SimCity Developers' Reddit AMA Swiftly Turns Into WTF With The Online-Only DRM?

This post sounds like made by the WestBoro baptist church! My god, the amount of sensationalism is too damn high. Isn't cirugo though, his grammar is atrociously bad.

am i the only one here who does not care at all....

im waiting at least 2 years before making a purchase,

You can me both. I don't purchase software right out of the development shop. All pioneers get what they deserve: a big fat arrow, right in the brisket.

I am going to sit in the weeds until all the flap dies down and see if, in say two years, this game is still alive and deemed playable by people whose opinions I respect.

You can me both. I don't purchase software right out of the development shop. All pioneers get what they deserve: a big fat arrow, right in the brisket.

I am going to sit in the weeds until all the flap dies down and see if, in say two years, this game is still alive and deemed playable by people whose opinions I respect.

I have a feeling that, as unfortunate as it is to say, this game will die in the eyes of the hardcore Sim City community within only a few years time. I hope Sim City franchise doesn't do a 360, looping right back to where we stand regarding the Sim City Societies atrocity.

im seeing a 3 way fight going on.. community>maxis<EA . Maxis are stuck in the middle, and i think everyone is forgetting what the game was, what the game is, and what the game will be.

EA have their mandatory parameters/requirements that must be included, and we have our demands. Maxis is trying to create something from both of these demands.. we will just have to wait and see what the 'translation' of these demands turns out to be

whining about how they can’t pirate junk anymore.

Hey, once you GET A JOB, then you can afford to buy software.

You got that backwards - I've yet to hear a pirate complain that he can't pirate anymore.

What I see are grown-up folks (well some) who HAVE A JOB, but do not want to waste their hard-earned bucks on some sort of cripple-ware.

Did you even read the article? DRM only prevents piracy if the game is a fantastic, multiplayer focused game... like Starcraft 2. In a game like Simcity, it encourages piracy.

I read it. Did you? If I understand it properly, you need to be connected to the Internet to play the game. If that is the case, I imagine it'd be pretty easy to identify pirates. Of course, I may be misunderstanding and I'm totally off. If I am correct however, how could this encourage piracy? That would be like robbing the bank and parking in front of the police station and saying, "it was me." Again, my understanding may be off, but if they are doing this to track the hack, it's pretty crafty.

I’ll clarify just a little…

It doesn’t matter what your financial, well-being, or any other sort of position you have. It’s people who want to steal, doesn’t matter what your position is; anybody can steal!

Yes, even everyone can, but not everyone want to do so. I'm sure if everyone can, even you too, but not everyone is interested to steal something, right ?

But lately, it seems everyone is talking about money, not wasting money, spend money here! Lose some of it here; people are OBSESSED with money. No matter if it’s the gain side, or the losing side, it’s coming from all parties.

Obsessed ? Really ?

Probably, not obsessed, but it should be considered as well. Simple question, do you want to buy a piece of dust for $1,000 ? Will you consider the difference of price between that piece of dust and $1,000 ? Do you think it will not become a profit for the dust seller only ?

Also, related to privacy, if you’re not like a Facebook user who tells their whole life story, businesses will have a hard time tracking you; even Google spams advertisements based on what you have searched!

I think everyone have their rights, and if they don't mind to tell everything about them, what is the problem ? And if someone try to track me, as long as they are not a treat, why should I care too much ? Why should even you care too much about Google spams and peoples who try to track you if they won't kill you?

DRM is a pain in th a.. to me. My internet fail sometimes, same to mu wifi router, sometimes I lost the wifi signal. This will kill my game. I do not will buy this game. SC4 has a lot yet in fun factor. Just some good graphics is not a reason to buy it. Thanks EA.

I've had a suspicion/feeling for a long time, and it keeps growing stronger. This article certainly hasn't helped to suppress it.

It seems to me like EA is using SC2013 less as a simple game release to please fans (and earn money in the process), but rather as a tool to gather a crowd of connected online followers and Origin users. In other words, the focus is not on satisfying existing clients and possibly attracting new ones, but on building up and strengthening a new distribution channel, luring people into a closed system (the "golden cage" model masterfully implemented by companies such as Apple) and hopefully keeping them in there.

As I said above, this is just a feeling, but one I cannot shake off.

The game contains some features that were never asked for, but which serve (surprisingly?) well to justify the "online only" decision. It could be a coincidence, of course. Then again, this coincidence works remarkably well.

Let us not forget that Maxis is a studio within EA and has no corporate existence. There can be no conflict between Maxis and guys who write their pay cheques.

Where the conflict, if any, will be is between people who want all the extended, custom content of SC4 as we now have developed it, and the base SimCity (2013) sales.

At the moment, I consider the upcoming game an exercise in new market mining, and I don't think any of us who are serious about our Plugins folders will actually bite this expensive fish hook. I must admit the bait is attractive, but any of us who have been around anyone other than Mommy know what bait smells like.

Time will tell. Let us not rush in to buy an unproven piece of software. I didn't pick up my Linux distro until they were up to version 7.04 (2007-April). Prior to that I was seeking something to replace windows because it was too bloated to fit my old box, and I had put up Red Hat for a while, looked at SUSE, and debian.

I had a little excursion into Linux Mint last year, but came back finally to Ubuntu as being the least worst of the current offerings.

Now, with games, if you want SimCity it is going to be Deluxe with its 10 year old graphics outlook or the new game with slick graphics but what content? Since they plan to offer a mobile connection, I suspect it is watered down to accommodate the phone network. You certainly won't be able to load up four or five gigs of plugins any time soon on a mobile phone.

Ermm I'll just stay to SC4 .. I think... :3

This post sounds like made by the WestBoro baptist church! My god, the amount of sensationalism is too damn high. Isn't cirugo though, his grammar is atrociously bad.

I always know when someone runs out of arguments... they use personal attacks instead.

People are starting to see this game for what it is. If you don't like that, and can find no better defense than attacking somebody's supposed "atrociously bad" grammar (funny, because I've never noticed that myself), perhaps you ought to leave and take your bad feelings elsewhere.

If you read the SC2013 forum you know my opinion I think the devs got exactly what they deserved. When faced with the fans that they couldn't sensor (like on the forums) they were presented with the real feedback they've actively denied. I also think its funny a certain overactive moderator in that forum likes to shut down active discussion saying the devs have heard enough and are getting annoyed. They should be annoyed for those that venture here and elsewhere in the real world.

DRM… Never encountered a problem; never had a problem.

Security protection software was in the industry years before it ever came to the game market. Now that developers are using it now, the little kiddys are whining about how they can’t pirate junk anymore.

Hey, once you GET A JOB, then you can afford to buy software.

I've not had a problem either since the software I use in business is apparently much more sophisticated. Most require an internet connection to authenticate at boot - others do it once at install with a limit of installs available.

If no connection is available, the software still functions but does not allow you to save.

HOWEVER, once authenticated, I can shut the entire network done indefinitely and be able to work and save my work to my own HD at my own time. If I don't shut the app down, it will work whenever and wherever I want.

That is how the industry has done it "years before it ever came to the game market" because they realised that it made no sense for people to be constantly connected online to work.

Now it may be possible that you work on some geek-tech-engineer software that does require full time connection... I don't know you or what you do... but none of the high-end pro creative software I use requires that.

This has absolutely, positively NOTHING to do with piracy. I will guarantee that Simcity will be pirated within minutes of release.

I do have a job and spend several thousands of dollars on software every year. I expect that software to work in the subway, on an airplane, and in our studio. If it does not work everywhere, its not worth a penny to me or my company.

It's called "doing business" - Adobe, Autodesk, Microsoft, etc know this.

Apparently EA does not.

Back to SC4 with countless mods, thank you.

Consider. most if not all support for SC4 has come from the community. If you have used SC over the years it has gotten better only because of that. EA is trying to make SC into the Sims and cant quite figure out how to do that.

Overall it is about control of their bottom line. I forsee addons coming which will cost users(instead of mods and bats). All the input given to make the new platform better has not gone un heard.

Online play is a way for EA to research how SC is used to support charging us for the features we would like to see, The new SC will never equal SC4. Then again it might but it will be a program for for people to play, not use.

Look at all the online stuff which is free but to get anywhere you need to take out the plastic to move forward. I spent time playing Evony which was fun but you get these players who have the time and money to sit there and make themselves into uber players. This in turn causes a select group to essentially control the experience which I can see happening with Region players.

SC4 started out as a game but has become an artisticly functional entity in its own right. This wasnt due to EA. So for EA to justify a server for online game it will need to get more out of us to keep it evolving alas loosing the interest of many along the way.

Do not do that cause nobody is gonna buy it. that simply

Seems I will play SC4 for many more years to come. Easier to get around technology compatibility issues than dealing with DRM.

Always online requirements are stupid in a game like this. If they want to encourage multiplayer and online cloud storage for cities etc, they need to use a journaled system that will sync when you can connect. I travel a LOT and one of my favorite times to play simcity is on flights. Yea.. I won't be buying or playing SimCity 5 until there's a crack enabling offline play..