“Why has the SimCity story gone away? It’s a good question. And the answer for it reveals much about how both the games industry, and the games journalism industry, work.” Telling – not just for the game journalism, but all of it. As a sidenote, you can always rely on Rock Paper Shotgun to bring the best gaming news. Under-appreciated gem of online news reporting.
It went away for 2 reasons…..reader fatigue and relevance. Most people are simply tired of hearing about a game flop, over and over and over……And in the great scheme of things is SimCity really all that important? Really?
Well, it kind of is. The whole lesson with all this is: “Yes, you can totally screw over people and still get away with bucket-loads of cash.” You may not agree, but personally I feel that is an important lesson, both for the masses and for the companies feeding the masses.
Sorry, but I have to disagree. It isn’t important. It’s a game and a crappy one at that, one designed for people who have no life and/or too much time on their hands….Most people have a lot more things of importance to focus on than a bad video game….or stories about a bad video game. And nobody forced anyone to buy that crappy game so you can climb down from your socialist soap-box about how so many people have been cheated. People get cheated everyday in all sort of ways with all sorts of products. It isn’t like they bought fake medicines or something.
Edited 2013-04-23 16:32 UTC
So, your point is that it’s okay to screw people over as long as it’s a product you don’t care about?
The whole point is that it is a video game and tbh this shit is to be expected.
I bought Crysis 3 at launch which was in February, it didn’t work 100% on my Nvidia Card (very very very crashy). Only recently (last week) has the game been patched to work properly with the card. Where was the uproar about it being AMD optimised?
Yeah I should have known it would be pretty buggy, but I was sold on playing the game and thought “I could put up with it”, I was wrong. The game was almost unplayable until recently.
Rage on the PC only recently had a Patch that made it work properly with AMD cards again no uproar.
The original Xbox 360 owners got screwed with the red ring of death. At lets not forget Ubisoft with their shitty gimped PC releases.
Like the gambling industry and the porn industry, gaming is something where they will try to get every last penny out of you. It doesn’t matter if it is right or wrong, you gotta get used to it and buy smart.
Sorry the continues whining about something which at the end of the day is entertainment is just infantile. It like going to the cinema and demanding your money back because you didn’t like the movie.
Edited 2013-04-23 16:53 UTC
Wow, both you and the other commenter miss the whole point here: companies shouldn’t screw you over. Period. It’s not about the product itself, it’s about the whole premise of companies doing shit deliberately and still getting away with it. But no, both of you insist on just seeing SimCity, not the big picture.
Well you obviously didn’t read my comment did you? No they shouldn’t screw you over. But I disagree that there was any screwing over tbh and I also don’t expect a business to overly care unless they are making money … good if they do … if they don’t it is upto you as the consumer to be wise to it.
It not like you didn’t get SimCity that you paid for. There were server problems; It is shitty, but I’ve been on plenty of deployments that have gone tits-up when the switch to live was done.
Me and you have a very different ideas about “being screwed over”. It not like they I dunno … gave everybody a free game afterwards … oh wait they did.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/ea-details-free-origin-games-as-apolog…
Sorry when did anyone get ripped off. I would love to know?
If you don’t like the possibility of paying for a turd when it comes to entertainment, it’s probably best to wait until someone else has tried it out and I dunno listen to see if they thought it was any good … or read a review?
Edited 2013-04-23 17:12 UTC
Of course they don’t. I don’t expect them to do that, either. But as I said, they should.
Imagine ordering a car, but instead of getting the car you ordered you get a moped. Then after complaining about it you’re offered a choice of various accessories. Wouldn’t you feel screwed over? Wouldn’t you feel you didn’t get what you ordered? Does offering something extra somehow make it all good?
If you feel so then fine. I don’t feel that way.
If you’re directing this specifically to me: I never bought SimCity or was even planning to. I’m not one of the people who got screwed over by it.
Nobody is arguing that. It simply as statement that it is to be expected. As you are wise to it … what is the problem? It is part of life, be wise to the fact that you can be ripped off.
Poor car analogies an argument it doesn’t make. We are talking about entertainment, not something like a car that has a clear number of characteristics that make it a car and not a moped.
What makes a video game a video game? I doubt you will be able to tell me as easily as you would be able to tell me the defining characteristics of a car.
I am talking about your attitude towards it, not whether you bought it or not. I am talking about you in the sense of “for the sake of argument”.
As I said previously, it like going to see and play or a film and then asking for your money back after not liking it. Or buying a book by its cover and then wondering why it wasn’t as good of a read as you expected.
Like it or not, these are games and they are entertainment. The only way that you get screwed over if you don’t actually get to play/see/read what you paid for. There were servers problems in the beginning and as an apology you got a choice of a free game.
They could have just said “suck it up”.
Edited 2013-04-23 17:41 UTC
A car analogy isn’t acceptable, but a movie or a book analogy is? I don’t understand your logic.
Aaand that’s what I’ve been talking all along. People are buying single-player games and they instead get forced multiplayer?
Nevermind. I already said what I feel about the issue and when you insist that things are fine as-is there’s no point in arguing about it any longer.
Well I think we have to end the conversation there really. It is entertainment and not a physical object that is easily defined. Books, Plays, Films and Video games are all entertainment, while driving a car or watching others cars race can be entertaining … usually most people wouldn’t say that a car by itself is that entertaining.
If you have difficulty grasping this, I can’t really meet you in the middle.
That is a feature of the game, whether you like it or not. As I said before, if you don’t like the fact that the entertainment you pay for might not be to your liking let other people tell you about it first.
Okay well that is fine. But I am not insisting anything, don’t put words into my month. I am simply explaining the reality of the situation that you don’t wish to accept or to be part of.
Edited 2013-04-23 18:06 UTC
Well, people who got burned by this game and others like it will (hopefully) choose not to buy any more forced, single-player online-only games in the future. There’s no point in continuing to bitch about it. Perhaps when EA/Blizard’s next big release comes out that’s online-only, you can then remind people of what happened with Sim City and Diablo 3.
But for now, the damage has been done, you live and learn, and it’s over. Time to move on. If people who know about these botched releases continue to buy games from these companies, then f–k ’em. They deserve exactly what they get. It’s like buying a lemon from a used car dealer, and then continuing to do business with them. If you WILLINGLY bend over to take it up the ass, then don’t come back crying about how you got screwed.
If you DO decide to buy one of these games, I’d just treat it like a new, blockbuster movie release. You already know that if you go the first couple of weeks, the theater will be packed, and it’s probably going to suck. In these cases, you don’t go to the midnight release on opening day, and then bitch that you couldn’t get a ticket, or you had to sit way in the back. If you just wait a week or two, you can avoid the crowds and long lines, and sit wherever you want.
Edited 2013-04-23 17:34 UTC
My point is that it’s just a lousy video game and if you feel so screwed over for buying it, then go and get your money back instead of trying to turn this into some form of social movement. And if you spent your last penny on this game and are you’re now so financially broken by the purchase then you need to re-examine your priorities. That’s my point.
If only the world worked like that.
Why not? Do tell me, what exactly is wrong with complaining about companies deliberately screwing people over? Should we all just swallow it all and never question anything? Not all of us are content at just being mindless drones, you know.
When did they get screwed over?
Everyone got an apology, a free game and still play the game they bought.
Edited 2013-04-23 17:21 UTC
… and that happened because enough people made a stink about it.
I don’t disagree.
However the end result is that they didn’t get screwed. You got to play the game and you got a free game of your choosing out of a subset.
They got screwed over when they could not play the game they paid for. They got screwed over when EA removed features from said game to try to handle the server load and yet failed miserably. They got screwed over when EA said that the “always online DRM” was actually a requirement since Sim City was a MMO. They got screwed over when EA forces “always online DRM” when it was proven that the game can be played offline perfectly, without social features.
With the exceptions of the servers going down, people really should have read up about what they were buying.
There is a lot of anger over something that is purely entertainment.
Well, actually the world does work like that, at least the one I live in. I’ve never had a problem returning a bad product for a refund. Maybe you should try it some time. That’s the normal way for a developer to get the message that he’s pushing a bad product. It doesn’t require an organized protest against “the man” out in the streets.
For what it’s worth I absolutely agree with you, however there are three groups of people that simply do not listen to reason: gamers, socialists, and the religious. Don’t waste your breath. If these fools do not realize that they will continue to be screwed until they stop buying the crap and thus volunteering to be screwed, they deserve everything coming to them. They can’t screw you if you don’t buy. It’s that simple. If you continue to buy from a company like EA that has a known history of ass-raping its customers, you shouldn’t come bitching when it happens. You knew it, you bought it, so you get what you bought. End of story. If you’d use your brains instead of your keyboard and mouse, perhaps you all would not be bawling about being screwed and would be just a little more intelligent about purchasing products in the future. Take it as a life lesson learned, and do please at least try to learn from it.
It is not a call to arms mate.
It is entertainment. If you are worried you might not like it, let early adopters and journalists try it for you and then you can choose based on their feedback whether it is worth it or not.
This is a sensible way of buying things and doesn’t require a call to arms. It called being sensible and being a bit wise.
While you guys like to preach to the choir, most intelligent people either try before they buy or they listen to other people’s experiences and make a judgement afters.
Some like to take the risk and be early adopters. That fine if you one of those, but a lot of people aren’t.
Edited 2013-04-23 18:28 UTC
You know what? It is a call to arms. There’s an abysmal difference between being an earlier adopter and expecting a few bugs in the game and being lied to your face. The worst part is that this is not the first time this fiasco happens. EA should have learned with what happened with Diablo III, for example.
EA had a rough estimate on the number of players based on the number of pre-orders. But why should they care? They already have the customers money on their pocket.
When I buy something I expected it delivered as advertised, the moment I bought it, not months later.
There are a lot of better reasons than a video game to make a call of arms.
Sim City being an online only experience only is just fanatical, silly and ridiculous.
So should their customers. As you say, this isn’t the first time this has happened – so why do people keep rewarding EA for screwing up, by handing over yet more of their money?
Definitely. We can only hope that people will stop buying EA crap in the future. On the other hand, EA should not be excused because it’s EA, just because they always create crap doesn’t mean we will stop criticizing them for creating said crap.
Sorry I enjoyed quite a few of their games.
Have you enjoyed any of their games in the last 5 years?
Crysis 3
Crysis 2
I see. Did you play only the multiplayer, or did you play the single player campaign?
Both.
Imagine that EA launches Crysis 4, but even if you only want to play the single player campaign you had to be logged in to EAs serves. Would you like that? Would you think it would be a good feature?
AS I kept on saying throughout my comments on a topic. I would do my research before buying.
Being smart is your lookout, not someone elses.
Yes, because if you care then you’re a socialist and then the terrorists win.
First, just because the game belongs to a medium you don’t enjoy doesn’t mean other people don’t. I’m sure there are plenty of things you do which others would consider to be a waste of time; there’s no reason to be an ass-hat about it.
Secondly, it’s important because there are a lot of people buying the game that don’t understand the full implications of doing so (feeding EA and encouraging further poor behavior from them and other like-minded companies).
Third, it doesn’t matter if a person ‘has’ to buy something to get cheated in that exchange. Are you suggesting that it’s literally impossible to be ripped off in any exchange that doesn’t involve food, water or shelter?
Fourth, complaining about a shitty company isn’t socialism. It’s the only way a free market will work, in addition to avoiding said shitty company’s products in the future (see point #2).
It’s not so much about the game itself (which you obviously hate), it’s about how the developer treats their customers. It could be the greatest game in the world or the worst ever released, and it would be the same problem. When a developer goes out of their way to screw over their customers and then turns a blind eye to the aftermath, it’s an issue.
Granted, for me personally it just means I’ll avoid that developer in the future, and as a casual gamer that’s no big deal. But for people whose main hobby is gaming, it can be a big deal.
In short, just because it doesn’t affect you doesn’t mean that it’s not a problem. The world doesn’t revolve around you.
Nooo..the correct thing to take away from that is “Yes, you can totally screw over people with preorders and still get away with bucket-loads of cash and then watch the sales take a giant nosedive into the bargain bin” which frankly we already knew, see Aliens: Colonial Marines as an example.
To me the bigger lesson is thus: despite all the pundits saying “poo poo voting with your dollars don’t work, poo poo” it very much DOES work, it just isn’t a magic bullet and takes time. The CEO of EA is gone and the company is for sale, Ubisoft has done an about face and removed their nasty DRM to try to stem the bleeding, Activision is restructuring, it shows that voting with your dollars works and works quite well, its just not magic and like with anything dealing with a large entity takes time.
I think the next example of it working will be MSFT, either Windows 9 has a full windows 7 desktop and the ability to switch off TIFKAM or the company will continue to nosedive right off the map. All Simcity proved is that pre-orders is a scam that should be avoided because they can sell you a bag of magic beans with pretty screen caps or fake demos while having nothing but a pile of poo at the end of the day.
The story isn’t about a game flop. It’s about how a big company designed a product, engineered a control network and wove it around that product. It’s about how a big company lied about how its product worked. It’s about how a company manages an expected crisis when it’s not bounded by laws or ethics.
It’s a lesson on manipulation.
(BTW, this is how the Spanish ruling party handles its crisis, too)
Ah, in other words the story has reached the meta summit and is now traversing the downward slope of the hump of irrelevance.
http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2009/05/19/1242750854-…
Another good read (and site worth putting in your feed reader): http://www.destructoid.com/simcity-colonial-marines-and-the-silence…
I was a huge Simcity fan back in the days and very stoked about the new release. I bought it and have played it a lot and it has been an enjoyable and pleasingly addictive experience.
But.
I don’t know how much longer I will play it.
It is limited in some very important areas. The whole tied to the internet and servers crap is just plain irritating but I could live with that if the other limitations were fixed, and I don’t mean bugs and gaming imbalances which one expects and which will be fixed.
The biggest problem is that the cities are too small and are always built in a perfect square. Once your city is doing well it becomes a game of to how cram stuff into this tiny space. The universal square shape of the cities makes them all feel very artificial and way too similar.
If the cities were bigger and sprawled across large irregular patches of territory it would be a very good game I think.
Oh well. There’s always Battlefield 4 to look forward to.
Reminds me of how my parents, who are big fans of Sierra’s city management games, were highly disappointed with Caesar IV.
Basically, in the process of porting the game to a 3D engine, they had to reduce map sizes dramatically so that it runs on the average Caesar player’s computer. Apparently, even on today’s hardware, it’s much harder to make a 3D engine that scales well with city size than it is for a 2D one.
Perhaps that’s what happened with SimCity too. Is this the first 3D release of SimCity that you play ?
Amazon PC Bestsellers (5 PM ET Tuesday)
EA Games in Top Ten
#1 FIFA Soccer 13 (Download)
#2 SimCity (Download)
#3 Command & Conquer Ultimate (Online Code)
#5 Medal of Honor Warfighter (Download)
#6 Battlefield 3 Ultimate Shortcut Bundle (Online Code)
#8 FIFA Management 13 (Download)
No. of EA games in top 25, eleven, in the top 50, twenty-two. The Sims franchise is in excellent health.
SimCity is not a flop.
SimCity’s 2,112 1-Star reviews on Amazon.com— rants seems a more appropriate description — have had no effect on sales.
Bioshock Infinite, a defiantly single player game with no online components and a Metacritic rating of 95, ranks #13 in Amazon PC game sales, retail boxed, and #28 downloaded.
SimCity is out of the news because its players have settled into the game, others are being drawn in — and the geek is on the sidelines with nothing more to say.
The article’s author should have made bold statements out in the wild, “forging” facts if necessary to push EV and Maxis to make a counter PR statement. Keeping the low profile, making only light assertions while proofs are bloody here and users’ experience can be witnessed, is also playing the role as any game press editorialist.
Tabloids often reveals hidden truth because they push things a bit over the line. I know the press wants to keep a kinda professionalism, but the way it is currently run, it doesn’t work, and they know it. So what’s up doc ?
Kochise
I’d don’t get the point: the game sucks and everyone who developed it sucks. Don’t buy it, move on with life. Its not that important.
It’s about censorship, manipulation, untold truths,etc…
Bradley Mannings, where are thou ?
Kochise
*shakes head*
So companies lying about video games is just as important as governments lying about war? Is that what you’re suggesting?
Nope, sarcasm, but the two affairs are processed very similarly.
Kochise
Wow, my sarcasm detector is broken. Need to get that fixed on the QT.