and calling it a day.

Eh, I don't think it's as insidious or as lazy as its being made out. Most of these games fudge the numbers to an extent when you get to larger populations. If you look at older SimCity games, they probably show you a higher population than the buildings would actually hold in real life, we just didn't have any "real" number to compare it to so it's easier to let it slide.

 

[sixghost]

Eh, I don't think it's as insidious or as lazy as its being made out. Most of these games fudge the numbers to an extent when you get to larger populations. If you look at older SimCity games, they probably show you a higher population than the buildings would actually hold in real life, we just didn't have any "real" number to compare it to so it's easier to let it slide.

You're probably right, but it's extra funny considering a huge part of this game's pitch was that it simulated the life of all the people living in your city.

 

[rohlfinator]

You're probably right, but it's extra funny considering a huge part of this game's pitch was that it simulated the life of all the people living in your city.

True. And GetFudgedPopulation() is a pretty hilarious name for the function.

 

[outunderthestars]

We really need more sources like Rock, Paper, Shotgun around. This kind of writing should be the norm for any publication that claims to have the interests of their readers at heart.

I would love a site like RPS that focuses on console gaming....

 

[Mr_Appleby]

How would something like that work?
.

One way would be to have a control agent that distributed the "invisible" population around the city according to whatever algorithms you like, while the visible agents run in parallel. you already don't see the extra population, at least this way their impact on the city would be calculated. Maybe they do already do something like that. I don't know.. I just wanted to laugh at fudge :/

 

[Dead Man]

A brilliant piece. I haven't bought SimCity yet, and it sounds like I never will. Not unless they fix all the simulation problems and remove the online requirement.


I suppose RPS can have my $60. EA clearly doesn't deserve it.

Indeed.

 

[unbias]

One way would be to have a control agent that distributed the "invisible" population around the city according to whatever algorithms you like, while the visible agents run in parallel. you already don't see the extra population, at least this way their impact on the city would be calculated. Maybe they do already do something like that. I don't know.. I just wanted to laugh at fudge :/

Well, it is more then just fudging the numbers; the amount difference between when you are online vs offline feels like manipulation tactics, into making the smaller sized cities feel bigger then they really are. If it wasn't so ridiculously different from the actual population vs the bloated version it would be less suspect.

 

[Mr_Appleby]

Well, it is more then just fudging the numbers; the amount difference between when you are online vs offline feels like manipulation tactics, into making the smaller sized cities feel bigger then they really are. If it wasn't so ridiculously different from the actual population vs the bloated version it would be less suspect.

I'm not defending anything here.. Whole thing looks like a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

 

[unbias]

I'm not defending anything here.. Whole thing looks like a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

Oh, ya, I didn't mean to insinuate you were, it was just a good post to rift off of. I'm not sure people who have never played or seen the video's realize the difference between the online population numbers and the offline... Quite a difference.

 

[CookTrain]

Why does the gaming press generally bend over to big publishers? Press have the power, it's not the other way around.

You give a game a shit score, people will avoid the game. You get blacklisted they give your company bad press. It's lose lose for game companies but somehow they have come up with a system that makes it seem they have all the power.

It's the prisoners dilemma. If even one site doesn't take that route, they'll be lavished with all the developer-provided perks that will get them the traffic. Making a stand isn't a free meal ticket and when it's putting food on your table, which option are you going to go for; making and indignant stand to an audience of ten or getting click after click for trailers and interviews and previews and more?

The press in this case don't really have the power because they will always undercut each other in capitulation to get the clicks.

Then on the flip side, the attitude of "I'll get it all on GAF" is great for sidestepping crappy practices, but it does nothing to prop up the pro-consumer attempts.

 

[unbias]

It's the prisoners dilemma. If even one site doesn't take that route, they'll be lavished with all the developer-provided perks that will get them the traffic. Making a stand isn't a free meal ticket and when it's putting food on your table, which option are you going to go for; making and indignant stand to an audience of ten or getting click after click for trailers and interviews and previews and more?

The press in this case don't really have the power because they will always undercut each other in capitulation to get the clicks.

I'm not sure how much that idea holds up though, in practice. Games media, in its older form is quickly and consistently losing ground to youtube personalities and video format websites(like giantbomb) that doesn't rely on reviews. If their goal was to not bite the hand that feeds them, that strategy isn't working, at least anymore, because now the hand is replacing them with their own PR.

I agree though that is what they are doing, just, it isnt working like they think it is... or maybe it is, maybe more of them want to be working for devs and publishers then originally thought.

 

[Burai]

Why does the gaming press generally bend over to big publishers? Press have the power, it's not the other way around.

You give a game a shit score, people will avoid the game. You get blacklisted they give your company bad press. It's lose lose for game companies but somehow they have come up with a system that makes it seem they have all the power.

How much do you pay to access games journalism each year? Most readers pay the following: $0.

We aren't the customer here. The publishers that advertise with the sites are the customers. We (or specifically our attention) is merely the product that's being sold.

In a perverse way these sites are doing absolutely the right thing. They are protecting their paying customers from shoddy products.

Unfortunately we're the shoddy product.

 

[Mr_Appleby]

Oh, ya, I didn't mean to insinuate you were, it was just a good post to rift off of. I'm not sure people who have never played or seen the video's realize the difference between the online population numbers and the offline... Quite a difference.

Ah sorry misread you. Yeh I'm just going off what I've read/watched. Can't really justify buying it right now though I'm tempted just to experience it myself heh.

 

[PaulExcellent]

This is an amazing article.
Bravo.

 

[unbias]

How much do you pay to access games journalism each year? Most readers pay the following: $0.

We aren't the customer here. The publishers that advertise with the sites are the customers. We (or specifically our attention) is merely the product that's being sold.

In a perverse way these sites are doing absolutely the right thing. They are protecting their paying customers from shoddy products.

Unfortunately we're the shoddy product.

Eh, I'm not sure that is a completely apt analogy, because even though we dont "pay" for ABC/CBS/NBC and ect, they still must pander to the majority of their viewers. I honestly think the real difference is the relationship itself between the two, they just seem to get along too well with devs/publishers for a field that is supposed to be constantly questioning their work.