3 ms·

Surprised no one is looking at it this way. Correct me if I'm wrong: Online only is a form of DRM, offline mode comes out over a year after the initial release

Surprised no one is looking at it this way. Correct me if I'm wrong: Online only is a form of DRM, offline mode comes out over a year after the initial release. This "DRM" was super effective preventing piracy during the hype and popularity of the game. Offline is inevitable for when they decide to take their servers down.

adamio 13y ago
I'm guessing it was even more effective at preventing sales too
- flomo 13y ago
  It seems like there's a very loud minority concerned with the online issue. They created a shitstorm about Diablo 3 too, but the game still sold very well. The bigger issue seems to be that SimCity wasn't fun to play & didn't offer the scale of previous versions. Assume X number of people boycotted it, but Y people couldn't pirate it so they paid for it. The X people will be very loud, but the Y people won't.
- timje1 13y ago
  Considering some of the atrocious numbers I've heard thrown around regarding piracy on the PC, DRM that scares off some customers may be the result of some execs doing some hard number crunching. Something like: At current estimates, we sell 1m copies, and we'll get 5m pirates. If we put in really restrictive DRM, 100k of those original 1m sales will be put off, but we'll pick up one tenth of the pirates, putting us on 1.4m sales. Worth it! The problem with this calculation is that the pirates are often based in 2nd world countries that don't have a culture of paying for media (e.g. Russia) so preventing piracy won't boost sales from these countries. But have you folks ever tried to convince anyone with money on the line that piracy numbers != lost sales?
mikestew 13y ago
> This "DRM" was super effective preventing piracy during the hype and popularity of the game. It prevented me from pirating it...or buying it, for that matter.
RyanZAG 13y ago
What hype and popularity..? The game was a total commercial flop.
joelwilliamson 13y ago
Offline mode was possible within two weeks of release. That's better than most forms of DRM, but hardly a full year. http://www.cinemablend.com/games/SimCity-Offline-Mode-Achieved-By-Hacker-53642.html http://www.cinemablend.com/games/SimCity-Offline-Mode-Achiev...
doesnt_know 13y ago
Did the prevention of piracy result in more sales or just less people playing the game? Were the units sold to the user base of "bought it because they couldn't pirate it" enough to cover the cost of implementing DRM and running/maintaining the online component? What about the units lost due to the negative press at release as reviewers were unable to play the single player component?

adamio 13y ago

I'm guessing it was even more effective at preventing sales too

flomo 13y ago
It seems like there's a very loud minority concerned with the online issue. They created a shitstorm about Diablo 3 too, but the game still sold very well. The bigger issue seems to be that SimCity wasn't fun to play & didn't offer the scale of previous versions. Assume X number of people boycotted it, but Y people couldn't pirate it so they paid for it. The X people will be very loud, but the Y people won't.
timje1 13y ago
Considering some of the atrocious numbers I've heard thrown around regarding piracy on the PC, DRM that scares off some customers may be the result of some execs doing some hard number crunching. Something like: At current estimates, we sell 1m copies, and we'll get 5m pirates. If we put in really restrictive DRM, 100k of those original 1m sales will be put off, but we'll pick up one tenth of the pirates, putting us on 1.4m sales. Worth it! The problem with this calculation is that the pirates are often based in 2nd world countries that don't have a culture of paying for media (e.g. Russia) so preventing piracy won't boost sales from these countries. But have you folks ever tried to convince anyone with money on the line that piracy numbers != lost sales?

mikestew 13y ago

> This "DRM" was super effective preventing piracy during the hype and popularity of the game. It prevented me from pirating it...or buying it, for that matter.

RyanZAG 13y ago

What hype and popularity..? The game was a total commercial flop.

joelwilliamson 13y ago

Offline mode was possible within two weeks of release. That's better than most forms of DRM, but hardly a full year. http://www.cinemablend.com/games/SimCity-Offline-Mode-Achieved-By-Hacker-53642.html http://www.cinemablend.com/games/SimCity-Offline-Mode-Achiev...

doesnt_know 13y ago

Did the prevention of piracy result in more sales or just less people playing the game? Were the units sold to the user base of "bought it because they couldn't pirate it" enough to cover the cost of implementing DRM and running/maintaining the online component? What about the units lost due to the negative press at release as reviewers were unable to play the single player component?