11 ms·

I feel bad for the game devs who got to see their hard work turn into something they don't intend. I suppose this is a great advertising technique for small fi

I feel bad for the game devs who got to see their hard work turn into something they don't intend. I suppose this is a great advertising technique for small firms, startups, indie shops, etc. "Don't want this[http://amazon-pulls-sim-city http://amazon-pulls-sim-city] to happen? Work for our small team. We won't destroy your work." I know it's standard to say "you get a part in the decisionmaking process!" That's part of it. But a lot of people are willing to let go of the big decisions if they get to be a part of something great. But they have to trust that it will come out well in the end.

amitparikh 14y ago
Isn't this just a technical error (bug) that is a game dev's (or infrastructure engineer's) responsibility? I understand the frustration at the DRM concept, but you can't blame this on the larger entity as a whole when it was likely just a bug in some code or a small oversight. Things were clearly working when it was in beta.
- kevinalexbrown 14y ago
  You make a really good point. Rereading my comment, it's brusque. I still think there's a point to be made about trust in a larger organization, but as someone who a) doesn't know precisely what the specific problem is and b) doesn't know whether I wouldn't have made the same mistakes, I'm going to acquiesce.
- jfim 14y ago
  I don't know about this specific instance, but from what I recall from working in the video game industry, devs don't deal with copy protection; it's something that's done prior to mastering where they put your executable through SecuROM or whatever and it spits out a new binary that has copy protection/CD checks/online auth or whatever junk the publisher wants to add.
  - mrgoldenbrown 14y ago
    This isn't the case here. The game does significant processing on their servers, to make it useless as soon as they turn their servers off, which AFAIK they haven't promised to keep up any certain amount of time.
    - jfim 14y ago
      Thanks for the clarification; it's pretty awful of them to have them have this copy protection mechanism and fail to allocate enough server resources for people to be able to play the game they legitimately purchased. It sounds as if some random MBAs said that they really need that server-side undefeatable copy protection, then balked at the price of actually purchasing enough resources for it and decided to skimp on that.
      - Cardeck1 14y ago
        No, it actually doesn't sound like some random MBAs.Are you one of those guys that blame MBAs for everything?The truth is we don't know what actually happened there.We'll have to wait for EA's reply on this one.It will be hard for them to recover after a huge mistake/strategy like this.
        Karunamon 14y ago
        >We'll have to wait for EA's reply on this one. If EA's usual response to criticism means anything, we'll be waiting a loooooong time... >It will be hard for them to recover after a huge mistake/strategy like this. You're kidding, right? They'll just release Call of Modern Madden 5: Battlefield Part 2 and the fanboys will eat it up, horrid DRM and microtransactions and all.
        Fargren 14y ago
        If the reviews and reaction to the last Medal of Honor are anything to go by, people are finally getting tired of that old rehashed formula. The next CoD may not be as successful as the previous installments were.
- Bud 14y ago
  a) When it was in beta, there was presumably much less server load. b) The fact that a small bug in the unnecessary server/DRM part of the game could take the whole game down like this is precisely the point. You can certainly blame the whole entity for deciding to require a net connection and a server even for single-player use of the game.
  - daurnimator 14y ago
    but the beta had the same issues, they were never fixed before release.
    - NoPiece 14y ago
      Absolutely right, you could totally see this train wreck coming. http://imgur.com/xddfMvh http://imgur.com/xddfMvh
- tsunamifury 14y ago
  The point is that its a highly failure prone requirement with dire consequences. Imagine if you were designing a car and the Business Analyst told you that this car needed a constant internet connection at all times or else the engine would immediately cease injecting gas. While you could blame the engineers for all the cars that died in the middle of highways, it'd be far more realistic to blame the Business Analyst for demanding such an arduous and failure prone requirement. Engineers can only make things work to a point and after that some real world limitations need to be taken into account.
- eswangren 14y ago
  Of course you can; the decision to use an "online always" DRM scheme is made at the top. It's bullshit, the same garbage blizzard used with DIII. It makes no sense for games that can be played single player. Online should be an option, not a prerequisite.
- cbs 14y ago
  No, its not that simple. Isn't this just a technical error (bug) that is a game dev's (or infrastructure engineer's) responsibility? Isn't mandating the constant involvement of otherwise unnecessary tech that is known to be error prone and unreliable just the result of a poorly thought out buisness requirement? No, its not that simple either. Because they probably did think it out, knew they were choosing the riskier technical option and expect/expected failures to happen. My read of the situation is that they expected the rest of the game to get a better reception overall and blunt the bad PR from the inevitable failures caused by the always-on/centralized aspects.
  - Fargren 14y ago
    Also known as the Diablo III strategy.
    - Tloewald 14y ago
      Diablo III was (I think -- not like I've played Sim City yet) worse because the online AH was built into the gameplay Imagine if WoW's loot had been designed so that raid loot would NEED to be traded via a real money AH with Blizzard taking a cut. Of course for all we know Sim City will turn out to have that kind if BS too.
      - fooey 14y ago
        WoW + RM:AH = Titan that poor game's so predestined to be a blatant cash whore, almost makes you feel bad for it
      - throwaway1979 14y ago
        I'm voting with my dollars in this case. I'm a huge fan of Starcraft and I've decided not to get heart of the swarm. The Internet requirements for Diablo 3 and StarCraft are totally excessive. I'm about to go on a flight now and I would have loved to play either one. But instead, Apple gets my time and money this evening.
      - fdr_cs 14y ago
        In Sim City case, part of the simulation is run at their servers. Even while playing a private region, lost of aspects of the simulation are affected by the 'world' (other players). So, it´s not _just_ a matter of DRM: online is part of the game (unfortunately). The point is: did the developers decided to do it that way _because_ EA made online DRM mandatory for them, or they did think this way since t=0 ? We´ll probably never know.
- junkilo 14y ago
  Doing a massive online game takes a broad skillset and different development patterns than single player. I'd probably place money on the fact they failed the load testing. (Yes, I'm xEA and was involved in the last simcity load test)
- PeterisP 14y ago
  It's not a technical bug, but it's a deliberately made flaw - and it illustrates what will happen when after a couple of years they'll turn the servers off (The current list http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0L266uiy59kJ:www.ea.com/1/service-updates+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0L266ui... shows even games of 2011 disabled already), leaving the game that you "bought" useless. Digital Restrictions Management = Defective by Design.
  - VMG 14y ago
    isn't Steam also DRM and hugely successful and very popular with the gaming community?
    - PeterisP 14y ago
      Steam also presents a risk, but it's at least actively working to make it less bad for the consumer: 1) You can play most of games offline if you have a flaky connection; 2) They don't have a standard practice of turning off servers to 'obsolete' games, unlike EA. The Steam games are expected to work as long as Steam itself works; but SimCity most likely won't work much longer after the next SimCity is released, as we can see from EA current practices.
      - raylu 14y ago
        EA is also actively working on making things less bad by provisioning more hardware and disabling "non-critical" features. DRM is DRM. People only get angry when things don't work, with the occasional philosophical argument thrown in to prove a point after the fact. Steam gets less hate only because their servers have better uptime, but the hate towards EA comes in the form of a philosophical argument about how DRM is fundamentally broken.
        pdwetz 14y ago
        Ultimately I think users are pragmatic; if DRM stays out of the way they won't care, and that's by-and-large how Steam is for most people. They also seem to focus on value-add items, such as being able to install (easily!) on multiple computers, operating systems, etc., whereas EA and other companies seem to provide more pain than pleasure. If a company appears to be trying to help people, they'll lovingly hand over their money. If a company seems to be only interested in their wallets, twitter and message boards will not be kind.
driverdan 14y ago
I don't feel bad at all. They know who they've chosen to work for.
anon1385 14y ago
>I suppose this is a great advertising technique for small firms, startups, indie shops You mean like all those small valley startups creating Rails web apps that only work when the user has an internet connection? I don't see the difference.
- jader201 14y ago
  This is not a web site, it's a game. It is marketed and sold as a game. It isn't even being marketed/sold as an MMO. For the most part, people think this is a single player experience with some multiplayer interactions. I haven't seen the retail packaging, but does it even state an internet connection is required? And if so, is it prominent? EDIT: According to the shot on Amazon[1], it does at least state that a "persistent internet connection [is] required to play". Not excusing them by any means, but that's better than what I was expecting from the likes of EA. [1]http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/815mDnNUDhL._SL1121_.jpg http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/815mDnNUDhL._SL1121_.j...
  - anon1385 14y ago
    So your argument is really that DRM is ok as long as the user knows about it in advance?
    - jader201 14y ago
      No, I didn't say that at all. I simply said comparing this to a web app is not apples-to-apples.
    - ceejayoz 14y ago
      I should at least be able to make an informed choice in the matter.
    - adeaver 14y ago
      'web' apps are expected to work on the 'web'. It kind of goes without saying that it there is no network it can't make whatever calls it needs to in order to load data. Games are not generally expected to require a network connection. If I take my laptop to the coffee shop without wireless I can still play Portal and Anno 2070. Not so with the new SimCity. Not to mention, there is an expectation that if you buy a game (especially on physical media) that you will be able to play it so long as your hardware supports it. I can still play Quake 3 for example. With SimCity, if they ever shutter the servers or sunset the Online Service your game becomes nothing more than a pretty coaster.
Alex3917 14y ago
"I feel bad for the game devs who got to see their hard work turn into something they don't intend." On the contrary, this is by far the most realistic simulation of working for government that's ever been created.
- paperkettle 14y ago
  !! Sim City DRM is just part of a really deep ARG. Maybe they hired the ilovebees people?
- Steko 14y ago
  I love how the anti-government mindset even blames greed based failures of private industry on the government.
  - shadowfox 14y ago
    People like narratives :)
  - shirederby 14y ago
    Cool, when did that happen?
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    I love how the pro-government mindset sees even casual jokes at the expense of governments as "blaming the government".
    - jasonm23 14y ago
      I love how anti-government mindset even assumes those, who couldn't give a monkey's, are pro-government.
      - jlgreco 14y ago
        I trust you'll notice that my unreasonable labeling of Steko as "pro-government" for what he said mirrors the equally unreasonable labeling of Alex3917 as "anti-government" for what he said.
Irregardless 14y ago
EA has a reputation for being more akin to a sweatshop than a place where passionate people work on things they love, and it's been that way for many years now. I do feel bad for anyone who works in that type of environment, but I don't think many (if any) of their employees are under the impression that their work will be lauded by adoring fans. Gamers resent everything that EA stands for -- especially their constant profiteering and manipulation -- and begrudgingly buy their games because they're one of the few companies with the budget to create AAA titles. Takeover by EA is usually considered a death knell for game studios...
- roc 14y ago
  > "Takeover by EA is usually considered a death knell for game studios..." Further to this point: Maxis, makers of Sim City, were notable for a long time as being the glaring exception when it came to EA's habit of buying and squeezing studios to death. But the writing was on the wall when THE SIMS hit so big and was.. "exploited"[1] so heavily. And when Will left... well, it's just flat-out inconceivable that anyone remained naive about what EA was going to get up to. [1] http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/12/05 http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/12/05
  - MartinCron 14y ago
    I remember when The Sims was first announced, where Maxis was saying "And most of the game isn't even done yet. We've got loads of new stuff we'll release for free online!" which turned into dozens of boxed expansion packs. Yuck.
    - RexRollman 14y ago
      Really? Wow, what a bunch of jerks. I am surprised that anyone even wants to buy a game from them after something like that.
      - rayiner 14y ago
        Yet they do keep buying, year after year. They want the polish of AAA EA titles as compared to indie fare, and they're willing to bend over to get it. Its the whole consumer versus content producer battle in a microcosm, and it doesn't make consumers look good. It's easy to get away with being a shitty company like EA when people line up to get "Madden" versus some non-branded sports game.
rhizome 14y ago
I feel bad for the game devs who got to see their hard work turn into something they don't intend. "Spore" was 5 years ago, FWIW.
- lloeki 14y ago
  Although the servers did not melt at that time, the Amazon ratings and reviews are similar.
SquareWheel 14y ago
Maxis has totally ignored the issue. Look at their Reddit AMA when nearly every question was regarding this, and they didn't even acknowledge it. Perhaps they were under legal obligation or pressure from EA, but I find it hard to feel sympathy.
- Skoofoo 14y ago
  They did an AMA but weren't comfortable talking about that? Talk about foresight.
- aqme28 14y ago
  It is incredibly likely they were forbidden by management from answering those questions.
  - archangel_one 14y ago
    Kind of defeats the purpose of doing an AMA if you're not allowed to answer any of the interesting questions. I sympathise if that was the case, but people should remember what the second 'A' stands for.
    - FireBeyond 14y ago
      Well, technically, nothing was censored. So "anything" was asked. Now if it was "Answer Me Everything"...
    - Tloewald 14y ago
      It's Ask Me Anything, not I'll tell you everything.
      - skore 14y ago
        Ask Me Anything About Rampart.
    - chongli 14y ago
      The purpose of the AMA was to promote the game, not satisfy readers' questions. This is the case for all political/corporate AMAs.
dclowd9901 14y ago
Is the auth space something a startup could occupy? "Easy DRM/Auth for games that doesn't suck?"
- DigitalSea 14y ago
  All DRM is eventually bypassed, why do game studios even bother?
  - wmf 14y ago
    In this case it's not just DRM; SimCity has social features that clearly require a server.
    - DigitalSea 14y ago
      A social feature that isn't even relevant in solo play. You shouldn't need a network for single play.
      - chongli 14y ago
        The idea here is to force you to be reliant on the network; to move the processing onto their servers. SimCity isn't a normal game, it's a SaaS game.
        rurounijones 14y ago
        SaaS Game, very well put! Do we need a new acronym for games that required black-box server side components (Not just DRM but entire chunks of game code) not controlled by the consumer? GaaS? (Game as a Service)? Ubisoft did the same thing with the last silent Hunter game IIRC.
        derefr 14y ago
        80% of mobile games are already precisely this, without requiring the coinage of a special term for it.
pointernil 14y ago
True. Yay! The Big-Enterprison teaches the youth VERY effectively why it scks by destroying their fun* with games ... this time: Simcity. Is this "disaster" some sort of an ideological paradox intervention? How bad can this get? I mean how do you manage to fail at such scale with a brand like this. Don't they need the money anymore? Don't they want it? Interesting.
pcote 14y ago
>Work for our small team. We won't destroy your work. A small team might not. However, they also won't have the resources typical a larger triple-A product either. Nor will your game have a marketing team behind it to draw gamer attention with. Without that, your game has to have a combination of cleverness and buzz. The latter requires a certain degree of luck.

amitparikh 14y ago

Isn't this just a technical error (bug) that is a game dev's (or infrastructure engineer's) responsibility? I understand the frustration at the DRM concept, but you can't blame this on the larger entity as a whole when it was likely just a bug in some code or a small oversight. Things were clearly working when it was in beta.

kevinalexbrown 14y ago
You make a really good point. Rereading my comment, it's brusque. I still think there's a point to be made about trust in a larger organization, but as someone who a) doesn't know precisely what the specific problem is and b) doesn't know whether I wouldn't have made the same mistakes, I'm going to acquiesce.
jfim 14y ago
I don't know about this specific instance, but from what I recall from working in the video game industry, devs don't deal with copy protection; it's something that's done prior to mastering where they put your executable through SecuROM or whatever and it spits out a new binary that has copy protection/CD checks/online auth or whatever junk the publisher wants to add.
- mrgoldenbrown 14y ago
  This isn't the case here. The game does significant processing on their servers, to make it useless as soon as they turn their servers off, which AFAIK they haven't promised to keep up any certain amount of time.
  - jfim 14y ago
    Thanks for the clarification; it's pretty awful of them to have them have this copy protection mechanism and fail to allocate enough server resources for people to be able to play the game they legitimately purchased. It sounds as if some random MBAs said that they really need that server-side undefeatable copy protection, then balked at the price of actually purchasing enough resources for it and decided to skimp on that.
    - Cardeck1 14y ago
      No, it actually doesn't sound like some random MBAs.Are you one of those guys that blame MBAs for everything?The truth is we don't know what actually happened there.We'll have to wait for EA's reply on this one.It will be hard for them to recover after a huge mistake/strategy like this.
      - Karunamon 14y ago
        >We'll have to wait for EA's reply on this one. If EA's usual response to criticism means anything, we'll be waiting a loooooong time... >It will be hard for them to recover after a huge mistake/strategy like this. You're kidding, right? They'll just release Call of Modern Madden 5: Battlefield Part 2 and the fanboys will eat it up, horrid DRM and microtransactions and all.
        Fargren 14y ago
        If the reviews and reaction to the last Medal of Honor are anything to go by, people are finally getting tired of that old rehashed formula. The next CoD may not be as successful as the previous installments were.
Bud 14y ago
a) When it was in beta, there was presumably much less server load. b) The fact that a small bug in the unnecessary server/DRM part of the game could take the whole game down like this is precisely the point. You can certainly blame the whole entity for deciding to require a net connection and a server even for single-player use of the game.
- daurnimator 14y ago
  but the beta had the same issues, they were never fixed before release.
  - NoPiece 14y ago
    Absolutely right, you could totally see this train wreck coming. http://imgur.com/xddfMvh http://imgur.com/xddfMvh
tsunamifury 14y ago
The point is that its a highly failure prone requirement with dire consequences. Imagine if you were designing a car and the Business Analyst told you that this car needed a constant internet connection at all times or else the engine would immediately cease injecting gas. While you could blame the engineers for all the cars that died in the middle of highways, it'd be far more realistic to blame the Business Analyst for demanding such an arduous and failure prone requirement. Engineers can only make things work to a point and after that some real world limitations need to be taken into account.
eswangren 14y ago
Of course you can; the decision to use an "online always" DRM scheme is made at the top. It's bullshit, the same garbage blizzard used with DIII. It makes no sense for games that can be played single player. Online should be an option, not a prerequisite.
cbs 14y ago
No, its not that simple. Isn't this just a technical error (bug) that is a game dev's (or infrastructure engineer's) responsibility? Isn't mandating the constant involvement of otherwise unnecessary tech that is known to be error prone and unreliable just the result of a poorly thought out buisness requirement? No, its not that simple either. Because they probably did think it out, knew they were choosing the riskier technical option and expect/expected failures to happen. My read of the situation is that they expected the rest of the game to get a better reception overall and blunt the bad PR from the inevitable failures caused by the always-on/centralized aspects.
- Fargren 14y ago
  Also known as the Diablo III strategy.
  - Tloewald 14y ago
    Diablo III was (I think -- not like I've played Sim City yet) worse because the online AH was built into the gameplay Imagine if WoW's loot had been designed so that raid loot would NEED to be traded via a real money AH with Blizzard taking a cut. Of course for all we know Sim City will turn out to have that kind if BS too.
    - fooey 14y ago
      WoW + RM:AH = Titan that poor game's so predestined to be a blatant cash whore, almost makes you feel bad for it
    - throwaway1979 14y ago
      I'm voting with my dollars in this case. I'm a huge fan of Starcraft and I've decided not to get heart of the swarm. The Internet requirements for Diablo 3 and StarCraft are totally excessive. I'm about to go on a flight now and I would have loved to play either one. But instead, Apple gets my time and money this evening.
    - fdr_cs 14y ago
      In Sim City case, part of the simulation is run at their servers. Even while playing a private region, lost of aspects of the simulation are affected by the 'world' (other players). So, it´s not _just_ a matter of DRM: online is part of the game (unfortunately). The point is: did the developers decided to do it that way _because_ EA made online DRM mandatory for them, or they did think this way since t=0 ? We´ll probably never know.
junkilo 14y ago
Doing a massive online game takes a broad skillset and different development patterns than single player. I'd probably place money on the fact they failed the load testing. (Yes, I'm xEA and was involved in the last simcity load test)
PeterisP 14y ago
It's not a technical bug, but it's a deliberately made flaw - and it illustrates what will happen when after a couple of years they'll turn the servers off (The current list http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0L266uiy59kJ:www.ea.com/1/service-updates+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0L266ui... shows even games of 2011 disabled already), leaving the game that you "bought" useless. Digital Restrictions Management = Defective by Design.
- VMG 14y ago
  isn't Steam also DRM and hugely successful and very popular with the gaming community?
  - PeterisP 14y ago
    Steam also presents a risk, but it's at least actively working to make it less bad for the consumer: 1) You can play most of games offline if you have a flaky connection; 2) They don't have a standard practice of turning off servers to 'obsolete' games, unlike EA. The Steam games are expected to work as long as Steam itself works; but SimCity most likely won't work much longer after the next SimCity is released, as we can see from EA current practices.
    - raylu 14y ago
      EA is also actively working on making things less bad by provisioning more hardware and disabling "non-critical" features. DRM is DRM. People only get angry when things don't work, with the occasional philosophical argument thrown in to prove a point after the fact. Steam gets less hate only because their servers have better uptime, but the hate towards EA comes in the form of a philosophical argument about how DRM is fundamentally broken.
      - pdwetz 14y ago
        Ultimately I think users are pragmatic; if DRM stays out of the way they won't care, and that's by-and-large how Steam is for most people. They also seem to focus on value-add items, such as being able to install (easily!) on multiple computers, operating systems, etc., whereas EA and other companies seem to provide more pain than pleasure. If a company appears to be trying to help people, they'll lovingly hand over their money. If a company seems to be only interested in their wallets, twitter and message boards will not be kind.

driverdan 14y ago

I don't feel bad at all. They know who they've chosen to work for.

anon1385 14y ago

>I suppose this is a great advertising technique for small firms, startups, indie shops You mean like all those small valley startups creating Rails web apps that only work when the user has an internet connection? I don't see the difference.

jader201 14y ago
This is not a web site, it's a game. It is marketed and sold as a game. It isn't even being marketed/sold as an MMO. For the most part, people think this is a single player experience with some multiplayer interactions. I haven't seen the retail packaging, but does it even state an internet connection is required? And if so, is it prominent? EDIT: According to the shot on Amazon[1], it does at least state that a "persistent internet connection [is] required to play". Not excusing them by any means, but that's better than what I was expecting from the likes of EA. [1]http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/815mDnNUDhL._SL1121_.jpg http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/815mDnNUDhL._SL1121_.j...
- anon1385 14y ago
  So your argument is really that DRM is ok as long as the user knows about it in advance?
  - jader201 14y ago
    No, I didn't say that at all. I simply said comparing this to a web app is not apples-to-apples.
  - ceejayoz 14y ago
    I should at least be able to make an informed choice in the matter.
  - adeaver 14y ago
    'web' apps are expected to work on the 'web'. It kind of goes without saying that it there is no network it can't make whatever calls it needs to in order to load data. Games are not generally expected to require a network connection. If I take my laptop to the coffee shop without wireless I can still play Portal and Anno 2070. Not so with the new SimCity. Not to mention, there is an expectation that if you buy a game (especially on physical media) that you will be able to play it so long as your hardware supports it. I can still play Quake 3 for example. With SimCity, if they ever shutter the servers or sunset the Online Service your game becomes nothing more than a pretty coaster.

Alex3917 14y ago

"I feel bad for the game devs who got to see their hard work turn into something they don't intend." On the contrary, this is by far the most realistic simulation of working for government that's ever been created.

paperkettle 14y ago
!! Sim City DRM is just part of a really deep ARG. Maybe they hired the ilovebees people?
Steko 14y ago
I love how the anti-government mindset even blames greed based failures of private industry on the government.
- shadowfox 14y ago
  People like narratives :)
- shirederby 14y ago
  Cool, when did that happen?
- jlgreco 14y ago
  I love how the pro-government mindset sees even casual jokes at the expense of governments as "blaming the government".
  - jasonm23 14y ago
    I love how anti-government mindset even assumes those, who couldn't give a monkey's, are pro-government.
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      I trust you'll notice that my unreasonable labeling of Steko as "pro-government" for what he said mirrors the equally unreasonable labeling of Alex3917 as "anti-government" for what he said.

Irregardless 14y ago

EA has a reputation for being more akin to a sweatshop than a place where passionate people work on things they love, and it's been that way for many years now. I do feel bad for anyone who works in that type of environment, but I don't think many (if any) of their employees are under the impression that their work will be lauded by adoring fans. Gamers resent everything that EA stands for -- especially their constant profiteering and manipulation -- and begrudgingly buy their games because they're one of the few companies with the budget to create AAA titles. Takeover by EA is usually considered a death knell for game studios...

roc 14y ago
> "Takeover by EA is usually considered a death knell for game studios..." Further to this point: Maxis, makers of Sim City, were notable for a long time as being the glaring exception when it came to EA's habit of buying and squeezing studios to death. But the writing was on the wall when THE SIMS hit so big and was.. "exploited"[1] so heavily. And when Will left... well, it's just flat-out inconceivable that anyone remained naive about what EA was going to get up to. [1] http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/12/05 http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/12/05
- MartinCron 14y ago
  I remember when The Sims was first announced, where Maxis was saying "And most of the game isn't even done yet. We've got loads of new stuff we'll release for free online!" which turned into dozens of boxed expansion packs. Yuck.
  - RexRollman 14y ago
    Really? Wow, what a bunch of jerks. I am surprised that anyone even wants to buy a game from them after something like that.
    - rayiner 14y ago
      Yet they do keep buying, year after year. They want the polish of AAA EA titles as compared to indie fare, and they're willing to bend over to get it. Its the whole consumer versus content producer battle in a microcosm, and it doesn't make consumers look good. It's easy to get away with being a shitty company like EA when people line up to get "Madden" versus some non-branded sports game.

rhizome 14y ago

I feel bad for the game devs who got to see their hard work turn into something they don't intend. "Spore" was 5 years ago, FWIW.

lloeki 14y ago
Although the servers did not melt at that time, the Amazon ratings and reviews are similar.

SquareWheel 14y ago

Maxis has totally ignored the issue. Look at their Reddit AMA when nearly every question was regarding this, and they didn't even acknowledge it. Perhaps they were under legal obligation or pressure from EA, but I find it hard to feel sympathy.

Skoofoo 14y ago
They did an AMA but weren't comfortable talking about that? Talk about foresight.
aqme28 14y ago
It is incredibly likely they were forbidden by management from answering those questions.
- archangel_one 14y ago
  Kind of defeats the purpose of doing an AMA if you're not allowed to answer any of the interesting questions. I sympathise if that was the case, but people should remember what the second 'A' stands for.
  - FireBeyond 14y ago
    Well, technically, nothing was censored. So "anything" was asked. Now if it was "Answer Me Everything"...
  - Tloewald 14y ago
    It's Ask Me Anything, not I'll tell you everything.
    - skore 14y ago
      Ask Me Anything About Rampart.
  - chongli 14y ago
    The purpose of the AMA was to promote the game, not satisfy readers' questions. This is the case for all political/corporate AMAs.

dclowd9901 14y ago

Is the auth space something a startup could occupy? "Easy DRM/Auth for games that doesn't suck?"

DigitalSea 14y ago
All DRM is eventually bypassed, why do game studios even bother?
- wmf 14y ago
  In this case it's not just DRM; SimCity has social features that clearly require a server.
  - DigitalSea 14y ago
    A social feature that isn't even relevant in solo play. You shouldn't need a network for single play.
    - chongli 14y ago
      The idea here is to force you to be reliant on the network; to move the processing onto their servers. SimCity isn't a normal game, it's a SaaS game.
      - rurounijones 14y ago
        SaaS Game, very well put! Do we need a new acronym for games that required black-box server side components (Not just DRM but entire chunks of game code) not controlled by the consumer? GaaS? (Game as a Service)? Ubisoft did the same thing with the last silent Hunter game IIRC.
        derefr 14y ago
        80% of mobile games are already precisely this, without requiring the coinage of a special term for it.

pointernil 14y ago

True. Yay! The Big-Enterprison teaches the youth VERY effectively why it scks by destroying their fun* with games ... this time: Simcity. Is this "disaster" some sort of an ideological paradox intervention? How bad can this get? I mean how do you manage to fail at such scale with a brand like this. Don't they need the money anymore? Don't they want it? Interesting.

pcote 14y ago

>Work for our small team. We won't destroy your work. A small team might not. However, they also won't have the resources typical a larger triple-A product either. Nor will your game have a marketing team behind it to draw gamer attention with. Without that, your game has to have a combination of cleverness and buzz. The latter requires a certain degree of luck.