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Can we talk about this more clearly? This isn't strictly "evil DRM" as people are highlighting. Unlike some other games, it's not like SimCity is just phoning

Can we talk about this more clearly? This isn't strictly "evil DRM" as people are highlighting. Unlike some other games, it's not like SimCity is just phoning home to figure out if it is licensed or not, and preventing unlicensed copies. SimCity depends on EA/Maxis' server infrastructure for a great deal of storage and computation related to the macro-scale components of each game. Not only is city state synced there and shared between players, but regional dynamics and macro-scale economic systems are continuously maintained in the EA cloud. There's plenty of other features that are done server-side, and in total they represent a substantial piece of this game. We can argue about whether these things should be computed and stored in the cloud, but I think there is a plausible, if imperfect, argument for doing so; Many players are involved and system resources are scarce relative to simulation complexity. Regardless, the use of the cloud in this game is for more than just to deter pirates. That much is clear. And it's also clear that EA cannot "simply remove the DRM" and expect people to have a full offline experience; this is a primarily multiplayer game. Indeed, this seems part of a trend in the games industry--that of bringing MMO(massively multiplayer online) experiences to more games. Call it social or something else, more games are working to get people to play with others. It's good business and actually creates some special experiences. In any case, EA/Maxis have clearly not executed the launch for SimCity well. With 10 years of pent-up demand, it would have been wise to provision more server side resources to keep the experience good. It's hard to keep up with so many users, and perhaps a longer beta period would have helped. But as a SimCity player and vet, I'll say that stripping out the online piece of this game doesn't make sense, and that piece was certainly designed for the benefit of gamers. It's not strictly DRM or EA milking their customers.

jfb 14y ago
No, but it's hardly confidence inspiring for the brave new world of 100% micropayment coverage that EA wants to train us to enjoy.
reitzensteinm 14y ago
I don't think you're adding clarity here. People are upset about the lack of a single player offline mode, which absolutely is about preventing unlicensed copies. There is no technical reason for its absence. The cloud based stuff sounds great, and if it were an optional extra that was unavailable at launch due to technical difficulties, I doubt you'd see a hundredth as much bad PR.
- estel 14y ago
  Isn't: > We can argue about whether these things should be computed and stored in the cloud, but I think there is a plausible, if imperfect, argument for doing so Conceivably true? We could be in a world with no DRM, but there would still be a market trend moving games towards a more social, connected and integrated experience; and some developers will be looking at ways to fundamentally build their new games in a way that takes advantage of this. Why not SimCity? The Sims 3 already indicated where the Sims franchise might be heading with regards to improved connectivity with friends, I don't think it's an entirely unreasonable leap to get to where SimCity is now. Which isn't to say that DRM wouldn't have been a business consideration at an executive level; but there's definitely an argument that SimCity's design choices, even if flawed, can be justified without considering DRM.
  - alex_c 14y ago
    Conceivable, but a real stretch. It would imply that they considered adding a single player mode, knowing that there would be demand for it, but decided it would be too difficult given their other design decisions to make it worth adding. Or as Diablo 3 players like to joke, "the technology just isn't there yet" to do something that previous games already did successfully.
  - toyg 14y ago
    No. One thing is to offer a "social mode", even to push it hard in terms of marketing or menu placement or whatever, another to require a connection at all times, even in "sandboxed mode" where you're not going to interact with anyone else -- which is completely preposterous, and it's done only because of DRM. If the problem was "going social", you'd see more p2p and lan-gaming features, rather than "let's all connect to my servers, creating huge scalability problems which may or may not be solved at some point".
    - andylei 14y ago
      > to require a connection at all times, even in "sandboxed mode" where you're not going to interact with anyone else -- which is completely preposterous this is not preposterous at all. if all the simulation happens on the server side, its not necessarily trivial to have that run on the client. maybe the server requires unix. maybe the server requires an oracle database.
littlegiantcap 14y ago
I'd like to second what you're saying. The ability to play with my friends in our own private regions is an awesome one, and one I'm glad they included. Frankly, I would have no problem with anything they're doing if it just worked. The big mistake here, imho,is that EA is a huge company, they should have set aside the resources to make this experience great.
morsch 14y ago
You make a lot of good points. But I've argued this before: it seems highly unlikely that EA is doing any kind of expensive calculation server-side that couldn't be equally done offline in a single player mode. It's possible for providers to install hardware where each player gets computational resources that rival their own -- OnLive does it. But OnLive also charges a monthly fee for it. And the offloading is only significant compared to, essentially, thin clients, not gaming PCs. So the simulation offloading argument is just bogus. But of course it's consistent to argue that SimCity is a multiplayer game, full stop, that a single player version, while feasible, would simply be so unattractive that they aren't going to support it; just like Actiblizzard doesn't offer offline WOW. But I assume lots of people are in fact playing essentially single player in a private region, and of course SimCity was a solitary experience in the past.
nlawalker 14y ago
>> SimCity depends on EA/Maxis' server infrastructure for a great deal of storage and computation related to the macro-scale components of each game. The problem is that most people's perception is that it really doesn't need to, that the core engine could have been implemented to run entirely locally and the online-only features would be optional. It's all well and good if the game has social features or other enhancements that are only enabled if you are online. But could the game have been implemented such that the core single-player gameplay is available without an internet connection? Most people perceive the answer to that question to be "yes". If the answer truly is yes, then implementation of the game in this way is DRM. >> this is a primarily multiplayer game If that's true, I'd say the one-star reviews are just as justified. This game was marketed as the continuation of a series that has been predominantly single-player. I'd say there's a reasonable expectation that the game should work without an internet connection. I wouldn't expect World of Warcraft to work without an internet connection, but I expect SimCity to. I wouldn't expect Dead Space 3's co-op to work without an internet connection, but I would expect the single-player campaign to work without one, and it does.
cbs 14y ago
Regardless, the use of the cloud in this game is for more than just to deter pirates. That much is clear. So you're right that its not "evil DRM" in the traditional sense, that shit failed and publishers moved on years ago. Online components, and preferable mandatory online components is the new AAA game anti-piracy, anti-secondary-market strategy. EA could have designed a more resilient architecture without sacrificing the multi-player/social aspects. But they didn't, why not?
chaz 14y ago
> I think there is a plausible, if imperfect, argument for doing so; Many players are involved and system resources are scarce relative to simulation complexity. Game reviewers like Polygon knowingly played prerelease code on private development server, and reported no major issues. In addition, EA recently cut back on game features and disabled the fastest game mode to help their servers cope -- some additional indication that servers are doing a fair amount of work to service the game. I agree it sounds like a solvable problem made difficult by overwhelming demand. And for some number of reasons, they cannot increase server capacity sufficiently to solve it. This sounds more like a failure of server engineering than an overly aggressive DRM strategy. [1] http://www.polygon.com/game/simcity-2013/2630 http://www.polygon.com/game/simcity-2013/2630 [2] http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/7/4075120/simcity-servers-update-maxis-disabling-features http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/7/4075120/simcity-servers-upda...
- PeterisP 14y ago
  Relaxing their overly aggressive DRM strategy would easily reduce the need for servers by order (orders?) of magnitude, so it would be a possible solution.
krelian 14y ago
I'll bet good money that the game was designed from scratch to require a constant connection or otherwise the project would not be approved.
overgard 14y ago
Honest question: have you played the new game? I got a few hours in before I ran into the issues everyone outlined, but after having built a pretty sizable city, my impression is that the multiplayer/online aspects of the game are pretty much worthless. It feels more like a feature box being checked than a core element of the game. I get the impression that they tried, but it ultimately feels incongruent with the core mechanics. There's another element, which is a bit hazier, but being that this game is a sequel, there are certain expectations that people come into it with for a Sim City game -- expectations which aren't met. Sim City is a game about playing mayor, and all the social nonsense is sort of getting in the way of that experience. Especially since the whole "online" aspect has kept me from playing it today AT ALL, because the "server is full" -- despite the fact that I played 10 hours yesterday and felt no need to interact with anyone. I'd happily leave behind the whole social nonsense and just play the damn game if it would let me. This isn't a proper Sim City game. It's like going to a restaurant and ordering spaghetti, and getting something entirely different. Sure I want the restaurant's take on spaghetti, but you can't stray too far without inventing a new dish. I wanted spaghetti, and instead I got mac and cheese. Some people might like mac and cheese, but that's not what I came here to get, and I'm disappointed.
- egeozcan 14y ago
  > This isn't a proper Sim City game. To me it felt like I'm playing DRM with features inspired from simcity. Sadly, I'm not joking.
- spartango 14y ago
  I've been playing the game for the last few days with a handful of friends. What I've found is that without the region dynamics, my cities have comparatively stunted growth and seem to be deficient in a few areas. Even with regions that I try and manage myself, the time freezing mechanic in unmanned cities makes progress much slower. When my friends are building cities around me, we move really fast and the supply chain and people sharing mechanics can create some truly startling results. It's a very different experience from SC4, and I'll say its only a bad thing if you play alone.

jfb 14y ago

No, but it's hardly confidence inspiring for the brave new world of 100% micropayment coverage that EA wants to train us to enjoy.

reitzensteinm 14y ago

I don't think you're adding clarity here. People are upset about the lack of a single player offline mode, which absolutely is about preventing unlicensed copies. There is no technical reason for its absence. The cloud based stuff sounds great, and if it were an optional extra that was unavailable at launch due to technical difficulties, I doubt you'd see a hundredth as much bad PR.

estel 14y ago
Isn't: > We can argue about whether these things should be computed and stored in the cloud, but I think there is a plausible, if imperfect, argument for doing so Conceivably true? We could be in a world with no DRM, but there would still be a market trend moving games towards a more social, connected and integrated experience; and some developers will be looking at ways to fundamentally build their new games in a way that takes advantage of this. Why not SimCity? The Sims 3 already indicated where the Sims franchise might be heading with regards to improved connectivity with friends, I don't think it's an entirely unreasonable leap to get to where SimCity is now. Which isn't to say that DRM wouldn't have been a business consideration at an executive level; but there's definitely an argument that SimCity's design choices, even if flawed, can be justified without considering DRM.
- alex_c 14y ago
  Conceivable, but a real stretch. It would imply that they considered adding a single player mode, knowing that there would be demand for it, but decided it would be too difficult given their other design decisions to make it worth adding. Or as Diablo 3 players like to joke, "the technology just isn't there yet" to do something that previous games already did successfully.
- toyg 14y ago
  No. One thing is to offer a "social mode", even to push it hard in terms of marketing or menu placement or whatever, another to require a connection at all times, even in "sandboxed mode" where you're not going to interact with anyone else -- which is completely preposterous, and it's done only because of DRM. If the problem was "going social", you'd see more p2p and lan-gaming features, rather than "let's all connect to my servers, creating huge scalability problems which may or may not be solved at some point".
  - andylei 14y ago
    > to require a connection at all times, even in "sandboxed mode" where you're not going to interact with anyone else -- which is completely preposterous this is not preposterous at all. if all the simulation happens on the server side, its not necessarily trivial to have that run on the client. maybe the server requires unix. maybe the server requires an oracle database.

littlegiantcap 14y ago

I'd like to second what you're saying. The ability to play with my friends in our own private regions is an awesome one, and one I'm glad they included. Frankly, I would have no problem with anything they're doing if it just worked. The big mistake here, imho,is that EA is a huge company, they should have set aside the resources to make this experience great.

morsch 14y ago

You make a lot of good points. But I've argued this before: it seems highly unlikely that EA is doing any kind of expensive calculation server-side that couldn't be equally done offline in a single player mode. It's possible for providers to install hardware where each player gets computational resources that rival their own -- OnLive does it. But OnLive also charges a monthly fee for it. And the offloading is only significant compared to, essentially, thin clients, not gaming PCs. So the simulation offloading argument is just bogus. But of course it's consistent to argue that SimCity is a multiplayer game, full stop, that a single player version, while feasible, would simply be so unattractive that they aren't going to support it; just like Actiblizzard doesn't offer offline WOW. But I assume lots of people are in fact playing essentially single player in a private region, and of course SimCity was a solitary experience in the past.

nlawalker 14y ago

>> SimCity depends on EA/Maxis' server infrastructure for a great deal of storage and computation related to the macro-scale components of each game. The problem is that most people's perception is that it really doesn't need to, that the core engine could have been implemented to run entirely locally and the online-only features would be optional. It's all well and good if the game has social features or other enhancements that are only enabled if you are online. But could the game have been implemented such that the core single-player gameplay is available without an internet connection? Most people perceive the answer to that question to be "yes". If the answer truly is yes, then implementation of the game in this way is DRM. >> this is a primarily multiplayer game If that's true, I'd say the one-star reviews are just as justified. This game was marketed as the continuation of a series that has been predominantly single-player. I'd say there's a reasonable expectation that the game should work without an internet connection. I wouldn't expect World of Warcraft to work without an internet connection, but I expect SimCity to. I wouldn't expect Dead Space 3's co-op to work without an internet connection, but I would expect the single-player campaign to work without one, and it does.

cbs 14y ago

Regardless, the use of the cloud in this game is for more than just to deter pirates. That much is clear. So you're right that its not "evil DRM" in the traditional sense, that shit failed and publishers moved on years ago. Online components, and preferable mandatory online components is the new AAA game anti-piracy, anti-secondary-market strategy. EA could have designed a more resilient architecture without sacrificing the multi-player/social aspects. But they didn't, why not?

chaz 14y ago

> I think there is a plausible, if imperfect, argument for doing so; Many players are involved and system resources are scarce relative to simulation complexity. Game reviewers like Polygon knowingly played prerelease code on private development server, and reported no major issues. In addition, EA recently cut back on game features and disabled the fastest game mode to help their servers cope -- some additional indication that servers are doing a fair amount of work to service the game. I agree it sounds like a solvable problem made difficult by overwhelming demand. And for some number of reasons, they cannot increase server capacity sufficiently to solve it. This sounds more like a failure of server engineering than an overly aggressive DRM strategy. [1] http://www.polygon.com/game/simcity-2013/2630 http://www.polygon.com/game/simcity-2013/2630 [2] http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/7/4075120/simcity-servers-update-maxis-disabling-features http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/7/4075120/simcity-servers-upda...

PeterisP 14y ago
Relaxing their overly aggressive DRM strategy would easily reduce the need for servers by order (orders?) of magnitude, so it would be a possible solution.

krelian 14y ago

I'll bet good money that the game was designed from scratch to require a constant connection or otherwise the project would not be approved.

overgard 14y ago

Honest question: have you played the new game? I got a few hours in before I ran into the issues everyone outlined, but after having built a pretty sizable city, my impression is that the multiplayer/online aspects of the game are pretty much worthless. It feels more like a feature box being checked than a core element of the game. I get the impression that they tried, but it ultimately feels incongruent with the core mechanics. There's another element, which is a bit hazier, but being that this game is a sequel, there are certain expectations that people come into it with for a Sim City game -- expectations which aren't met. Sim City is a game about playing mayor, and all the social nonsense is sort of getting in the way of that experience. Especially since the whole "online" aspect has kept me from playing it today AT ALL, because the "server is full" -- despite the fact that I played 10 hours yesterday and felt no need to interact with anyone. I'd happily leave behind the whole social nonsense and just play the damn game if it would let me. This isn't a proper Sim City game. It's like going to a restaurant and ordering spaghetti, and getting something entirely different. Sure I want the restaurant's take on spaghetti, but you can't stray too far without inventing a new dish. I wanted spaghetti, and instead I got mac and cheese. Some people might like mac and cheese, but that's not what I came here to get, and I'm disappointed.

egeozcan 14y ago
> This isn't a proper Sim City game. To me it felt like I'm playing DRM with features inspired from simcity. Sadly, I'm not joking.
spartango 14y ago
I've been playing the game for the last few days with a handful of friends. What I've found is that without the region dynamics, my cities have comparatively stunted growth and seem to be deficient in a few areas. Even with regions that I try and manage myself, the time freezing mechanic in unmanned cities makes progress much slower. When my friends are building cities around me, we move really fast and the supply chain and people sharing mechanics can create some truly startling results. It's a very different experience from SC4, and I'll say its only a bad thing if you play alone.