Amazon Refuses to Sell SimCity

[itsthesheppy]

Wow, this really is turning into a good old fashioned train wreck!

Crumpets anybody?

I'll take one. I'm having the time of my life watching EA bungle yet another major franchise.

 

[Falterfire]

I personally like that kind of difficulty because it indicates that there might be a great deal of depth and the game might require skill and use of a brain.

No offense intended, but it's just there are classic lego people and there are duplo people, most of them being under the age of five.

There is a time and a place for that sort of complexity. It is not in your user interface. To use your analogy: I'd say Legos VS Duplo is more a game difficulty thing. The complexity I'm talking about is like Lego vs K'Nex. Sure K'Nex is more difficult to put together, but that doesn't mean the end result is any better.

In my opinion a game should be able to give you enough information in 15 minutes to beat an AI on the very easiest difficulty. From there it can be as hard as you'd like, but good game design means not putting all the complexity on the very surface.

 

[Madgamer13]

The screens linked in the OP is of an edited forum post about a customer service transaction. Doesn't look like a chat window to me. I don't buy the story told by the screenie at all. It is good to see that EA has responded so quickly to this issue as it was required, their reputation has been dragged through the gutter so effectively over the last few years.

Amazon's reaction is not suprising either, but not for the reasons implied by this so called mal-practice of customer service by EA, but that many major titles that have launched recently with online components , have been unable to handle their server loads due to popularity. If a game with always online components requires their servers to be up to play the game in any mode whatsoever, then the publisher is mis-advertising if the game doesn't run after launch due to network difficulties.

Whether technical difficulties resolve themselves later doesn't matter, because the internet hate machine will make sure that patience is lost and complaints are filed. No self respecting publisher of internet bound business wants the bad press related to the internet's lack of patience and love for drama. Whether it is through the elaborate construction of conspiracy upon the head of the likes of EA and their business partners, or the ceaseless discharge of hightened emotion relating one's spare time, any hint of a slip up, difficulty, or vague process the internet can turn against business will be one they'll relish.

Finally, I really do not care for simcity, but this steamy pile of rumor mongering is entertaining for me. Anyone got any popcorn?

 

[direkiller]

Who thinks Gearbox and Sega are really glad about this.

"Oh hey they screwed up talk about them now!"

That being said I'm going to go give Cities XL a try

Just don't turn off the auto save,as there is a memory leak, and it will only run on a single core.



OT: I think il check back on this game in a few months. If they sort out the issue and the price drops I may give it a swing.

 

[DoveAlexa]

Uhm... It's back to being available for download on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Arts-41018ted-Edition2-SimCity/dp/B007VTVRFA/ref=cm_rdp_product?tag=vglnk-c384-20

I'm guessing they were told that not having it available was breach of contract or something so there it is again. Maybe my page is caching, but I don't think it is. Also, I haven't logged into amazon to try and complete a transaction to see if it will.

 

[Epona]

Look on the bright side people! This will blow up in EA's faces and their shareholders will demand offline games again because they see the bad sales stemming from DRM. Companies will stop doing it if rumors like this stop them from making a profit!

No, the servers will be fixed and in short time this will all be forgiven, just like Diablo III.

 

[Callate]

I don't think EA should entirely be faulted for wanting to take action against people who take their games and then refuse to pay for them. From one view, that's a reasonable course of action for a consumer to take against a company in the event of fraud; on the other, it's something resembling theft if the person doesn't actually return the game they bought when they withdraw the funds used for the purchase.

I suspect that it really boils down to a failure of one customer service rep, not company-wide policy. One could argue that customer service reps not having the power/knowledge/autonomy to deal with such issues appropriately led to the dispute, and that is a matter of company policy, but that's not unusual, unfortunately.

With the refusal of Amazon to deal in SimCity, though, I'm officially declaring the matter a "debacle". Do I have a second?

 

[Baresark]

I'm glad Amazon took this stand. I respect most of the decisions they make as a company but this one seems especially prudent. Companies need to realize that if you release a broken product, you need to have repercussions at least for the people you have bamboozled into buying your shoddy product.

 

[theultimateend]

but it's not unreasonable of the company to cancel accounts belonging to people who refuse to pay.

Uh yes it is, it very much is. I haven't heard of a publisher coming to your house to confiscate all your games by them because you've failed a payment on one of their games and this pretty much constitutes that.

It was bad with Steam as well, thankfully Valve listened and changed the way Account-disables work about a year back: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=471349

They no longer "ban" anyones account and deny them access to their games over failed payments or payment-disputes but disallow trading and buying of new products till it's cleared up with support.

It is beyond me how you can not find someone being banned from their entire games library over an issue with a single game "not unreasonable".

Especially since in the given case the customer tried to appeal to the proper channels and they proved to be undiscerning. He has a right to a refund if the product he bought isn't fit for purpose.

I like you. It is nice to see someone sensible talk about this kinda thing.

I'm amazed at just how willing some folks are to getting punched right in the balls for being trusting.

"Well you should have known better and now they can rob you."

 

[Strazdas]

Not gonna lie, I'm kinda sad to see this happen to the SimCity franchise. I'm actually a fan of 'simpler' and 'dumbed down' sequels like XCOM:Enemy Unknown and Civilization V that make it easier to get into those ridiculously complex franchises that are difficult to understand for new players. I had kinda hoped the new SimCity would do that for its franchise, but instead this happens.

Ah well, back to Civ V I guess. Glad I didn't preorder.

I havent played oroginal Xcom and cant comment, but as for Civilization 5, where is the dumbing down? it is a upgrade if anything from Civ 4 and a complete change of gameplay. Civ 4 was a dumb down from previuos incarnations, that i woudl agree, but civ 5 isnt, unelss you compare civ 2 vs civ 5.
its not ridiculously complex if you have brains though. two weeks ago a friend introduced me to a simuator that at first glance seems to be the most complex game. after 1 day i been tycooning there after working out some User interface specialities (the game was made in 1997, cant expect optimal UI). in fact i am yet to meet a game that i find complex enough. all games thatl ook promising end up "oh damn theres so many damn limitations"

 

[Doom972]

Andy, you should know that truth cannot stop the internet hate machine.

True, but you have to look at the big picture. The fact is that EA abused its customers so much in the past, that they are now subjected to a much harder judgement than what another company would get, and can't get away with things others would be. People will use every opportunity to attack EA for any reason due to past experience with EA's service and products, not blind hate. That's how it is when you run a business and have many unsatisfied customers.

They earned that "Worst Company in America" award and now they pay for it. EA will have to do a lot to fix that damage now, and to do that, they'll have to be nicer than most companies.

 

[Jumwa]

How are people defending this by EA?

I mean, when my friends trash on Origin I've been quick to point out my experience with it and that I don't have any issues with it that Steam don't have (minus a few missing features that is).

But credit cards and banks protect customers against stuff like this, i.e. being sold a defective product, and he was fully within his rights to do so. Punishing a customer for exercising--or threatening to exercise--their rights as a consumer is not acceptable business practice.

In my business we get a lot of fraudulent returns from customers who are returning a product for a full refund after clearly having used it fully. I just shrug and accept it as the cost of business. But then I'm also not selling something defective.

 

[Murmillos]

Looks like this needs to be UPDATED - Seems like Amazon is selling the game again, but it does have a note that:
'Many customers are having issues connecting to the "SimCity" servers. EA is actively working to resolve these issues, but at this time we do not know when the issue will be fixed.'

 

[zinho73]

I might have had the occasional trouble with Amazon customer service, but by and large they always come through in the end, so I'm sure they got tired of having to deal with irate customers and realized that the source of the problem wasn't the customers, it was the product.

The fact that a company of EA's size and experience would continue to release such sub par product (Sim City being only the most recent example) is a clear indication that they've got next to no corporate leadership and a real breakdown in their internal organization. I just hope they don't have to trash any more franchises before they shape up.

EA is big, but it is not experienced, their PR practices (including all consumer related stuff) is amateurish at best.

They frequently don't know what to say, how to say it and are simply averse to adopt the most basic consumer friendly procedures. They are quite lucky to have some good game developers on their staff, because they certainly do almost everything they can to spoil the consumer experience with said games.