Havent played in months and won't until...

[Jons511 12]

Is there anyone out there like me that used to play this game a lot, but hasn't played in a long time because certain things are unacceptable?

 

I haven't played this game since update 5, and I probably wont again until a certain number of things have been fixed.

 

There are several minor things that irk me about the game but two real big ones.

 

The first big thing that would make me want to play this again would be if they put city tiles next to each other like Sim City 4. If they're not going to give us bigger maps, at least make the illusion we have bigger cities in region view by placing the cities right next to each other.

 

Secondly, terraforming. Due to cities being so spread out, I don't want the wasted space of a cliff in the middle of my city, or a giant mountain in the worst possible place. Leave those outside my city or let me terraform it to my liking.

 

The other minor stuff like, multiple entrances, subways, etc, do bother me, but I suppose I could live without them if they fixed the above.

 

Sorry for the rant, but I check this forum periodically because I really do WANT to play, but cant seem to get around certain things that irk me from a gameplay standpoint.

 

Also, as an aside, if they want me to buy expansion packs, they should stop releasing them constantly and demanding money. Release them in bundles semi-annually, and I would consider them. I understand that every Sim City was "broken" upon release, but at least they did not nickel and dime us with several expansion packs being released all the time. Stop releasing so many individual expansion packs to recoup your money lost from a failed launch, and release them together in a bundle.

[hickerydickerydock 12]

Yeah I'm doing the same thing right now.  I haven't played in about 3 weeks and have no interest to either.  When I did play 3 weeks ago even though some things were fixed many other things were still broken.  I find it fun to play for the first few hours, then slowly but surely I start becoming extremely irritated at the the many bugs and flaws of the game. 

 

I still check the forums frequently however in hopes that Maxis/EA will do a complete overhaul of the game OR someone mentions a new city simulator being developed.  I guarantee people will start complaining like crazy again on the forums once the expansion pack is released.  Frankly I think the new expansion is a total waste of money and everyone should be collectively agreeing not to buy it until Maxis/EA overhaul this game. 

[Ocram's Razr 963]

I hope you know that those that ordered the game before or within 1 month of the game being released then stopped playing after a short while contribute to the initial success (telling the developers that they did the game right) and the not-so-slow death of the game (seemingly showing that customers are seemingly easily bored and want frequent expansion packs). When they don't buy a certain expansion pack (but enough buy it so that it at least breaks even, even if it is not a huge success), it sends a message that customers want a different type of expansion pack.

That is one reason why I waited to buy the game until just recently. I found that update 7 added things I liked that were not in the game before then. New maps that were released in Update 8 seem like fun but I have yet to play them. The game will never have larger maps (but there is a mod that allows you to build roads and plop buildings outside the map) and that should have been clear at the release.

Therefore, you are part of the problem and will contribute to either the death of the SimCity franchise or the release of a new, slightly altered game in less than 4 years' time.

--Ocram

[Cobraroll 138]

That's the good thing with SimCity '13, though. It was popular and talked about enough to give the developers a massive amount of feedback, basically all saying "we'd buy the game if you fixed this and that and it had an offline mode". When designing SC13, the developers only had the legacy of an eight-year old game to work with, a game that succeeded because it filled the demands the fanbase had at that time. The demands have changed since then, so when developing SC13, they had to make guesses (or surveys, I guess) to find out how people wanted the game to be. I'd say that after the absolute train crash that was the reception of SC13, they know a lot better what the fans want and don't want. Whenever SC13 is talked about, the same issues are brought up time and time again, the same suggestions are made. If EA decides to give the SimCity series a new installment before SC13 is outdated and irrelevant in terms of what customers expect from games, I'd say they will have a very easy time setting design criteria (for starters, bigger maps and a simulation that isn't heavily dependent on pathfinding).

 

If there ever is a "SimCity 2", I'd have high hopes for it. EA knows what we want now. Let's hope they decide to give it to us. If SC13 breaks even, or makes a profit, it's a sign that there still is room in the market for a city building game.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

The thing is that SimCity has already turned a profit, most likely a very sizable one. It exceeded 2 Million sales in, like, July. It sold 1.1 Million copies within 1 month from release. Lets say the profit margin is $40 per game (which is very low), in order for the game to have not been profitable from the huge sales numbers, it would have had to cost over $50 million to develop.

--Ocram

[Cobraroll 138]

^Keep in mind that a decent part of the price you pay as a customer goes to the stores, or server maintenance. Development costs aren't the only expenses of a game developer. While most of the money goes to EA, parts of it will "fall off" at earlier points in the chain. Still, I agree that SC13 might already have made a profit for EA, and paid back its investment.

 

Either way, with the semi-success of the concept, I guess they have plans to keep it going, or yet better, renew it. It will probably be a couple of years, 2015 at the earliest, but I think we'll see a new installment of the SimCity franchise in the semi-near future. And I have high hopes of it being better than SC13 in several ways (while arguably worse in others, as they will have to relocate resources from certain parts of the game to strengthen others).

[Xenocity 343]

The thing is that SimCity has already turned a profit, most likely a very sizable one. It exceeded 2 Million sales in, like, July. It sold 1.1 Million copies within 1 month from release. Lets say the profit margin is $40 per game (which is very low), in order for the game to have not been profitable from the huge sales numbers, it would have had to cost over $50 million to develop.

--Ocram

Actually on most games that cost between $40-$60 that see physical releases have a profit margin between $10 to $25 depending on retailers.

Retailers will take a bigger chucnk if they believe your game will be a modest or low seller.

(this number doesn't include the in-store marketing or the buying of shelf space)

 

Those games that are released digitally on stores such as Steam, Apple, Amazon, Origin etc... have to pay 30% -%40 of the price to the store owners.

 

Selling a digital copy on Amazon will cost you $24 for a $60 game.

 

Since ~60% of the total copies of Simcity 2013 were sold digitally through Origin, EA gets the full $60.

 

Due to high development budget, server costs, maintenance/patching costs, etc... EA has only made a modest profit on Simcity 2013 according to their July conference call.

 

Also in that conference call (which was posted on this site), the majority of the users are still regularly playing the game and user activity is increasing.

 

As it stands Simcity 2013 is quickly becoming one of the most played online games.

[Griffon 19]

If you checked the SimCity blog they had a "Welcome Back" blog post not long ago.  It basically said more people are starting to play again, that includes people that bought the game then quit a while ago and people that just bought it.  They think it's because of the recent patches and that the expansion pack is coming out soon.  In the blog it reviews most of the improvements in the patches, like the roman casino, new regions, and lower/raise road tool.

 

I kinda believe that this will go the same way as The Sims games.  Tons of expansion packs then release a new base game that has none of the last game's expansion/DLC stuff added to it and basically start over then release different expansion packs.  So I expect this SimCity will last a total of 2 to 3 possibly 4 years.  I also think that when the offline patch comes out, that will be the end of this particular game, not necessarily the series (though some people say that SC4 was the last of the true series).

 

But I think this expansion pack is the last thing I buy for SimCity5 (although I said that with every other DLC too sadly).