Jimquisition: SimShitty

[Mahoshonen]

There's a lot of talk about a 'crash' and I thought I'd share my two cents.

I subscribe to the "Revolution will not be Televised" theory-that is, the turning point is going to be imperceptable, as collective frustration approaches critical mass. There are a lot of factors beyond the games themselves that play into people buying them, especially the social aspect. But these get weaker with every at-best-lackluster-at-worst-total-garbage release to hit the market.

So what I think we'll see is that EA, Activision, etc. will all be doing the same hat and pony trick with no sign of problems. And then one day, bam! they're burying their latest AAA releases in a landfill.

 

[yatterman1]

and one more reason i really do not buy ea games for a month after launch or just never at all. i gave up on ea after sims 2 copy i had gotten was faulty and they where as much help as the best buy was with the return of a computer game. basically i gave up on them after that even refused to buy any of their junk unless it was really cheap.

 

[dbenoy]

This sort of DRM is the solution to "piracy". It's the only truly effective scheme. They take a significant chunk of the game (in this case, the actual town simulation algorithms), and don't actually give it to you in the box. They keep that part on their own servers where they can control it.

No way to 'crack' that. Perfect protection from copying.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Heh. Piracy is sadfortunately not an option as it'll at least take a good long while until there's Sim City server emulation.

See that's the thing about online DRM: with all its colossal failures, EA still has something to be happy about - the nullifying of piracy within the first few weeks.

Yea but thing is, I wonder how many gamers will eventually figure "well, I can't play it for the first few weeks anyway" may as well wait until I can play it without the DRM.

I did kind of want to play SimCity but I knew this stuff was going to happen, so I didn't buy it.

I haven't really had the hotts for a game that has DRM but I remember struggling when Skyrim came out: knowing that it wasn't going to work properly until they patch it a few times. So, as much as I wanted to play it, I waited. I ended up waiting a while because I had other things to play but by the time I got around to it, it was working and I got it for around $20; don't remember exactly.

 

[Marohen]

What really pisses me off is that Maxis really only went this route because of the Sims 3 pirating debacle.

Remember, Spore was their last foray into this DRM madness and it went -very- poorly for them, culminating in a concession of not adding DRM to S3... Only for it to be pirated at a much faster rate than Spore.

Really though, their assessment of going the opposite route and putting even -more- invasive DRM smacks of a lack of perspective; people didn't pirate Sims 3 for its lack of DRM, they pirated it because the Sims franchise is a blatant money grab.

I'm sorry, I bought the original Sims, I bought every expansion; as a kid, I would dump what little allowance I could get on the series, only for all that investment to be rendered moot come Sims 2. I just stopped at that point, but that doesn't mean they didn't do the same thing for S2 as they did for the original--pump out expansion after expansion.

By Sims 3, people were just fed up, they were ostensibly wasting their money on the franchise, so why even bother buying it anymore? Of course, Maxis interpreted this as a fault on their -fanbase- and not themselves, so instead opted to beleaguer the people still paying them than call themselves on their own fault, it's actually quite sickening when you think about it.

 

[proghead]

Every programmer worth their salary knows, that whatever you code up, you must not rely on any kind of network connection whatsoever, for obvious reasons. You have to actively build in safety measures to minimize the risk of any data loss.

It doesn't surprise me that marketing / upper management doesn't get that though. So an always-on requirement makes perfectly sense, right?

But yeah, the best thing you can do is to delay your purchase until the first dust has settled. The major bugs will have been fixed within a couple of weeks, and being a PC game, you may even be able to get it a little bit cheaper than at release.

 

[mike1921]

I don't see how waiting two weeks would be important. The first two weeks is what matters to the publisher NOW but if a large portion of people reliably hold off on always-online games than they'll start caring about the rest of the month for those games.

 

[daibakuha]

Honestly, at this point if you don't have anything interesting to say on the subject, why even say anything at all? I knew the contents of this video before even loading it. I don't need Jim Sterling to tell me this is fucked up and bad, I can see that.

 

[dbenoy]

Is there anyone who's surprised by what's in this video?

I knew long before it launched that this would happen, and that it's not going to be worth the money as a result. I didn't need to buy it first to find that out.

Did anyone not know that? For real? And if you knew it and bought the game anyway, why? And why ***** about it? You got exactly what you expected to get. Don't act ripped off. You can complain about how retarded EA is for throwing away their business like this, but you can't legitimately complain that you feel ripped off.

 

[Colt47]

A decent tech discussion here:

http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/19yoxk/simcity5_does_not_have_to_be_online/

and here

http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/19xx7d/trying_some_technical_analysis_of_the_server/

Jim delivered a good treatment of the complete fiasco, which will not be the last splash in the fecis pool of bad DRM. Quite temperate compared to some, and to a very good point I shall keep in mind.

Man, could I go for a Humble Bundle now. I'm certainly not getting a SimBurger.

Wow... so it does work offline and they aren't going to let people play offline? I was under the impression the design of the game itself made it dependent on server side software, but not like some kind of timed bomb going off that forces people off the game if they aren't connected. At least the popcorn festival continues unabated.

 

[1337mokro]

It's not just that the DRM fuck with you being able to play the game. It also utterly destroyed the mechanics of the game. Now because of this server side DRM there is a huge lag between your cities and cities are completely unable to cooperate.

So basically the entire justification of having this DRM, the MP, is fucked up the ass because the DRM makes the MP unplayable. It will take up to 10-20 minutes for one change to register, if it registers at all, and cities are completely incapable of communicating beyond basic things like power, water and sewage.

Good job EA AND Maxis. Screwed the pooch on that one.

 

[Ishal]

I knew this was going to be a good video. Nice work Jim.

Honestly, I feel I've been ignorant about judging what so many people like. I didn't know so many people were interested in Sim City. I hope the game (or rather its infrastructure) improves over the next few weeks so people can enjoy it.

But I have to agree with Jim, if we really want to stick it to these publishers we should just wait a few weeks before getting our hands on the new titles. Maybe revisit the old steam library while we wait? Two weeks really isn't that long anyway.

 

[dbenoy]

There is no 'free market' as long as copyright continues to exist.

 

[Darth_Payn]

The customer should not be afraid of their publishers
The publishers should be a afraid of the customer.

J for Justice
coming soon to a theater near you

I'd watch that movie. Got a poster for it?
Back to the video, I'll join the choir and sing along to "THAT"S BULLSHIT!" There's the fatal flaw in the always online model: THEIR servers aren't always providing service! Ding ding ding ding! Huzzah! If EA and the publishers copying them aren't lying weasels, they're incompetent boobs (the bad kind of boobs).

 

[Griffolion]

I agree with what you say Jim, it's just I don't think we'll quite see the revolution we are all hoping for.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

Another stellar episode, Jim.

Great suggestion at the end - it's true that the first two weeks of a game's launch are it's most vital, so waiting is a wonderful option that I have utilized a few times before; particularly for Diablo 3.

I hate to say this, because as much as I love video games and would never want to see developer's tossed out because of it, the market probably needs to crash again so that publishers will go back to valuing the customer instead of making us jump through hoops to prove we didn't steal from them. A company should exist to cater to it's consumers, not the reverse. This generation, with DLC now in full swing, has probably been the worst about this. Always setting rules, stipulations, online passes, and trying to eradicate anyway other way for you to play the game other than giving them $60 for a product that may or may not be broken. I understand that piracy is a huge problem, but this has gone far beyond piracy counter-measures.

Of course, at the end of the day, the best solution is the simplest; just don't buy games with always online DRM.

 

[Ashoten]

Well I am going to go ahead and kick starting a shit storm but it has to be said. This kind of business practice that attempts to enforce control leaving the companies as the only legitimate authority is a direct Analogy to the way the catholic church runs its business.

Where fun and enjoyment of life is not the objective and in fact it is frowned upon, but if you absolutely must go out and enjoy sex, drugs, and rock and roll you need to come to the church(the sanctioned authority) and pay them and beg for forgiveness.

When I say Analogy I am speaking in a taxonomic literal sense. You do not need to bow to an authority to have your fun and enjoy games just as Jim suggested. Yarh but why don't you scallywags buy ye ol'games on steam when they go on sell? Then you can wait to hear reviews and don't have to be waiting in line at ye ol'gamestop. Not that there be any other options out thar.

iba4 someone says I do not understand how organized religion works: O I do I really do. The perfect prison is the one you are put in charge of.

 

[Treblaine]

One of the best.

Jimquisition has reached a peak of vision and presentation. Keep it up Mr Stirling.

 

[Ashoten]

There is no 'free market' as long as copyright continues to exist.

Second that notion. In the age where ideas are shared ubiquitously across the world copyrights seem arcane at best. Not exclusively owning an idea will not cause an artist to starve. In fact it will protect them and allow them to always be able to use their idea without fear of a company telling them they do not own their own creations. Creative people do not have trouble finding work because they are valued for their creativity and not their intellectual property.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Damnit Jim!

I wanted to make a "couldn't possibly comment" comment about the video (after seeing the House Of Cards image), and then you went and said it at the end.

And on that note, if you haven't watched it, I do recommend the American version too. It's quite good too.

Finally, on the actual topic of the episode, I agree.