would you be willing to spend $200 on a future COMPLETE Simcity?

[Nielsen 10]

 

I'd also prefer if games were thoroughly tested before being shipped, but bugs are still inevitable. The problem is how the current gaming industry is using patches to outsource beta testing to the consumers instead of a last resort. Meanwhile,I have no problem with DLC if it makes a game better. I don't think it has something to do with age, I'm also in my twenties.

[elektrichead22 10]

 

A bug free game is impossible and I don't see the logic in paying more for less. All I want is that the developers start to focus more on the actual product rather than the marketing of it. Then I'd happily buy it at a standard price.

 

shows how old my twenty something ass is but when i was a teenager even a dos that couldn't be patched was doomed

 

I'd also prefer if games were thoroughly tested before being shipped, but bugs are still inevitable. The problem is how the current gaming industry is using patches to outsource beta testing to the consumers instead of a last resort. Meanwhile,I have no problem with DLC if it makes a game better. I don't think it has something to do with age, I'm also in my twenties.

well it's pretty obvious even with simcity 4 2003 that we are the beta testers.... for some reason paying a ceo more than a mill a year is more important than not  paying an intern nothing for three months

[kylewilley 1]

 

A bug free game is impossible and I don't see the logic in paying more for less. All I want is that the developers start to focus more on the actual product rather than the marketing of it. Then I'd happily buy it at a standard price.

 

shows how old my twenty something ass is but when i was a teenager even a dos that couldn't be patched was doomed

 

I'd also prefer if games were thoroughly tested before being shipped, but bugs are still inevitable. The problem is how the current gaming industry is using patches to outsource beta testing to the consumers instead of a last resort. Meanwhile,I have no problem with DLC if it makes a game better. I don't think it has something to do with age, I'm also in my twenties.

 

I agree that bugs are going to be inevitable.  I also would like to add that, while the concept of a "complete" game is great, we have NEVER been satisfied with a "complete" SimCity.  What is the first thing asked by all of us?  "Will there be mods?", right?

 

Why are we modding?  Because we can all come up with something that could be improved, or changed, or added in, or whatever.  SimCity is not, and will never be, a platform game.  There is no End of Stage 1.  There is no Final Boss to defeat.  This is a free-form game that has no end and no specific goal other than what is in your own imagination.  We are trying to figure out what is the best way to simulate the city of our own imagining.  We each see improvements that are needed differently, so how can this game ever be truly complete?  Especially without this modding community.

 

As far as bug-free and poorly developed systems, let's look at a couple of things:

1. Think about the last version of Windows that you bought.  Was it bug-free?  Did it not need to be updated?  OK, fine, how about iOS?  Nope, pretty sure it needs updates as well, otherwise you'd still be on iOS 1.0.  Android? Same.  We could keep going...

Secondly, I work in a hospital.  We just moved from multiple different computer systems (programs really, since they run on Windows OS) to one all-encompassing program.  We were promised that the system could do all of these wonderful, amazing things and that what we needed would just pop up on our screens whenever we needed them.  So wrong.  It works for some jobs, not so much for others.  Those of us collecting data find that the current system is incredibly lacking.  But, we are told, there is DLC that would make our lives much easier.  At a price.  What kind of price?  So much so that currently less than 100 hospitals in the country have actually gotten there.

C. If these types of systems cannot be available without bugs, fixes, DLC, upgrades, etc., why do we expect so much more from SimCity?  I am by no means defending some of the incompetence that we put up with on March 5th.  I, for one, tried for 4 days before I got to play the game for the first time.  But it is a system more than a simple game.  This is not, as I said before, Mario battling the Big Boss before the credits roll.  It is a big, complicated game with no way of anticipating exactly how we are all going to go about playing.

 

I guess what I am trying to say here is this: let's let our desires, requests, and demands be heard by Maxis and EA, but also be a little patient.  Keep planning on how to improve this game and pressure them into doing it.  It's still a little early to toss this one and demand one that is 100% complete and 100% error-free and do it by this weekend.

 

</Soapbox>

[JustSomeZombie 0]

Well, here's the thing;

 

Paying $200 for a game, up front, isn't at all uncommon. I've done it twice in the past year (and I'm not what one would consider a "hardcore" gamer.) In the MMO genre, they're lifetime subscriptions and every game calls them something a little different. It's always a gamble with MMO's but people still do it. Look at Star Wars: The Old Republic. Everyone thought it would be awesome so people lined up like it was an iPhone release to play it.  A month later? It was like the Hebrews evacuating Egypt- people couldn't crawl over one another fast enough to get away from it. The same thing (to a considerably less dramatic effect) happened to The Secret World- several but several years of hype that added up to basically the Price-Is-Right fail horn. Both of those games had options for lifetime subscriptions that were in (or at) the $200 clam mark and people did it- not because they knew the game would be flawless out of the box, but because they wanted to be there when improvements were made, no matter what. 

 

And that's the problem I take with the premise of this argument; would I pay that much money for a game? Absolutely. If I love something or anticipate loving something? Why not. But I wouldn't do it because EA assured me it was "perfect" and that no updates would ever need to be done to it, ever. I a.) wouldn't believe them and b.) would feel like I was being taken for sucker since basically every game that costs any more than this one did, comes with a guarantee of exactly the opposite- fresh, new, content on a regular basis.

 

I'm with you on the DRM thing though- I should be able to play Sim City wherever I want. I shouldn't have to connect to their servers to do it. That makes my $70 seem like just a lifetime rental. But Sim City fell victim to it and rather than not buy it, we showed up in record numbers to do just that. $1.1 million copies in the first two weeks- unheard of. So we can complain about the DRM all we like, but to EA, we probably seem like that ex we all have who talks about how "over us" they are by posting things on Facebook like "Never thinking about him again! Ever!" 

[GenXisT 127]

absolutely not... however if they're meant to make us do DLC for "updates" that should've been there to begin with, chances are good I'll end up dropping that much anyway.

it's just so wrong cuz I love Sim City.  Always have and I'd hate to have to abandon the franchise because of this nonsense.

[Archangel9 28]

150 quid???? Are you a troll or just having a laugh?

 

I paid 40, and not paying a penny more until they sort the game out. They're a long way from the shambles of last week, but still have a long way to go till they get to the functionality and fun of SC4.

lol american here i still laugh every time i hear quid but the point being a game being released with no ep released for years on end and no left out content for months on end... 

 

Yeah it always makes me think of "Squid"...then I picture british people paying for things with big slimey Squids.  

 

I love expansion packs/DLC. It makes me feel like im gettting presents.  Its nice to play a game like Civ V for a few hundred hours and then get an expac down the line that adds new features. To me a game like Civ is already complete, so an expac refreshes gameplay and keeps the game exciting.

 

However, if they decide to throw in subways and call that an expac, sorry no dice. I think subways and larger tiles should have been included in the base game. We should get subways as a free patch, with some option to buy different looking stations should we chose to pay.

 

Finally, the original post. No, because as I stated above, I like to get my candy in increments so I dont get fat from eating it all at once. I realise Ill end up spending 200 on this simcity with the DLC theyre gonna release in the future, but im hoping that'll continue to keep the game exciting. ... ..... Just waiting for the game to fix some issues so it can start being exciting

[Odainsaker 2,136]

Regardless of whether the product is issued as complete or teased out in little morsels, if that grand total is anywhere near what the industry now typically expects to make off each individual player just for a single, stand-alone game, then the game industry perhaps needs to undergo some serious dieback.

 

Of course, given the monthly subscription model of some games, $200 may not actually be too far off a single yearly haul milked from consumers sucking at the teat.  The Sims franchise reaps even greater sticker shock if you dare add all the components together.  Let's see...I pay $13 a month for one MMORPG, which I have played for 10 years now.  If we just factor out and sum it all up...$1560...OMIGOSH!  The game pricing scheme might be monthly subscriptions, ingame microtransactions, DLC, omnipresent ads, periodic expansion packs, or upfront price tags, but, the scheme has to reap the predicated revenue.  A persistent MMORPG service might justify its long-term price tag due to ongoing server maintenance costs, but I can't justify the same for a game force-fitted into such a service model, such as SimCity.  EA expects too much.

 

Yep, time for some dieback.

[cirugo 1,889]

not if I have to connect to a server in order to play it.

[Camlon 50]

I would have no problems paying that amount, and I bet most of the people who say "no" here would still pay for it if they are unable to get a pirated copy.

 

Its not like its very much money. Even in China for white collar workers, it is a weekly salary. In western countries it is 1-2 days of work. That's worth it if it will give me thousands of hours of gameplay.

[azxcvbnm321 17]

I have no problem either.  For a good game that offers hundreds of hours of gameplay, $200 is cheap.  You can't get that kind of value elsewhere, a 2 hour movie costs $10, 2 hours at the blackjack tables in Vegas will cost you far more.  

 

The reason there are DLCs is because people may not be willing to spend $200 at once, but they sure will if it's split into smaller parts.  That's why many people spend more than $100 a month on coffee drinks from Starbucks because it's "only" $5 a pop.  Yet they'll complain about a $60 game (not SimCity because that deserves complaints).  A lot of people are not rational, or rather they are ill-informed and feel entitled.  

[jamn69 5]

I only had to pay $20.00 for my SimCity 2013 after using my Best Buy Reward Zone certificates, which is like free money! No way in hell would I pay $200.00 for a game! I still can't believe people

pay $19.95 or more a month for playing online games, and the ones who play the crap facebook games with real money, Especially the Zynga pester your friends for everything company games!

[commanderkai 38]

The only way I'd pay $200 for a single game is if it was some advanced holographic technology that allows me to witness the natural growth of the city from any angle I can ever imagine, fully and perfectly rendering every person, vehicle, and structure.

[Mr. Flibble 134]

I can think of no game I'd remotely consider paying $200 for out of the gate without being able to play a full-featured unlocked demo for a period of time. Even then that's a tall mountain to climb. I have other hobbies than gaming.

[Fantozzi 4,068]

Interesting question. Made me think of all the ties I bought in my life. Must be around 40. The piece between 20 and 80 Euro. I spent roundabout 2000 Euros on ties. Funny: I don't wear ties, normally. I wear them if I have to.

 

Almost everything sad. In my opinion.

 

Why mankind spents so much money on such useless things as ties? So why don't spent 150 Euro an a PC-game. Where's the difference?

 

About 200 Years ago a very wise man said: "The meaning of life is to gather the highest possible amount of happy moments" (my translation, don't know if it's understandable).

 

Games were invented for this. To make us happy. Arguing about them doesn't make me happy.

 

 

The ties I won't wear anymore I throw or give them away. The games that aren't fun - should I spent my time playing them, because I spent money on them? That's absurd thought! It perverts the meaning of life. So there's something wrong in this question. You could ask also: would you spent a Billion Dollar on a thing that makes you happy? 

 

The wrong thing in this thought is: you can't wait as long to be happy. You can't wait as long till EA has made the perfect game or as long as you gained the Billion Dollars. Life is to short for that. You must try to be happy  under the circumstances AS THEY ARE HERE AND NOW and not waiting for some times where IT MIGHT BE that your wishes are fullfilled and you could be happy.

 

That's the lession of my life. Try to get things that make you happy. NOW. Throw away the things that doesn't make you happy. NOW. Don't argue about what should be or might be so you could be happy someday somehow.

 

When the time comes to face death all these things won't grieve you: the ties, the wasted money, the stolen cars. You can ask every old man and every old woman. They won't complain about such things - 80 Euro spent for the wrong game, 100 Euro spent for a useless tie. But they all complain about those moments where there was the chance to be happy - and they let it pass by because they were waiting on a better occasion, they wanted to be secure.

 

So if a game isn't fun to you - don't play it. Don't read bad books. Don't make careless XXX. But most important: NEVER EVER grieve about it if it happens to you. Don't sit down in sorrow and wait for the 200-Dollar-Game to come. Try and find out what makes you happy. NOW. You can't make your happyness dependend on future developments of EA. What should this be? A blind date with a company or a brand?

 

Play games that are fun for you and you can effort. Don't wait for the "perfect thing" coming along. You will see: that isn't a question of money at all.

[MandelSoft 2,774]

Of course, given the monthly subscription model of some games, $200 may not actually be too far off a single yearly haul milked from consumers sucking at the teat.  The Sims franchise reaps even greater sticker shock if you dare add all the components together.  Let's see...I pay $13 a month for one MMORPG, which I have played for 10 years now.  If we just factor out and sum it all up...$1560...OMIGOSH.

And that's why I don't play subscription-based games. It just costs just ridiculous. I believe I've spent a grand total of €23.76 on SimCity 4 and I have fun with it for hundreds of hours and counting. Heck, I even have a lot of fun with free games like OpenTTD! Putting that into perspective, $200 is quite much for a game. I mean, for the same price, I can buy 10-20 music albums, two science magazine subscriptions or a brand new stereo!

The only piece of software where I spent that much on is FL Studio 10... but that's a more specialist program (= more expensive!) for music making, which I really like to do. Besides, it's a professional program where I have good expereinces with (used Fruityloops 3.1 before I bought FL Studio 8 Fruity, upgraded the program to FL Studio 10 Producer Edition lately), and the program is suprisingly stable and bug-free (only manage to crash it just once). And yes, the program does have some (though not that cheap) DLC too, like extra advanced plugins, effects and sample sets. But I'm still cautious in my spendings at that front...

Best,

Maarten

[Mr Saturn64 742]

I would not.

 

If they were going to make a complete Sim City it would be more logical to see reviews/footage/gameplay/trailers/etc before spending $200.  Take SC2013 for an example.  It was advertised as the "complete" Sim City.  Well, I don't play because I don't want to be always online, but the game was certaintly NOT complete.  A complete Sim City game would have single and multiplayer, have thousands of buildings, asy zoning, lots of landmarks, all the bonus benefits you could imagine, things to do, and whatever the heck else they want. 

 

But even still, they will never be able to make a game that everyone would like.  Take U Drive it for example.  It seems like half the people like it, the other half doesn't.  In SC2013, they decided it would satisfy most people to build the game like a social network.  Aiming for everybody is a mighty big thing to say.  Was the game what everybody wanted?  No.  I didn't like the always online feature.  That's for facebook games, not Sim City.  They can't achieve making a city building game for the audience this saidgame is of.  But pre-ordering an alleged perfect game for $200 would just not work.  You would need to be seriously naive to actually buy in to that.  A city building game won't satisfy everyone, no matter how good it is.  There are great games out there, but they aren't all perfect.

[Flat Raver 59]

Two hundred US dollars!? Are bleeping you kidding me? Do you have any idea how many starving children you can feed with that kind of money? I mean, sheesh, isn't 60$ expensive enough already?

[arcology 224]

$200 collectively, over the years, yes.  That would be including a really complete base game, with subsequent expansion packs (not a million microtransactions/DLC) - and all with the guarantee that I can play it 20+ years from now.

 

I've spent more than that over the years for the entire sims franchise and would have no problem, as long as the game meets my "vision"/requirements. 

[Mr. Flibble 134]

Two hundred US dollars!? Are bleeping you kidding me? Do you have any idea how many starving children you can feed with that kind of money? I mean, sheesh, isn't 60$ expensive enough already?

 

Yeah, two. For a month. Thankfully not everything revolves around the conversion rate between starving children and personal desires in life. It's more than I'd ever pay, though.

[mrbisonm 1,622]

There is no bug free software, of any kind. Is fact. 

 

False......try "The Settlers IV" or "1503AD", no bugs at all,  never had any problems whatsoever and I have been playing both for years. "CIV III" only had one bug, easily and quickly fixed........These are well thought through, well assembled and organized  and greatly tested games before they were put onto the market. Strange..... All of them aren't from EA, which say they're the best.

 

 

 

Now to the question **If I would buy........Simcity for 200 bucks?**

 

Yes.......SC4 only (incl. with custom content). ...and no more "stuff" from EA anymore, had f****** problems with Sims2 and Sims3 also, plus REAL problems with them remembering my login and don't ask me about their customers help....geeeeez, I don't want to climb up the wall again. (btw, do they actually have customers help?...lol) These games, such as Simcity 2013, are well thought of games (the idea was Great), but unfortunetly not well developped ones. Firstly they were too quickly done, hardly with any thorough testing and nothing included what the SC community has been mentioning and begging for over the last 10 years. One error after the other, so many bugs that we need an exterminator, even worse than SCSocieties.....and then....WOW, what a wonderful first day presentation, lol, not even able to play the game for weeks....But, my father always told me that *not everyone who say he's a Professional  actually is one*, so I understand.

 

No, I will not buy any Simcity from EA anymore, not even for 20 bucks....unless they pay me 200 bucks to try it and/or unless it (the excellent functions of the game) was proven by other players (Guinea pigs)  for months that it is working properly as "1503AD" , "The Settlers" or "CIV III" without hardly any bugs and not needing a whole line of add-ons and patches.

Why do you think they have it made online play only? Easy to hide their constant patching and improving the game without telling us what went wrong. They are probably reprogramming the game as we speak, doing overtime work.....lol. Kinda smart, I must say that at least.

 

Good luck to anyone who thinks that he/she is enjoying this "cancer-infested" SC. Mine is on the shelf now, stagged under SC vanilla and Serfcity from the nineties.

 

 

mrb

 

EDIT:  Just have a look at the link below....unbelievable!!!! Did actually anyone from Maxis try the game out before it was put up for sale? I wonder.

 

https://help.ea.com/article/simcity-updates

[Panos 29]

There is no bug free software, of any kind. Is fact. 

 

False......try "The Settlers IV" or "1503AD", no bugs at all,  never had any problems whatsoever and I have been playing both for years. "CIV III" only had one bug, easily and quickly fixed........These are well thought through, well assembled and organized  and greatly tested games before they were put onto the market. Strange..... All of them aren't from EA, which say they're the best.

 

Sorry but had to lol. 

[Mr Saturn64 742]

Once again, EA thought that SC2013 was complete.  No.  No it was not.

[Cottoncandy Cyanide 145]

No. :l

[Mootilda 76]

Yes, I believe that I would be willing to pay $200 for a game that works well and that I can enjoy for a decade.

[jacqueline 2]

sorry no $200 is far too much for a video game, i would not pay that.

[Metalpuritan 160]

I have commented on this very same subject many times in the past.  I will use "Sims 3" as an example here.  As Sims 3 sits right now, it is valued at over $300.00.  No joke.  That is what it will cost you to get all expansion packs for that game, a full complete up to date game that costs well over $300.00.  That is how it is.  There are obviously people who have bought and paid for all of it, my sister being one of them.  I asked her one day, "If you had never played this game before and saw it one day and liked it, would you go and spend $300.00 on it to have the full game?"  She said "No."

 

See, the problem is that people do not think into the future, they either think about the here and now or the in the past.  I haven't purchased any game in the past 5 or so years because of downloadable content.  I can see before I even buy the game that in order for me to continue to enjoy a game I will have to continue investing in it.  When I go tot he store and buy a game I want a full complete game, that is what I am paying for.  I do not care what a game maker says, obviously I don't or I would be strung along like so many of you have been.  I will remain abstinent until they stop the downloadable content expansion pack bull crap.  If they do not stop it, then they will just never see another dollar from me again.  That is also how it is.

 

I have heard stories about how the new SimCity sold 1.1 million copies in it's first week, what I have to say about that?  1.1 million suckers.  That is only a mere fraction of the suckers in the world though, so it is not too hard to believe.

 

/opinion

[libellibicus 396]

$200 for a computer game? F#@*king no chance!

[allkill326 8]

I did it once for Photoshop, but I'm not doing it for SC4.