Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
[Event Blog] General: Launching
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
One of the most difficult phases of any game's development is the launch, a good or bad one can make or break the game. In today's Tingle's Touchy Subjects, we take a look at a recent launch debacle featuring EA's The Sims. Check it out before talking about it in the comments.
I bought my copy of SimCity on Friday. While I've never been particularly interested in zonal planning nor the ins-and-outs of sewage disposal, something told me that I should probably poke around Origin and see what else EA has managed to milk from the, by now, sore and tired cow of the (The) Sim(s) (Insert noun) franchise.
Read more of Adam Tingle's Tingle's Touchy Subjects: Launching.
)
Comments
Online Only is pure STUPIDTY. This means any one in a rural area with spotty, limited, or no internet access can never play this game, ever.
Meanwhile it won't stop a single pirating for very long. Give them an extra day or two of work. While ailenating your player base and pissing of the people who payed for the game. Making hem think thrice before purchasing next time and maybe even going the pirate route so they can enjoy thier game in peace.
Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
"Nothing is Impossible, just highly Improbable."
The amount of players in those rural areas with, what, no access to Internet? Slow Internet? is decreasing every day. It's much more practical for EA to save on the cost of physical production and risk losing those rednecks in Montana and Pennsylvania. Also... it's greener!
And it does slow piracy, even if it doesn't stop it.
Mo Money, Mo problems EA!
I thought this was some angsty anti establishment kids blog.... then I saw it on the staff articles...
The Bias and pandering nature of this article removes a lot of integrity from it, and its a shame as its a subject matter that really needs to be discussed. The middle of the article actually approaches a level where the subject matter could be discussed but then rapidly falls into the usual "F**k the man, skrew the mainstream" rhetoric of many of the member blogs I read. If you are on staff, you should be able to do better.
PS since I never group up in GW2 I can has an offline version of those?
EA totally sucks! They ruined another franchise.
They screw up the fundamentals of what’s makes a SimCity game. Overall SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition is the best SimCity of all time.
Yes, at first simcity COULD have come back from this. Then came topics calling modders "hackers"
http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9368164.page
and then came the forum mods going about DELETEING EA'S OWN SUPPORT NUMBER from their forums
http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/1adofo/simcity_forum_censors_ea_customer_care_phone/
This is a new low for the game industry. They took a PR nightmare and made is much much worse. For shame EA. For shame.
It's DRM, not distributional at all. Even those items sold through retailers with a physical copy get to enjoy the online only aspect. The funniest part of it is that it is this type of DRM that makes people consider piracy when previously they never would have. Also whilst more people have access to the internet than ever before, and this number is following an upward trend, a great many of those have access via internet cafes or libraries.
Whilst the internet is far more prevelant than ever before to assume everyone has it is either niave, or out of touch with reality.
Nobody should be praising or defending this form of DRM, it does nothing beneficial for you as a consumer, but in most cases (as in this one) causes problems for those legitimate consumers of the product / services. As mentioned this won't halt piracy, it may slow it but some will enjoy the challenge and break it. In fact by defending the DRM people are contributing to the problem as DRM is getting more and more intrusive and disruptive, all while people are giving it the thumbs up. People should be annoyed if after paying money they have a product they cannot use, even if only for a few months, for problems that aren't theirs and that weren't a consideration in the pricing of the product.
Companies should be considering why people pirate the games in the first place and trying to make the use / purchase of the products easier for their consumers so that the aim of the product can be achieved (enjoyment).
*Edited due to me forgetting to allow mmorpg scripts, turning this into a single big block of text.
It is really too bad simcity had a great fanchise and now ea had to go screw that up. It kind of reminds me of spore and how messed up that all was.
This video reflects my views about the new SimCity game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XMSPRz08jQ
Wow that is great and true and so funny!!
i can see kingofhartz has not been playing wow for long to think so highly of it. wow had so many problems at launch with servers being down and stuff. it was really bad to say the least. but to answer the question tingle, yes a game can come back from a bad launch, wow did it and became one of the most successful western mmos if not the most successful (not sure about western sub numbers vs global sub numbers but pretty sure it has more in the west than any other mmo).
not to mention plenty of games have come back from bad launches to be successful so its entirely possible.