Fun with EA: "Micro"-Transactions, Online DRM, CEO Fired

[Ruldra]

It seems SimCity itself is fundamentally broken. Check the first two posts in this thread.

Too bad it's only the stone age for games and we can't just whack women over the head and lug them back to our caves.

Or toss them like ragdolls for our entertainment.

Disclaimer: I do not actually endorse women tossing.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Disclaimer: I do not actually endorse women tossing.

Yeah, that's what dwarves are for. /runs

[Udderdude]

It seems SimCity itself is fundamentally broken. Check the first two posts in this thread.

What a pile of dogshit.

[trap15]

Those posts are hilarious. EA = poo

[null1024]

reading that made me sad in ways I should not be

If it wasn't so late at night I'd fire up SC2K to clear my head of this shit, haha. That's some assy fuckery right there.
Maybe you couldn't access the game in the first place because they knew it was broken as fuck, so they just made the servers unresponsive to prevent people from playing the clearly unfinished game.

[Ed Oscuro]

Zynga wants to get more classy and big-time, EA wants to get more Zynga.
EA = the next Zynga

[Friendly]

It never ends: http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comment ... ion_sizes/
Seems EA lied about the number of simulated people, too.

SimCity appears to be a fundamentally flawed game, and not just because of the DRM nonsense. Non-functional AI, no terraforming, small cities, few inhabitants. All of which should have been apparent even prior to its official launch.

Make a mental note of who passed out those high scores. http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/simci ... ic-reviews

At least the metascore is now down to 66 (which is still way too high).

[Udderdude]

GetFudgedPopulation

Make a mental note of who passed out those high scores. http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/simci ... ic-reviews

I always knew Polygon were a bunch of turds, this just cements it.

[CMoon]

I know this is a very general comment but I'm so pleased to see a company get burned using this business model. Of course, it will probably only stave off the 'always online, you never really own the product' philosophy. As a friend of mine pointed out, books are becoming one of the only remaining mediums that isn't dependent upon on a service. Oh wait, my copy of Moby Dick has to check for updates, nevermind.

[Udderdude]

As a friend of mine pointed out, books are becoming one of the only remaining mediums that isn't dependent upon on a service.

Kindle.

D:

[Skykid]

GetFudgedPopulation

Make a mental note of who passed out those high scores. http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/simci ... ic-reviews

I always knew Polygon were a bunch of turds, this just cements it.

Paid reviews. Considering the cost of polygon was somewhere at the high end of astronomical, I expect they've done a few more of these.

[STG]

I really hated the always-online DRM bullshit when they announced it, although I was almost ready to look past that and just buy the game since I do like the series A LOT. Glad I waited, just seeing how many problems this game has (both online and fundamentally) is really disappointing. If anything good came from this, this nonsense over SC got me to reinstall SC4! Now that's a great game.

[Udderdude]

GetFudgedPopulation :lol:

Make a mental note of who passed out those high scores. http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/simci ... ic-reviews

I always knew Polygon were a bunch of turds, this just cements it.

Paid reviews. Considering the cost of polygon was somewhere at the high end of astronomical, I expect they've done a few more of these.

Yeah, even after they called out Ninja Gaiden 3 for being dumbed down crap that doesn't know what it wants to be, they ruin their reputation with paid reviews like this. Bleh!

[Udderdude]

http://news.yahoo.com/simcity-pr-nightm ... 21213.html

[Mortificator]

If the people at EA had tried with all their might to make a game whose single goal was to frustrate and insult their customers, I don't know if they could have succeeded more spectacularly.

[greg]

Or toss them like ragdolls for our entertainment.

Ha! I do that to my elementary school students. (Except for the letting go part.) They love it.

[Ed Oscuro]

Yeah, even after they called out Ninja Gaiden 3 for being dumbed down crap that doesn't know what it wants to be, they ruin their reputation with paid reviews like this. Bleh!

I don't know if that's the cause of all of it. Reviewers seem to get special perks such as playing on near-empty servers before launch, and in this case that would've caused reviewers to have a totally different (and kinder) view of the "service" than what people ended up getting.

edit:

Kyle: I like the informational mapping options too, like for land value and fire coverage. Though it's odd on the crime map that it shows the criminals that are in jail. Um... I'm not worried about them.
Peter: Yeah, that's only a concern if your jail is full, then they release the criminals.
Kyle: Even then, it should be separate from "where is crime a problem."

lol but I'll leave that up for philosophy and criminology

[Friendly]

And it has happened: CimCity modded for offline play. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013- ... definitely

"You can edit the highways ANYWHERE - even outside of your city boundary," UKAzzer said, "and even if you quit the game and log back in later, it's all saved safely on the server.
This shows that highway editing will be easily possible, AND that editing outside of the artificially small city boundaries should be very viable too."

Meanwhile, UKAzzer modded out the "fluffed population count" so the game shows the real population count - a disparity players have complained about since launch.
Most importantly, UKAzzer was able to disable SimCity's disconnection timer, thus setting it tp unlimited. Tests have shown SimCity kicks you out after around 20 minutes of offline play.

So much for this: https://twitter.com/aegies/status/310282795564015616

[Specineff]

^^^ OH. SNAP!

Loller-licious.

[Ed Oscuro]

Still not as epic as the troll EA pulled however, but a small dose of justice regardless

[system11]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013- ... ity-review

Panned with 4/10 review.

[Udderdude]

That house right in the middle of a road is fucking hilarious.

[Ruldra]

The game is so broken I wonder if people would even want to play it in offline mode. Just install SimCity 4 and a few mods for your city-building fix.

[Ed Oscuro]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013- ... ity-review

Panned with 4/10 review.

Beautifully written. Well, a bit wordy, but lots of nice images in there. Probably more beautiful than the game deserves, though I think it deserved that haunted bus image.

[BIL]

Yes, quite a good read in itself. Dug the surreal vibe and framing of this ongoing pop catastrophe via the twisted realm of Simcity 2013 itself. I mean JEFFERSON CITY itself. Good... I mean, amusing game after all, this!

...those overlapping buildings, the misshaped roads, the fire fighters who have chosen to stand on the station roof and spend their time endlessly vibrating. What I can't handle is the knowledge that things aren't working properly, that whatever success I've made is a sham...

Ian Curtis would be proud.

I think I'll pick up the SFC version of the first game sometime.

[Ed Oscuro]

It's also on X68000.

Jefferson City conjures images of Final Fight and Street Fighter II.

[Udderdude]

The fun just doesn't stop.

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/SimCit ... 53685.html

[BulletMagnet]

The fun just doesn't stop.

Nope, it doesn't.

[trap15]

[BareKnuckleRoo]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/ea-freemiu ... ng-6405414?

Before that, EA chief operating officer Peter Moore said he believes microtransactions will be in every game in the next five to ten years. He likened the business model to a clothing store like The Gap.

"It's free to me to walk into The Gap in my local shopping mall. They don't charge me to walk in there," he said at the time. "I can walk into The Gap, enjoy the music, look at the jeans and what have you, but if I want to buy something I have to pay for it."

Mr. Moore is a fucking retard. The Gap is a retailer that sells clothes that are fully-functional on purchase. You don't buy jeans or coats there that are missing pockets and zippers you need to pay extra for. You don't go there to 'enjoy the music' or stare vapidly at clothing on mannequins. A more apt analogy would be if clothing you paid for came bundled with a whole bunch of additional fees if you wanted pockets, a zipper, if you wanted to upgrade your pockets to enough space to actually hold a wallet, etc. I don't want to buy a jacket and then need to drop more money just to upgrade the jacket to a useable state. When I buy a game, unlockables for effort are cool, but it's kind of lame to buy a game only to have to pay to unlock data on the disc itself for use, so I end up paying additional fees for a game I supposedly already own.