Electronic Arts Disables "Non-Critical" SimCity Features - UPDATED

[Doom972]

What? Always online DRM causes server overload and people can't play? This never happened before!!!

Is anybody really surprised? What should be surprising is that so many people bought it in the first place. I wonder if it was mostly due to people not knowing about it, not caring, or being too overhyped about a new SimCity game.

At least when it happened to Ubisoft, they toned it down to just checking with the server when starting the game and when exiting. I think they completely disabled it for some of their games.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

Yeah, I'm not celebrating here. Sim City 2000 was one of my all-time favorite games, and although I really didn't like its immediate sequel, to see this happen to the franchise... it's kinda sickening.

 

[KelDG]

I am in shock.

Nobody saw this coming, especially after Diablo 3's stellar launch.

Oh wait.

I love how people can't seem to wrap their heads around how hard it is to organize, set-up, protect, and keep hundreds of millions of people on servers at once.

Nope. It is all easy. Simple as flipping a switch.

/facedesk

Are you being sarcastic with the hundreds of millions thing? I honestly can't tell.

PS: BTW I am not being sarcastic with this post.

PPS: That last statement also was not sarcasm.

 

[gibboss28]

I am in shock.

Nobody saw this coming, especially after Diablo 3's stellar launch.

Oh wait.

I love how people can't seem to wrap their heads around how hard it is to organize, set-up, protect, and keep hundreds of millions of people on servers at once.

Nope. It is all easy. Simple as flipping a switch.

/facedesk

Are you being sarcastic with the hundreds of millions thing? I honestly can't tell.

PS: BTW I am not being sarcastic with this post.

PPS: That last statement also was not sarcasm.

What about that last last statement, was that?

 

[Woodsey]

I am in shock.

Nobody saw this coming, especially after Diablo 3's stellar launch.

Oh wait.

I love how people can't seem to wrap their heads around how hard it is to organize, set-up, protect, and keep hundreds of millions of people on servers at once.

Nope. It is all easy. Simple as flipping a switch.

/facedesk

Try "a few million", at most. And perhaps they should have thought of that beforehand.

 

[direkiller]

So get this. That Adrian person/whatever...isn't wrong or misrepresenting company policy at all.

https://help.ea.com/article/returns-and-cancellations

Relevant text

What is your refund policy for PC digital downloads?
Unfortunately, EA does not offer refunds on any products downloaded through Origin. EA reserves the right, however, to offer refunds under exceptional circumstances at its sole discretion.

That is highly questionable, to say the least.
Caveat emptor.

It's not great, granted. But tell me, does Valve offer refunds on any product downloaded through Steam? I know about the Day Z thing, but that was A) an exceptional circumstance, and B) done at their discretion.

I think gamers gate is the only one who takes returns NQA on digital products within a certain time.

 

[KelDG]

I don't understand the reasoning here. If a company insists on selling their games as a service instead of a product, the difficulty of that business model is not a valid defense for incompetence. EA made the design decisions here and should be held fully accountable for delivering the promised product when it is purchased, not at some later, unspecified date with several features still missing. What's worse is blaming the paying customers for being upset about the situation, as if their expectation of a working service is somehow unreasonable. My inability to grasp the difficult logistics of running a restaurant should in now way preclude me from complaining that my food was served cold, three hours after I ordered it, with half the meal missing.

Thank you. You have written in text exactly what has been bouncing around my head while reading all these threads. I really do not understand people defending this mess. It is as if they have already given up on hoping to be treated well, and are quite happy and enthusiastic to defend being treated like crap. I really don't get the attitude.

 

[Notsomuch]

Companies don't want to buy servers for the release week that wont be utilized for the rest of the year. With this happening for the Majority of popular games that utilize this always on DRM people need to realize that they are not buying a working product, they aren't even buying a product, they are basically renting. Everyone should boycott games that use this type of DRM.

I wont be buying this and as someone who will be responsible for selling this and other games I'll be sure to inform consumers about what they're buying if they are looking at these games.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

And the train-wreck continues...

I wonder if EA are going to learn from all this.

 

[e033x]

Sim City Limited edition: Now even more limited!

Sorry, just had to get it out. This whole debaucle is just so tragic, it's funny, even for me who preordered the game.

 

[FalloutJack]

Heeey! In before someone said [HEADING=2]SimFailure![/HEADING]

Sooo...I guess we're learning what kind of a bank-buster it is now to try and keep out the pesky pirates who wouldn't bother pirating if you weren't trying to keep out the pesky pirates and just make a good game. Eh? Eh?

Wow, it's like shooting fish in a barrel here!

 

[Carpenter]

Remember when we all defended piracy?
Remember when we all pirated stuff because we could even though we had the money or at least the ability to make the money? Remember how none of you are really poor enough to justify piracy if you have a computer and internet to begin with? remember how spoiled this culture has become?

I don't buy any single player game with this always online restriction, hence I don't have to deal with this. Still, I can't help but enjoy how you self entitled "consumers" act like this is completely out of left field.

Remember how people reacted to spore because you had to call a number if you installed the game 3 different times? They pirated the game to a massive degree.

I'll defend piracy and free exchange of data to the day I die but I'm not going to pretend like anti piracy tactics are somehow unprovoked or uncalled for. EA doesn't "want" to make money, it's a corporation meaning it's LEGALLY OBLIGATED to do whatever they can to maximize profit. Don't like it? Then stop whining about it online and tackle (or at least whine about) the root of the problem, the entire corporate culture.

 

[Something Amyss]

Bringing up Steam is something of a Strawman to my original point, since this was more about discussing what Origin's policy was and why people are not guaranteed a refund (quite the opposite, really); however, I do believe that your point has further merit as a word of caution given the changing reality of the gaming business.

Steam probably didn't need to be brought up related to the initial point, I'd agree.

However, I also agree with the changing game business notion.

This brings up a further point, though. The number of people who buy digital services and expect them to be treated as goods instead, despite agreeing to EULAs that say otherwise and repeated demonstration by the companies as o how they feel about it....We may not like it, but it's reality. The best idea would be to stop buying them if you want the right to refund or exchange, as the gaming industry has made it clear that they treat them as services. You have no guarantee of continued service, no guarantee of refund, and not even a guarantee of functionality.

This should probably be illegal, and I doubt it'd hold up long in court. Still, until then, people have the information before them and at this point, people should know better. While I don't advocate companies pulling this sort of thing, we know it's happenings. In other words:

Caveat emptor.

 

[Kevlar Eater]

A little bit of something from Amazon's [http://www.amazon.com/SimCity-Limited-Edition-Pc/product-reviews/B007FTE2VW/ref=cm_cr_dp_qt_hist_five?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addFiveStar&showViewpoints=0] 5-star page concerning this game:

I want anyone reading these reviews to notice one thing, nothing bad is being said about the game. Yes they screwed up the launch but I guarantee you this server issue will be fixed in a couple days and now a franchise will suffer over impatient entitled people.

*incoming language*

Entitled people? When the fuck are people not entitled to a product/service they just recently paid for?! Or paid for it in advance? If people can't play their goddamned game because of EA's in-fucking-competence, then yes, then those people are entitled to be pissed and do their damnedest to warn others to keep their money in their banks instead of giving it to EA. Blizzard and Diablo 3 basically made the template on how not to launch an always-on DRM game, yet Maxis and EA fucked it up something fierce! To be honest, I'm glad this title is getting zero-bombed in Amazon and Metacritic, and I hope it hits them where it hurts worst -- their wallets.

 

[Genocidicles]

Excellent. Maybe this will make people think twice about purchasing games with always online DRM in the future.


Yeah right, who am I kidding. People will still come back for more even after this debacle. No self control whatsoever when they could get a shiny new game.

 

[marurder]

It does give a whole new meaning to 'justifiable piracy'. Or at least, 'try before you buy'. As another poster in another thread said - 'I wait a month before buying any new game, so they sort out the issues and bugs [sic]'

 

[Bolwing]

I've purchased SimCity like a blind moron that I am, and even I find the whole situation quite entertaining.

 

[porous_shield]

Excellent. Maybe this will make people think twice about purchasing games with always online DRM in the future.


Yeah right, who am I kidding. People will still come back for more even after this debacle. No self control whatsoever when they could get a shiny new game.

Yeah, they are like sheep. Plenty of game launches have had problems and yet people still preorder and support terrible DRM schemes.

 

[BaronUberstein]

For the short amounts of time I've been able to play, its been a really fun game.

The server connection bit is what's annoying me. I was booted out of the game last night and I have no idea if my city even saved.

 

[cerebreturns]

Didn't they promise that exactly this wouldn't happen?

You'd figure with major releases like D3 having suffered this that companies would learn to not do it.

Oh wait...no, those games that had these problems still sold insanely well and in general companies are fine with screwing the customers.

Silly me for thinking they might actually care.