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'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 l

by 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.

raylu 14y ago
> If I take my laptop to the coffee shop without wireless I can still play Portal and Anno 2070. Unless you bought Portal on Steam and didn't sign in when you had an internet connection.
- radiac 14y ago
  While that is a valid general criticism of Steam, they do provide an offline mode, which the new Sim City does not. Personally I prefer Steam to the previous alternative of having to leave the CD in the drive, or using a dodgy no-cd patch - but that's getting off topic. The DRM strategy in Sim City is not the same as Steam, and cannot really be compared. EA are forcing unnecessary always-online features into what most people expect to be a single player game, preventing it from being played offline at all, in a thinly veiled attempt to prevent piracy and resale. That would be bad enough, but what makes it utterly unacceptable is that they haven't provided the infrastructure to support it in the short term, and clearly don't have the business model required to support it beyond the first few years. Why anyone would knowingly support this business practice at all is beyond me, let alone for a game which has had such dubious pre-release reviews and is now essentially unplayable.

by adeaver 14y ago

raylu 14y ago

> If I take my laptop to the coffee shop without wireless I can still play Portal and Anno 2070. Unless you bought Portal on Steam and didn't sign in when you had an internet connection.

radiac 14y ago
While that is a valid general criticism of Steam, they do provide an offline mode, which the new Sim City does not. Personally I prefer Steam to the previous alternative of having to leave the CD in the drive, or using a dodgy no-cd patch - but that's getting off topic. The DRM strategy in Sim City is not the same as Steam, and cannot really be compared. EA are forcing unnecessary always-online features into what most people expect to be a single player game, preventing it from being played offline at all, in a thinly veiled attempt to prevent piracy and resale. That would be bad enough, but what makes it utterly unacceptable is that they haven't provided the infrastructure to support it in the short term, and clearly don't have the business model required to support it beyond the first few years. Why anyone would knowingly support this business practice at all is beyond me, let alone for a game which has had such dubious pre-release reviews and is now essentially unplayable.