SimCity 2013 (or SimCity 5)

[TechSY730]

The issue Zespri, is that the hoop is needed at all on what should be a single player experience.

This.

A multi-player experience in SimCity is actually a great idea. I'm glad they pursued that.

What I am upset about is that they decided to use that as an excuse to justify "server-side" single player. That just makes no sense.


The limitations of the engine (lack of transport options, smaller city sizes, etc) I can chalk up to the new "bottom-up" simulation style, which is more computationally intensive. So they had to throw in more restrictive limits to ensure performance until they can optimize better and/or hardware can get better. That's not my complaint.
It isn't even the bugginess of its current state (let's face it, SimCity 4 was pretty darn buggy on release too).

Insisting on server-side single-player (or rather, "private regions" in their marketing newspeak) for something things that clearly do not require the "multi-player state" is stupid. If they are concerned about cheaters screwing up the global economy thing by cheating offline and the importing their "hacked" cities online, then just only allow regions built from the start on their servers to participate in the community stuff. In fact, that is almost the exact same proposal for an offline-mode for Diablo III that people have given. That way, you can have "offline-regions", private but online regions, and then not-public regions. If they did that, I would seriously consider buying this, as then I would have a choice about how much I want to sacrifice "onlineness" for community features each time I play. As it is now, no, I will not buy it.



And the sad thing, there is an "offline-crack" soon to be ready for SimCity 2013, which will basically be a local implementation of the server, and then you can just point SimCity 2013 on your local "server" and have offline that way. This is what they should of allowed in the first place.

[keith.lamothe]

Come on guys. It's just impractical to set up x100 bandwidth and hardware, if it's only required for 1-2 first weeks. What's the big deal?

If they are only able to provide a service to X users at once, they should only sell X copies (or possibly X*Y for some Y greater than 1, in a similar manner to airline overbooking... not a great idea but better than Y = infinity), and only sell more as it becomes apparent that their capacity is not being fully saturated.

On the face of it, that may sound absurd, but I'm sure they could spin it into some kind of graduated launch with a waiting-list for getting a key from the next available batch (knowing them, they could even work out some kind of "premium" purchase that lets you into a "faster" queue, and potentially really scalp some tickets, so to speak).  For that matter, they could go with a more full-on "subscription" route so that the people who just stop playing for whatever reason no longer show up in their numbers of "we need to be able to provide this service to this many people".

I wouldn't be in favor of that, as I prefer to pay one up-front price for a game and that's the end of the transaction, but I would consider it at least a valid exercise of their freedom to do something like that.


Selling a copy (or a license to a copy, or a service, or a license to a service, or whatever it is nowadays) with the clear expectation that it be immediately playable (at least in singleplayer) but doesn't work for 1-2 weeks because they "overbooked" gets into the territory of the immoral, and the case could be made, illegal (particularly on retail purchase without pre-accepted EULA).

[keith.lamothe]

I'd also add that it is possible to set up agreements with hardware (etc) suppliers, staffing, etc such that the infrastructure could "scale" relatively quickly up even 100x, if it were designed properly.

It could be very expensive depending on how the launch went, but the expenses would not be perpetual and you'd probably gain more in "not being a total PR clusterbleep" than you'd lose actually providing the necessary capacity for 1-2 weeks.

It would also be a hard problem, but it's EA, I'm sure they have competent people over there somewhere.  Or can pay to find some.

[madcow]

I'm sure EA has some amazingly smart and competent people. As is often the case in big companies. It's a question of how much the suits listen to them

[keith.lamothe]

I'm sure EA has some amazingly smart and competent people. As is often the case in big companies. It's a question of how much the suits listen to them

If they pitched a business plan involving subscriptions and "premium subscriber" plans and so on, I think the suits would be very happy.  Disgustingly so

[keith.lamothe]

Somewhat oversimplified, but relevant: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/03/08/

[madcow]

Haha. I love PA

Also it's a good thing you're not working in a game compa... Aww crap.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

@Zespri: Actually, there are plenty of reasons to not have online-DRM. Namely: The Internet itself. Don't know if you've noticed but our Internet infrastructure in the US is crap. And it's only getting worse as more and more stressful services tax it even further. A lot of people live in areas where Internet connections are unstable at best, slow at worse. And now you want to tell them they always need to be connected in order to play their game? That's a laugh.

My current living situation is in Eugene OR. And I still have my Internet crash frequently and for long periods of time. Before that my connection was slow and unstable. I'm just glad Steam finally fixed its offline mode because I've needed it more times in the last couple of months than I ever did in the last five years. Thankfully, it has worked every time. And you say always-online DRM is the future? Then good luck getting me to buy those games. Because my Internet connection doesn't support it. I know I am not alone in that regard.

[keith.lamothe]

Also it's a good thing you're not working in a game compa... Aww crap.

Hahaha.  I do actually think about "alternative monetization" a fair bit, but mainly trying to find an approach that customers/players actually prefer to the traditional model, rather than ways of exploiting them.  I think this is particularly important for the audiences of "niche" games where the number of people buying games in a particular "genre" or "market" simply cannot amount to the kind of revenue needed for full-on modern production values, etc.  Finding a way to connect people who want to play those kinds of games (with high production values across the board, not just graphics/sound/etc) with the people who want to make those kinds of games, such that neither side is getting scalped financially or otherwise treated unethically... I think that's an important pursuit.

It's just a very young "field", so a lot of the more embarassing and naive mistakes are being made now.  I imagine many of them will keep on being made by the just-in-it-for-the-money crowd, but over time I expect better solutions will come to light.

Kickstarter is one relatively bright spot on this particular horizon, I think, though there's still a lot of bumbling-along-blindly involved for all parties there.

[keith.lamothe]

@Zespri: Actually, there are plenty of reasons to not have online-DRM. Namely: The Internet itself. Don't know if you've noticed but our Internet infrastructure in the US is crap. And it's only getting worse as more and more stressful services tax it even further. A lot of people live in areas where Internet connections are unstable at best, slow at worse. And now you want to tell them they always need to be connected in order to play their game? That's a laugh.

My current living situation is in Eugene OR. And I still have my Internet crash frequently and for long periods of time. Before that my connection was slow and unstable. I'm just glad Steam finally fixed its offline mode because I've needed it more times in the last couple of months than I ever did in the last five years. Thankfully, it has worked every time. And you say always-online DRM is the future? Then good luck getting me to buy those games. Because my Internet connection doesn't support it. I know I am not alone in that regard.

Basically studios that have moved to always-online DRM have simply decided to not care about whether you (or people with a similar internet situation or ethical stance) buy their games, or even exist

[KingIsaacLinksr]

@Zespri: Actually, there are plenty of reasons to not have online-DRM. Namely: The Internet itself. Don't know if you've noticed but our Internet infrastructure in the US is crap. And it's only getting worse as more and more stressful services tax it even further. A lot of people live in areas where Internet connections are unstable at best, slow at worse. And now you want to tell them they always need to be connected in order to play their game? That's a laugh.

My current living situation is in Eugene OR. And I still have my Internet crash frequently and for long periods of time. Before that my connection was slow and unstable. I'm just glad Steam finally fixed its offline mode because I've needed it more times in the last couple of months than I ever did in the last five years. Thankfully, it has worked every time. And you say always-online DRM is the future? Then good luck getting me to buy those games. Because my Internet connection doesn't support it. I know I am not alone in that regard.

Basically studios that have moved to always-online DRM have simply decided to not care about whether you (or people with a similar internet situation or ethical stance) buy their games, or even exist

Sadly, that is the case. *sighs*.

[madcow]

I'll agree that kickstarter and humble bundles are both signs that you don't need to scalp customers for all they're worth to pull in a good return.

Granted. Humble bundle is for when games get put to pasture, and kickstarter is exactly the opposite

PS. The humble tidalis bundle

[keith.lamothe]

Basically studios that have moved to always-online DRM have simply decided to not care about whether you (or people with a similar internet situation or ethical stance) buy their games, or even exist

Sadly, that is the case. *sighs*.

Well, look on the bright side: you and they are under no compulsion to do business with each other.  They can make (and, honestly, break) games however they please, and you can ignore them.  It would be a lot worse if someone was forcing you and those publishers to find some kind of compromise.

[Mánagarmr]

What? There's actually someone DEFENDING this hilarious piece of horrid design? What? How...what? That blows my mind. It's such a disastrous disregard for customer freedom it's hilarious. That I have to be constantly connected to a server that could potentially go down at any time and take my savegames with it...to play a single player game...boggles my mind. It's such a stupid design desicion that I cannot fathom that there is ANY regard for the customer in that design. It's purely to create an "online service" that can be milked with DLC further down the line. Also DRM.

*steps down from soap box*

[keith.lamothe]

*steps down from soap box*

You mean it wasn't an exploding barrel?