EA Exec Claims DRM Is a "Failed Dead-End Strategy"

[spartandude]

EA Exec Claims DRM Is a "Failed Dead-End Strategy"

Wow EA, im really pleased that you guys finally...

"What we tried to do creatively is build an online service in the SimCity universe and that's what we sought to achieve. For the folks who have conspiracy theories about evil suits at EA forcing DRM down the throats of Maxis, that's not the case at all," Gibeau said.

oh never mind

 

[TsunamiWombat]

*Reads Title*
Bit Early for April Fool's isn't it Andy?
Lots of folks viewed the situation as yet another example of DRM gone wrong, but Gibeau said DRM never entered into the conversation - SimCity's connectivity requirement was simply an unavoidable consequence of "building a massively multiplayer experience."
Ah there we go, still EA

Uhhh what? They built an MMO; can't make that offline mate. If you knew the first thing about video game design you'd realise that.

It's not like Gibeau can change Valve's mind anyway; shoving more Steam down our throats is how things will have to be for a little while.

And here I thought viral marketers only harassed 4chan. Get ye gone, servant of the beast.

 

[ritchards]

Hanlon's razor is just as sharp as ever...

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

March has been a really weird month for the game industry.

I don't know what to expect anymore from these people what with people leaving and changing their minds about certain things.

Cool beans though.

 

[theultimateend]

I know this is completely off topic, but the dude in the news thumbnail (From the main page) is cute . Really, really cute.

Look at taht.

He's...

so...

Innocent!

I bet he believes what he said...he's adorable.

 

[Deathlyphil]

I can't remember, have we always been at war with Eastasia? Or was it Eurasia?

The best games.. are those that sell you what you've bought already.

(There does indeed appear to be an element of doublethink going on in that statement..)

Wonder how long it will be before EA have appoint a new CEO, and we get a new 5 minute hate figure.

(Not that I want to hate someone, but this is the internet)

 

[Yuuki]

An MMO is a game that ceases to function when you take it offline, and no matter what you do it is virtually impossible to get it working without connecting to at least SOME form of remote server to provide the connection to other players. For e.g. WoW, you have to connect to Blizzard servers or at least some private server.

All the game files are technically on your harddrive, but a lot of the game is situated on Blizzard servers as well.

Most importantly, it depends on whether the game CALLS for MMO-style gameplay. Diablo was never an MMO (although funnily enough they removed the LAN option with D3), SimCity was never an MMO either. People never asked for it. I repeat, PEOPLE NEVER ASKED FOR IT!

In BOTH cases people just wanted an amazing singleplayer experience, neither game was around being constantly connected to other players. Those features existed solely as options.

In BOTH games the developers grasped completely the wrong end of the stick and turned them into "online games" with NO OPTION to play disconnected/alone. What a shameful step backwards!

 

[Karadalis]

And the Bullshitting of the people continues on... or atleast another try from EA to bullshit people.

 

[1337mokro]

Really? They admitted that their DRM is bullshit? Did the change of CEO really make that big of a differen.... oh nope they are right back to cop out excuses and bullshitting people smarter than they are.

We already know we can play SimCity offline without any problems, all that happens is that every 10 minutes an update gets sent to the servers and we get a little check behind our IP telling the game that we didn't steal it or else it cuts us off. That is what we call DRM dear EA CEO.

We already know that there is no continuity between cities when online unless they are directly being governed. In other words the multiplayer amounts to a chatroom with other people in it and still manages to lag behind roughly 10-15 minutes. Congratulations Maxis, EA, idiots that made this game, I don't really care who.

You made a turd.

 

[Draconalis]

Maybe if they had marketed it as an MMO rather than a Simcity sequel, things would look differently.

 

[Nazulu]

Your opinion doesn't mean shit. We already argued this way before the game was released, but you must have ignored everything. I think it would be pretty obvious that something like SimCity which doesn't drastically change in map design and game play could easily be into single player again. How long is it going to take before the clowns get a fucking clue?

 

[Formica Archonis]

"If you play an MMO, you don't demand an offline mode, you just don't. And in fact, SimCity started out and felt like an MMO more than anything else and it plays like an MMO."

So, they managed to develop an MMO with a sub-50 player cap (the MM) where not only is there no reason to sync with the server (the O), but there is also such inadequate security that the server won't verify the user input to make sure it's valid and not cheated. That's like developing a car and being surprised when people tell you that you forgot the engine and doors.

So, we're playing that game where words mean something other than what the dictionary says they mean, are we? Okay, let's go over it:

DRM = Anything our competitors do.
Service = Our DRM.
MMO = A game with "service".
Innovate = Add service!
Try new things = Ignore features present in the prequel that can be patched or DLCed in later.
At no point in time did... = You won't find any proof that...

 

[Skeleon]

In what sense did it "work for Valve"? Plenty of people - myself included - consider Steam a form of DRM and an intrusive advertising platform and we keep calling it out as that. I hate that so many games are Steam-exclusive and I support other distributors for that reason.

When does stuff like that stop being obvious DRM? When it's an MMO with no singleplayer component, as far as I'm concerned. Other than that? Not justified.

As for this game specifically? No, I don't think SimCity qualifies as an MMO. It has some multiplayer features that could easily be replaced with static cities to buy services from or actual AI-controlled cities (or, hell, just the simulation of dynamic city growth in neighbouring cities). They were really reaching when they tried to make it multiplayer-reliant.

 

[Lunar Templar]

and for a brief second I'd though EA had come to it's senses.

oh well, nothing to really see here other then more flimsy justification for ruining a franchise

 

[Falterfire]

In what sense did it "work for Valve"? Plenty of people - myself included - consider Steam a form of DRM and an intrusive advertising platform and we keep calling it out as that. I hate that so many games are Steam-exclusive and I support other distributors for that reason.

You may not use Steam, and you may consider it a distraction, but surely you're not so clueless as to realize you're in the minority? The adoption rate of Steam among PC gamers is incredibly high, and the percentage that actively complain is fairly small. There are plenty of reasons to complain about Steam (Steam-Exclusive games topping that list) but saying it didn't work for Valve is blatantly false.

 

[rasputin0009]

If the whole point was to make an MMO like game, then why not just add an "Online" subtitle? That way atleast the consumer has an idea what the focus is and what they're getting into. Is anyone really gonna complain when "SimCity:Online" needs a connection?

But then they couldn't trick unsuspecting players into buying it. It's like what they just did for announcing Battlefield 4's pre-order promotion: "Battlefield 4 Premium Expansion Pack". When I first read it, I thought it was Battlefield Premium which is more or less a Season pass. Then I read it again and realized no, it's not the same thing. It's probably just a couple of dog tags. Still pre-ordering though.

 

[rasputin0009]

Bizarre. It's a toss up between unimaginable incompetence from Maxis or online DRM demands from EA. Given the uninvolved shallowness of the online functions for Simcity it is incredibly hard to believe that "game design" decision was solely responsible for the always-online-demand.

Lets march Jim Sterling into the Maxis office with a lie detector. If the machine is expensive we can easily Kickstarter one for him. It can be used for every interview forever more.

I'm going to go with incompetence on Maxis' part. They're still in charge of implementing the servers and should have known how much of a budget they needed to ask EA for. I think Maxis got all high and mighty and thought they had a great "vision" to work towards. And EA trusted them a little too much.

 

[MiskWisk]

I was going to make a comment about the claim this is like an mmo but I have been spectacularly ninja'd on that count.

So instead, I'll talk about the line about no one forced it to be always online. If no one forced it, then why did a historically single player franchise, that had very little features ever hinting at the current design direction, change to become a sub-par city building simulator that attempted to penalise all who dared to want to play on their own?
Sounds forced to me.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

This latest tactic of "DRM is bad, but this isn't DRM, it's an MMO" will likely propel the EA team to take gold in the Olympic 4 X 100 Backpedaling.