macvirt

A moment of irony. Another interestingly clear observation from history it that it evolves in a spiral form. Faster cycles, wider cycles. So much for "oh that's something the grandkids may have to worry about" Funny thing also, the magnates used the state for covering their expenses of ventures, both failed and productive. Sound familiar? Wars, investments, everything. Still not sounding familiar? Let's be honest, it is a dead dream, a deceased potential, a failed experiment. The only thing that matters really is what message will be picked up by what follows in history. At the end of any life the only thing that matter is not what you leave behind but how you leave behind, because that is what ultimately determines what and (more importantly) how future generations remember. But that too is vulnerable to marketing. If it were not dead, people would not be having this kind of discussions, but very different ones. North Korea delenda est

So ... you do not see how such a statement enforces the very same type of thinking and actioning that you feel threatened by? You don't see how the sheer absence of conscious tolerance creates the very threats to your perception of choices? Really? Honestly? Human beings do not have innate rights. Rights are a concept created by human thinking and effectuated by human actioning. We can engage in a lot of philosophical and theological debate on that, but even the Vatican is wary of going there because the "one and only true" god of christianity in its original Kaananite incarnation made rather abundantly clear that humans exist solely in servitude without rights. Wonderful thing, scripture. Or maybe suddenly we want to see god as an evolving identity? Serious though, nobody in his or her right mind is going to attack anyone's choices of belief as long as it adheres to the one universally shared condition of all belief systems (though we should note that many organised versions - religions - that make use of belief systems steer far from recognising it): first do no harm and recognise the individuality of man (if anything, because god tells you to - pun intended). But if you cannot see how your statement causes harm you are either victim to indoctrination, dogma, trauma or troll. That is not a personal attack, far from, it's up to you to demonstrate to not be either if you are willing to participate in the debate. Nobody can establish truth on any part of "true" or "only" in relation to god or gods. That is because it is a concept of belief. That belief can only exist if the person or persons sharing a belief recognise that it is an individual and not an organisational choice. This is one of the differences between tolerance and fanaticism as much as it is one of the differences between belief and religion or faith and the differences between live & let live versus convert or die. Tolerance is what enables you to practice your belief. Taking a stand of principle of being the only one with truth or right is a guarantee to make yourself a victim through a sea of blood of others before you drown in it yourself. God wills it, after all, such a principle excuse. Then again, let's be honest, Christian religions are incredibly good at forcing people to feel as perpetually potential victims - where do you think governments learned the art of ruling through the management of fear as instrument from? Have a think, honestly. Count to ten, before falling prey to the profile of victimisation that is a required element of keeping people embedded in a religious system as opposed to people practising their beliefs. If that does not help, try something very human and divine alike: step in to the shoes of another person, and look through his or her eyes for a moment. Note the distinctions between having a belief and being religious.

It is the same thing. What constitutes a visual element to one is legitimate gameplay to the other, and vice versa, with the full range of differentations in between. It is the kind of conflict potential a game designer tends to avoid falling prey to because this is one of those things where you cannot cater to all user types you have to cater to for core elements of (researched, expected) behavioural patterns. In that sense, it is a lapse in game design, but not one likely to have come from that part of the project. Far more likely to be a consequence of decisions elsewhere, and game design having to fill in (pun intended) the consequential elements. This is not uncommon actually, it is very typical of publisher / studio project management in our industry. To keep it simple, such things occur out of compromises depending on the actual work taking place at a different level than the main decision processes. Not out of evil, bad planning or failures in confusing customer wishes.

Which god. Also, you do know that particular book itself is a result of the historic version of a convention where people decided what to include, what to discard, and more importantly what to rewrite?

Still requires the Origin platform, bit of a shame. From what I hear Steam is not going to happen in spite of some discussions, at least that is the reigning impression. I hope that does not become yet another debate victim to what essentially boils down to ego.

What a poll Honestly though, nice idea but this is beyond leading, it's getting very close to collecting data for the age old expression of "there's lies, damn lies, and statistics"

Ea has never sold an incomplete game forcing you to buy dlc to complete it. Why on earth do you believe that they would even try to pull such a stunt now? Actually, they have, and they haven't. DLC are by design strategy a part of specification. Their definition of "complete" has simply changed in comparison to that of customers. A complete title these days means the combination of title release (feature sets, content, art, etc) and that which was seperated from the specs to be releases seperate and that which is conceived to be added at a later stage. Three parts. The first two of those are actually what most customers tend to see as a the definition of "complete game", with the third being the "extra" cherries later on. By the way, it is interesting to make note of feature and function sets which were visible during development stages as well as in the marketing, which for the release have disappeared. Equally interesting it will be to see those elements resurface as DLC elements later on. From buildings via building styles via transit elements via infrastructural elements all the way to core elements like terraforming and moddability. Actually, no they haven't! Being incomplete would suggest that the game is unfinished. Day one , everyone will get a fully functional and completed version of sim city that doesn't require dlc to play. Everyone may think that there is dlc that should have been in the game to begin with, and I am not saying they're wrong, but it doesn't make the game incomplete with out it. I have been gaming for over 20 years , between steam, origin and psn, I have close to 100 games in my collection and most of them have the option for dlc and not one of those games is incomplete or even close to being incomplete. By the way, I rarely buy dlc myself, only for a very few select games will I ever buy any dlc . This is the way the industry has been going over the last few years with dlc, Devs will try to nickle and dime you to get any extra money they can out of their customers, but at the same time dlc is always optional. To your statement , there is no " they have and they haven't" (that doesn't even make any sense) , they either have or they haven't, and I can tell you "NO" they have NOT ever released an incomplete game. I don't know much about law, but I don't think that it would even be legal to do such a thing. You have managed to completely miss the point. A decade ago if we engaged on a venture for a title release we'd find our selves in plenty tight spots if we made the release without having met the targets set by the specification processes. In simple terms, if we released the title incomplete we'd have to spend quite a bit more (in resources assigned as well as costs which back then were always tallied seperate from the development costs) to deal with that in either a patch based approach or an enhancement approach. Both of which would take their own additional marketing campaign - either through community, support or mainstream channels or a combination of these. Nowadays we do the speccing, we go through the entire process, we then decide which parts are considered "core" to the intended experience, which parts are considered crucial for the processes of customer acquisition / retention and which parts carry a distinct value beyond these parts. We then cut those bits from the release planning, invest in a seperate planning mode for resource allocation, development and marketing for them, and call it DLC. We can do that because people are by now used to games being enhanced or complemented for both content and features after a title release with a very low resistance on a market level to these having a seperate price. That is what DLC technically is. We've just seen how we can save resources, deliver an incomplete title and make more money by completing it after the title release. One of the biggest tricks, so to speak, is that intrinsic balance between determining the core elements of experience and that which a set of selected user types will crave when presented (ideally instigated by means of exactly those core experience targets). It is a fine line to walk. Most studios, and particularly the bigger publishers know that fine line very well. That is why even people with 20 years of gaming experience as a consumer rarely look up to ask questions about how these concepts like DLC have come to be and how they have changed (particularly over the last few years). The core experience is a balanced set of targets to provide the experience of a full game, regardless of whatever perception the marketing creates in servitude of sales venues. The magic of it is that this is exactly what enables the concept of DLC to be expanded, with the tresholds of resistance on a consumer level ever decreasing. I don't think any publisher or developer would be crazy enough to leave out any "CORE ELEMENTS" out of any game. Core is what makes the game , dlc does not and I highly doubt that EA/maxis will break that rule now. EA isn't new to gaming, they know exactly how to entice people into buying dlc , they have been doing it for years now. You appear to be under the impression that this is somehow something that may or may not happen in the future. We've been doing this for years and years. Maybe I should point you to a very common but also very known example, 2K Games the publisher with Firaxis the studio and Civilization V the game. Remember the topic of religion? Part of design specification, removed from title release in spite of massive protests, reintroduced as part of DLC after release cycle, enhanced by a sweet marketing campaign designed to make customers believe that they had gotten Firaxis to convince the publisher to "give back" that particular sorely missed feature set Hilarious. As was pointed out by those who put the old presentation slides online demonstrating that the removal of feature sets from specification was a choice as conscious as the marketing afterwards to make it look like consumers were listened to, but by that time everybody wanted to believe again and bought the DLC packs Here's the thing. We figure out what constitutes the entire range of targets we want to reach with a title, and what feature sets are required for this. We then split that up. I know you have an idea in your head about a "finished game", I am sorry, it is not the same as the definition in the industry. I get the difference, I sympathise with your conviction. I wish it were that different. But that is not the reality of this industry. Core is what guides paths of sales. It is that which we cater to. One such path leads to another such path, and so on. This constitutes feature sets, content, art, as well as the dependancy chains between them. There are no rules. This is business. Pure and simple.

Caring does not necessarily have anything to do with it. That is a choice. Corporatism is directly and innately linked with scales of psychopathy, it would surprise me if the care factor would actually even be a consistent factor in it. From my own experience I can say that in those cases where it is presented it tends to be a carefully calculated variable in operations and planning of corporate identity, culture and dependancy management. Sometimes beneficial to not just the company but also the employee, but most of the time only very superficially. The central focus of it is taking care of investments made and required. We may have shifted from conceiving the concept of human resources as an extension of the resource reservoir constructs to applying behaviour to that which differs little to none from how we treat traditional resources, but it is utterly counterproductive. Even with a reigning short term gain focus. The more often and faster you recycle the food chain the dryer it gets until suddenly the chain breaks down. Hence my point: people are central to everything. Not because we're supposed to touchy feely care. But because they are what comprises the mechanisms we create, the mechanisms we use to build and break alike. Every business owner learns the value of proper information sourcing as quickly as he learns the value of proper investing. It is that or he dies. In that sense there is no difference between an enterprise and the Republic. We were created to stand seperate from the old world constructs, remain so by becoming independant of it in all aspects and be better than that old world through investing in people and the opportunities for the people. Let's face it, the US was put together to serve as its own enterprise in order to be able to stand seperate from the imperial, militaristical and tyrannical power balance of the old world. At minimum we could consider to actually run things as a properly functioning enterprise to enable ourselves to stand seperate and not repeat the mistakes others have made for thousands of years in a row ..... Look, I realise that to most Americans these common observations are so far beyond the scope of every day society that it tends to strike them as something that has to be shot down because it is averse to the requirement of believing a dream which "has to be" reality, while even the simplest stupidest steps of informing themselves will tear the foundations away underneath that belief in a dream which is nothing more than mere marketing. But this is information and analysis which the rest of the world, from the richest 1st world country to the poorest 4th world country readily has available, and actively discusses. The gist of it is simple, the Republic is no longer the same as the country, and it has not served the people in decades. It is a perfect well studied example of how governance in the absence of independant information patterns by default becomes an instrument of servitude. As mentioned before, economics used to be an instrument of government. Now government is an instrument of economics. There is no "if" or "but" in these matters. It is as it is, deal with it. Or not. And yes, that does present the choice of participating in the short term feeding frenzy, oblivious to how that constitutes the same sort of fully dependant servitude as not making any choice at all. As the good people at Oxford and Heidelberg call it, modern slavery. With the veneer of a debt based ability to buy stuff for the most part only required to fuel selective dependancies on participation in servitude even further. From an abstract perspective it is a truly genius model. No corporations are going to "buy" the country by the way. Not only would that be a terrible investment, it is also superfluous. Besides that, what companies that do grow (and how, at what cost) actually keep their feet in the country? The sole currently existing prospect for the Republic is to once again become a human resource reservoir, while attempting to maintain dominance through a strict economic focus on debt creation and military application of technology. History shows how utterly dumb that is in the decline of every human empire in the past ten thousand years through those very same patterns. We should also be realistic, the US is not going to find a next conflict on a scale required to maintain the current models of functioning in the next 50 years unless the US once again creates such a conflict. We do have a lot of built up experience with that ever since we blew up the Maine But changes are we will just go bankrupt and suddenly wake up to a country splitting up into several independant pieces without anybody thinking about it twice. It's that or wake up one morning to a burned down wasteland because our zealots confused dream with reality and the rest of the world called their bluff. These are two scenarios worked out by the way by a few decades of modelling by some highly paid think tanks, university study and specialty groups, but these are simply never published - not even in academic circles - in stateside. Long term scenarios yes, but the ones with the highest probability paths. Let's be honest for a moment. This topic is called American Politics. It is something which no longer exists. We have an application of realpolitik (as the school of thought is known) for internal orientation and balance of power for external orientation. That is guided not by governance or any of the parts of societal organisation we have been taught in the shapes and adaptations of trias politica. It has become guided and dominated by economics. Pure and simple. And economics in our system is an application of force through conflict. Nothing wrong with that, but this must always be buffered and secured against excesses. But what have we done? We have consciously created conditions to push excessive behaviour to a point where it is required in order to concentrate wealth. Worse, the people who have thus killed the potential - of the next few generations of all classes bar those with ownership of economics to have a life of their own choices - we actually glorify them, we call them heroes. How stupid are we as a people. What we should be doing is try to figure out how that shift took place, who ignores it, who persists in furthering that shift, and finding ways to remove the connected mentalities from the paths to power. Look at Congres, can anyone honestly name one person there who *gets* this fundamental shift in power? Can anyone spot one "rising" politician who does not just excell at marketing but who actually has figured out the reality he has to function in but who still strives to at least trying to find a balance that can do more than just continue "as is" (ok, other than the current President, obviously)? Can anyone point to ways to restore the trias politica? That should be the topic focus And yeah, I know, I tend to write a bit too much on these matters. It just strikes me as such an utter waste. The Republic, its country, its people, it is just such an amazing potential of energy and spirit. Or rather, it was. Through everyone's choices day by day. That pains me. I refuse to believe that this is a road too far engaged on to turn back, the trouble is, people are going to have to start informing themselves and revalidating everything around them constantly. And I do mean everything. I attended a brilliant program presentation at a Belgian University this week, detailing the results of a research project on american movies as instrument of internal cultural marketing and education. Remarkable. No University stateside would burn themselves at even thinking of pointing to the financial relations between sectors of governance and entertainment investment funds, for starters So really, start looking beyond the information available at home. It only serves to turn people into consumptive, dependant soldiers.

I'm sure they are considering DLC for parts of such an approach, as long as it does not require a disproportional allocation of resources for the title after its release.

Funny thing is that historically economies under duress are relatively easy to kickstart through upsetting the existing balances within that economy, as these tend to be largely responsible for the underlying trends to create that duress. Today's economies are not an exception to these historic trends. The more fragile an economy the more worthwhile the prospects of upsetting the balance. The trick is to realise that the American economy is far from fragile. It is a working system. Yes it no longer benefits society as a whole, but that is not because of the functional capacity of the economy but because of the organisation of the system itself. Look at the increasing imbalance between production as engine of wealth in the US and the presence of an internal consumptive market. I am sorry, but consumption based on credit as an engine of economy is simply not an engine, it is an instrument to concentrate wealth. The distinction should be clear to anyone with a modicum of historic insight. The country has after all had several such cycles in its history. Each time it resulted in a cataclysmic collapse of the ability of the country to generate wealth by other means than declaration of debt. Each time the country was "saved" through the occurance of a conflict that enabled the country to balance the growth of non producing economic elements and producing elements to decrease the beforementioned gap. Sadly, each such conflict was a war. In many ways this cycle is very similar to that of historic Europe until the implementation of restructuring of underlying variables with the aid of what people commonly refer to as the Marshall plan. A lot can be said about it, we can even admit that it was not an aid program but an instrument of transitory control between conflicts (2nd world war towards cold war), but together with the implementation of economical and demographical integration initiatives it did break several historic cycles where conflict was the only engine of both economies and societies. Global Warming is a very high potential enabler of economic stimulus. But it is a battle against vested interests. What people tend to miss is that elements of reform required are really nothing new. It is being done and to various degrees has been done all around the world. But once again that is a case of "what do we tell we the people" in the Republic. The Global Warming debate in the US is symptomatic. It is an exemplary case of conflict between a model which demonstrably does not serve the society it is required to serve. Look at those industries which oppose utilising the challenge of Global Warming, these are the same industries which have consistantly resisted any form of change which does not serve their short term interests. While in other places in the world such industries as energy and finance are increasingly seeing the larger and more stable opportunities of long term shifts in dealing with changing dependancies. Sometimes even surpassing the ability of governments to deal with an increased and strengthened set of economic sectors. Here's the deal. Every once in a while in human history we go either go through times of reinventing our systems, or we fail to adapt and get eaten. Even the dumbest liberal should understand these concepts. The very notion of continuing systems that demonstrably degrade the foundations required for ideology and networks supporting such segments of society is baffling, yet this is what is consciously advocated and instigated. Look at C02 trading in ASEAN, or how in Europe the energy sector (incidentally often the same enterprises that also service the US) have embraced initiatives to deal with Global Warming because it pays to do so. Look at manufacturing sectors in emerging economies. Truth be told, there really are only two economic zones which refuse to embrace the potential, both because they have a strict and unilateral focus on short term and selective gain. China because it faces the challenge of creating an internal consumptive economy while simultaneously having to continue to secure control of resource reservoirs, and the US, because of special interest groups who have forgotten how innovation and creative thinking has always been what enabled the conditions for growth in the first place. It is absolutely hilarious when you speak with economists from the US at conferences. Increasingly with rare exceptions such discussions are a joke. The rest of the worlds not only worries about the consequences of the divide between short term and long term growth prospects, it actually embraces it as a challenge. Not an easy one, we are after all dealing globally with the fundamental weakness of capitalism as a system (it requires restrictions on resources but unlimited room for growth of utilisation of resources, and well, we only have one world of which we're in an economical sense are hitting the limits off - see how China has managed to secure near full control of resource reservoirs as opposed to the US which has lost even just access to most), but still it is being done. Maybe it is easier for other economic zones who have a culturally internalised memory of what conflict based economies leave behind (not a lot) and how hard recovery from such conditions is. Europe springs to mind in that regard, but also the Asian tigers of the past decades. It's ironic, but there even is a clear divide visible between emerging economies following the more sensible economic modelling available today and those who follow the State Department's economic circles & advisors. Case in point, Brasil. An emerging economy embracing structural challenges, but on a basis of declaration of debt as engine of growth, with as a nett result an inability to deal with systemic issues. Just like the US itself. The topic of Global Warming is not the only enabler. Or even the only reservoir of potential. Far from. The US as internal economy would benefit greatly from engaging on the challenge of taking the infrastructure and developmental capacity of the country to a level which actually should go with a 1st world economy. But even though the infrastructure remains on the level of a 3d world country and continues to degrade even that is a topic of debate in the US. And really only because of political reasons. Not even reasons resulting out of ideological excesses. A recession is a bad thing. But it is always the perfect opportunity to look at the very systems of a society and inspect where those systems require overhaul, change or replacement. Even just that process of inspection is an enormous economic potential. But the US as a country is unable to do so, largely because of a reigning mentality in levels of decision making, but also because it is an increasingly divided country and divided society seperate from that which used to be the economy underneath both. What politicians tend to miss, is that government has become an instrument of economics. Even in their dependancies of networking, lobbyism and the game of politics, they cannot fathom the idea that governance no longer has economics as an instrument in its arsenal of governance. And because the country as a whole structurally misses readily accessible instruments of journalism and structural education on a cultural level (as opposed to reporting and the economy of bread and circusses) the people remain largely unable to even inform themselves properly on the situation as it is evolving (and degrading). Wasn't it Jefferson who said that a minor revolution every once in a while was not a bad idea to shake up vested structures? I'm not saying that is in order, but it is clear that the US needs to reinvent itself. It is funny, and sad. When an enterprise is unable to reinvent itself because it has met limitations or met targets (both ends of the scale) what happens? It dies. A country ran so very much like an enterprise should know these things instinctively. In simple terms, it is time for the US as a people to realise that the marketing of the American Dream is not the same as instrumentation for keeping the noses pointing the same way. It is but marketing, nothing more. Marketing does not automatically yield sales. On the contrary. The US is no longer the largest trading nation, it has not been the largest producer of anything since ages. The only stable sectors of US economics are high finance and military development. The US has not created wealth since the reinstatement of the FED several long wars ago. It has only created debt. It exists as an enterprise of corporate ideology, yet it fails to recognise dependancies in this and it fails to invest in itself. And that is the biggest trap of all. The US does not invest in itself, least of all in its people. Look at the debate of healthcare. Excesses and idiots will always be with us. But look at the differences in performance between enterprises that take care and invest in their people and those who do not. The first last and grow, the second lasts only as long as the CEO has not received his or her bonus. Look at the evolution of presidencies over the decades. Something which admittedly is hard for Americans to do without being influenced by the enormous amounts of rewriting of history and propaganda, but the number of presidents who have not ran for office out of economic interests is shockingly few. The presidency has not served we the people for decades and decades. It has only served private industry interests. Something we tend to miss because we want to believe in a dream which can only be created by building it again and again at every step of every way, and not simply carried as branding or marketing. Now Obama is just as much subject to special interests as any other president. One does not become president anymore without that influence or even control. Sad, but true. But for some reason, and in spite of that, he is a president who at least strives to balance the strategic guidance of special interests for society and economy with the long term dependancies of the country and its people. That alone is such an historic exception that people should raise an eyebrow or two. Instead the opportunities that are created are treated as gambling coins in a political play that does not even serve that political play in any way or form. A country ran like an enterprise should invest in its people, in their ability to gather knowledge, to innovate and to create. It should invest in its abilities as a whole to build, to transport, to research and develop. It is no wonder that the US has become a 2nd world country. It does not see itself as one country, it does not treat its people the way it should, it only focuses on select interests not even internal to itself. I'd say snap out of the dream, out of the ideological debate, and snap out of the trenches of "I versus we". Or the country will learn like other failed nations that there is no "I" without "we". And I am sorry to say, in spite of my own ideological inclination, that it is Republican thinking that as extension of short sighted short term focused liberalism that has created this mess. Look at history for a change, without the veneer of propaganda. Next time a politican says that - for example - Reagan was a great president you should send him to an asylum for the criminally insane.

Well either there have been changes, or the guy is simply not aware of all the things Maxis and EA have been repeating for months now ... I'd be curious to find out what the guy thinks to constitute "single play" Funny thing though, if that functionality were to be made available through the Origin client it should be noted that this too is dependant on server side validation.

The west, in spite of appearances is really not that different. Christianity used to be a balanced organised form of belief where the matriarchal was equal to the patriarchal. Until ofcourse a certain emperor got cold feet in his marriage and bought some policy changes that were received warmly by a clergy fearful of issues in the conversion of what they called barbarians who in their eyes had a far too strong matriarchal element in both belief and culture.

To be blunt, in a commercial sense based on strategies visible and technology paths it is a virtual guarantee that SC2013 will only last as long as a set lifecycle after the release of a successor product. Keep in mind though that there are extremely strong parallels between the concept and sales models of The Sims 3 and SC2013. A set of models tailored to getting milked for a very long time without much technical updating or additions but instead relying on monetisation updates. The one thing that could turn SC2013 in to a product that is allowed a phase of being supported by users is a failure of that monetisation model. The introduction, timing as well as steps, of moddability concepts is actually the biggest indicator of that. The lower the level of moddability (think art / content edits) the higher the ongoing results of the monetisation model and the higher the likelyhood of further planning on that same level for monetisation. Complex moddability however is a double edged blade. A case could be made for increased potential of lower cost monetisation through user created content and features easily, but a case can also be made for a required release of such tools due to a decreased allocation of resources in favour of another title project. If the game is to become a game that players can play and savely on their machines, a game that players can embrace to nurture the way that was done with the flagship titles of two very connected and very archetypical genres, the game has to become fundamentally different in technical design as well as user type targeting. Such a transition can be done. But only very carefully. Very, very carefully. It will have to revert to the puzzle & immerse mindsets once again. To be simple, it would have to become the next version of SC4. Trouble is, that severely limits the market for it. It would be a lot more efficient to create a next flagship, and phase out SC2013.

Why would a company not be able to sell vapourware? It's quite the common part of many a retail sector, even more so for service sectors. Ultimately that which is commonly referred to as vapourware is merely a variance on the definition of consumption product.

Might be an idea to raise that concern with EA Customer Support. Not that there is a lot of chance of them passing on such a concern

Nothing written in stone lasts. It withers away, though more frequently humans tend to break stone. Or use it to build with. Heck, we even use it as a weapon By the way, I should point out that the last few years in this industry there has been a rapidly growing emphasis on incorporating controlled and finite product lifecycles into strategic development. One of the more simple reasons is that which consumers tend to call the "reboot syndrome" requires this. After all, a shortened memory span is just as required as avoiding duplicate or even merely overlapping lifecycles to avoid saturation of the available market volumes. And yes, DLC is just as much a part of that as service operations, these are also elements of lifecycle management.

I'm not saying they are not important, they are. Particularly on the level of projects, or studios and titles - if you will. But EA operates as something between an investment firm and a venture capital developer. What is leading is the ability to provide for the reward structures of that level and the ability to attract and cover costs of financing. If a studio with one or a few titles does not reach targets set, that is a case of profit indicators. But such projects are also tallied in other forms, think of brand value or even more important in terms of establishing market reach, consumption patterns and so forth, in service of strategic targets. The studio level for EA is completely interexchangable and expendable. Yes, there is the case of value of knowledge and experience, but that is mostly limited (in spite of what staff tend to believe) to technical abstracts across projects and titles. That can be tied to a studio, but does not have to be. Profit is important for the studio. A lot less so for the publisher and/or investor, there it is but one variable (and not the one with the biggest weight). Our industry increasingly operates very much like that of the finance industry. Ofcourse, if one does not keep a finger on the pulse of it that can really upset planning and strategy, impeding the ability to attract funding and to cover the costs of that. It is possible to kill an enterprise when not paying attention to all that which takes place below the strategic level. Which is only natural. But for EA the indicator is its ability to a) attract funds and b) maximise the difference between the costs of that and the returns. And there we should keep in mind that what we commonly call the reward model (of which bonus culture is one part) in accountancy comes well before profit calculations .... It is not uncommon to class a reward structure as reservations or even project expenses. Go figure. What is even almost funny, is how the gaming industry is also increasingly replicating some tricks of the movie / general entertainment industry. Picture writing off an entire product as investment costs for another title, deducting all of that from the general revenue stream, prior to dividends & taxes, minimising value of technical assets and then selling those from one project to the next, doing it all over again You are correct though that EA is increasingly walking a fine line. There are a few things which have hurt its ability to operate with venture capital. But that is tied much more to strategic management and the trending of investment markets than it is to titles. But it has become a big contributor to the relentless push towards achieving positions of dominance. The potential of profiling as an economic instrument are enormous. Look at how Amazon puts it to use. Or other enterprises, it is a growing trend after all. Personally I just doubt whether EA is taking the right approach. It does not matter how big your sea is if you constantly force the sea level to drop. It is a short term gain mindset. For obvious reasons. EA after all had its biggest moments of change in the grand '80's when the religion of greed is good (and screw any consequences) was unleashed

It's not about those particular figures. It is about creating conditions so that those who decide on the strategic level can milk the model as consistently as possible. It's a model which is hardly ever seperated from what is known as a bonus culture, and not without reasons, or consequences. It's an investment model. It may be parasitic in nature, but as long as the gain is unchallenged that is not an issue. Profit related figures really are not that important these days anymore in this industry. What matters is the ability to attract and utilise funding. It's a risk management approach to venture capital development.

Ok, look at it not from the consumer perspective. But why would a consumer even have to know any such reasoning as to what lies behind the requirements of online / multiplay. This is thinking that leads to challenging functional requirements of a business model. That is why marketing mechanisms consciously allow for the chaos element of divided communications and deliberately include what could be described as the equivalent of "fog of war". Let me put it this way, look at your own messages here. See how you focus on what parts. But also see how that still keeps you away from general principalities. It keeps it right on the edge of that instrument of "belief", as while you have issue with specific pieces you do not fall prey to principles or convictions affecting your consumptive behaviour. In simple terms, it becomes a topic of discussion and puzzle in its own right, but it stands seperate from an actual decision process influenced by any information that comes from analysing how the strategic level impacts - ultimately - your enjoyment. It is very human in such circumstances to dive in to detail level approaches. It is how we are wired by our biology. Our brains are evolved to detect patterns, with as consequential obvious weakness a tendency to also impose patterns, our prime compensatory reflex is to collect details and engage in inspection and exchange of them. That is why in marketing and sales it serves such enormous picture to pit consumer types against each other. Brand wars, technical capability wars, and so forth. Remember Nvidia versus ATI. Or how Apple put a research project on belief systems to use for the creation of a lock-in market model. Or even simpler, look at how simple technical tidbits here and there on forums can become a puzzle in their own right. While the process of that puzzle serves completely different purposes.

If there would be a workaround for the new simcity, wouldn't it mean that their excuses for making people stay online aren't exactly true and that people were inconvenienced for nothing? I understand that the devs' hands may be tied at the moment, but if this were true I'd rather hear about it sooner rather than later. From what I've read of 'Lucy Bradshaw's' reasons for it being online: http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/The-Benefits-of-Live-Service I don't think their reasons ARE true, Supposedly the game handles a portion of the games main data (like the agents) on the server, so the client doesn't have to handle it all. however if this were true, then the game wouldn't be able to handle even a few seconds let alone a few minutes disconnected (it'd be like a disconnection from an MMO, you can't continue playing), yet apparently the game CAN handle being disconnected for a while, so who's telling the truth? Maybe I'm misreading something, but it doesn't seem to add up. The issue is that there is only one guarantee with these streams of information: they can never be trusted. That is not a personal thing, it is a simple factual observation. Marketing is not the same as providing information, it is using information to provide or strengthen the sales or seduction pitch. Technical information particularly can never be trusted, but the same goes for sales information. These two types stand out the most in such matters. There is no truth. There is only perception, presentation and function. Welcome to general business management and economics. Also sociology for that matter. The sad thing is that often there are pieces of information which come from the guys who actually do the real work, something which should be useable (note the difference between that and useful) information. The problem is that they provide information from their position, their resources, their focus. Most of their work is dependant on, guided by and subjected to a completely different level of processes. Decision levels. A dev for example can "share" what he knows about handling client connections to a cluster. Nice, but that does not say anything about the policy on budgetting or allocation of resources to that cluster for say, a marketing round advertised as a beta. The same general principle even is accurate for development paths within a project. Map size is not only a decision arising in many places, it is also a dependant decision, dependant on many many variables in different decision processes. The server side handling of agents and limitations on cluster technology or even scale is one, just like coding restrictions coming out of targets above project level for the GBE engine, just like code dependancies resulting from removing base functionality concepts from the client side architecture (like savegames, but also network infrastructure, or sandbox shielding of market dependancies, and so forth). What we do know is that EA has given several presentations the past few years at conferences like GDC and others, about the prospects of linking DRM, profiling and DLC through a steps based evolution of force variable requirements of online multiplay formats. And they are right on the mark, for their business model this is cheapest, provides the greatest range at lowest cost and greatly improves margins on venture funds. This is the strategic level. What we call the creation of game specification, user experience targets, all those things, those are defined by and in service of that strategic level. What that means in a practical sense for development and marketing takes no genius to figure out. There is in that sense no difference between an EA and a Sony Entertainment. Well, except that EA manages to beat Sony even on the customer support and brand value parts (I know, terrible sarcasm there, apologies). I realise some people attach a moral element to that, or even an element of principality. That is fine. People are individuals, and while their freedom is an illusion it is the nature of the animal and should thus be treated with respect. The reality is however that this is just business. It is the chosen model. Other companies operate under different models. There are no perfect business models, it is always a dance between finding balance or navigating various degrees of evils, so to speak.

lol! i looked it up and learned something new - i have always understood the concept - i just had never heard the phrase! Bread and circuses! you really do learn something new, everyday! +1 for the education. i thought this article was pretty interesting regarding it, tied to the digital age. The Danger of Living on Bread and Circuses http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-02/the-danger-of-living-on-bread-and-circuses-alice-schroeder.html The really funny thing, for all those marketeers and business developers, is that not even the trend of lowering tresholds as well as lowering diversity is new. It's as old as the Roman empire. Look at how today in many urban zones in the US one cannot buy fresh groceries in supermarkets, but one can buy 2 dollar fastfood, and how in other places the opposite is maintained. Something which incidentally also was instigated in the Roman days. Roman urban development did have its periodic issues with ghetto forming, but overall preferred formats of segregation based on economic prowesse, more specifically in terms of ownership. Look at our city developments, it is incredibly visible what economic function but also which dependancies an area has. Increasingly linked to a hierarchical system of provisioning and distribution. The same for the pillars of entertainment, the theatres (look at reboot trending in movies), the arena (look at sports, interrupted by commercials between kills, even making the performers - part of a cultural cultivation procress with the aim to instir cultural internalisation of concepts like "you have to look good, being good is not that important" - pause during action) and the hand games (look at how board games in those days were monetised litterally piece by board piece and "legal" action by action by license, compare that to the "new" ideas of the core experience getting stripped from specification in order to sell more pieces as complimentary for all facets of features, functions, art and content alike). Funny thing on the topic of game trailers, the Romans often used flash roaming scene specific displaying of game elements using actors and props. Essentially a travelling mini performance, which in a bare few minutes made the elevator pitch on shiny and awesome. Incidentally, one of the most popular mentors of one of those schools in those days taught that it was necessary to maintain the fine discrepancies between what you present the audience and what you sell the customer. The first must always be more than the latter, without offending, leaving you in a position to sell more... In that sense the latin texts we had to translate at school in my days were more fun than many of the greek. Those were usually going overboard on just the veneer of epic, the vagueties of ideas or drama concepts which today most parents would bring out the tar and feathers against. Hint, picture a text about a guy feeling guilty because his dead wife visits him in a dream telling him she knows that he put hot buns in a cold oven ..... (if you do not instantly get that, please do not think any further beyond that point and spare yourself the disgust). It is however interesting to note that the Romans did insert many concepts into our cultural development paths over the course of history, they are quite a unique sort of empire in both form and scale of their deviations. It's hard to find another historical imperial culture which suffered the same syndromes. Well, before the American empire of today and its societal precursor of the Roman empire, obviously. The risks that come with the implementation of doctrines such as "bread and circuses" should be obvious in an economic sense. Among many other things, you push yourself in an every shortening cycle of rebooting concepts without innovation. That alone should warrant a clear warning. But even on a more direct level, you decrease the depth of your market. Something which should also be obvious, if you fish more and more but the sea gets more shallow every time you disproportionally decrease your ability to continue feeding yourself. That last part is the big risk of the current trends of monetisation, DLC and DRM. The only real way (without moving to another business model that is) to counter that, is to achieve an absolute dominance of that sea. That way you decide for the boat, the people and the fish. It may be a smelly analogy, but that essentially is the strategic focus of EA. To continue the comparison or analogy, until roughly a decade ago EA tried to create its own lake (concept: lock-in market) but realised that this did not generate sufficient reward mechanisms as set required, that is where the birth of the link between DRM and profiling comes in. Anyway, back on topic

Mannerisms of reasoning in terms of skewing statistics on topics of morality and principality ceased to be fine with the Neurenberger Trials, not that it has ever been good in any case. The reality however is that regardless of individuals the Church has had an active policy complete with procedures and instrumentation since the early 1400's on these matters. None of it in support of morality or even the victims. All of it in servitude of preserving the sacrosanct nature of dogma and those who are identified with it. It would go a long way if the Church actually recognised that it can never be sacrosanct in worldly affairs. Heck, scripture is clear on that. Being honest, we can understand where it comes from, it is the nature of power. As long as the Church cannot seperate the spiritual from the worldly it is bound to fall prey continuously to the excess that comes with human behaviour not constrained by natural boundaries. On a personal note though, I can honestly say that I have yet to find a single bishop here in western continental europe who's name has not been added to the listings in investigations of clergy engaged in safeguarding the church policies at the expense of victims and to the demise of finding solutions to issues and problems alike. It is absolutely stunning to (a newspaper last year published copies of the Belgian, Dutch, French and German investigative commission reports) see how consistantly perpetrators were not punished but simply moved by policy to the next parish or community. To maintain at least a modicum of appearances of trust it is probably best if we did not go into the actual ratio by country origin of "good" versus "bad" priests. Serves no purpose, in matters of morality or principles. It is how you deal with those, not whether any actions are dependant on the volume of victims or perpetrators. If we go down that road, we should remember that this is the same road of "how many dead makes a genocide or holocaust". But to keep it even more simple, fundamental even. The belief system has integrally been tied to the institution. That presents a problem, namely that if you do that, you deal in the coin of trust. Lose that coin, or see it diminished, and you end up degrading both belief and institution on a cultural level. Real smart of the Curie to maintain its policies right .... just what the Church needs, further degradation. How counterproductive can one get.

Panem et circenses. Look it up This is once again the guided trend in human history. It's nothing new. And it works. The sad part is that it comes from an innate fear of freedom. There simply is no trust in this being capable to concentrate wealth the way that the absence of freedom does.

Methods that flexibly, with the user central, enable a low treshold for a wide variety of user types to pay their way towards entertainment are definately preferred yes. Especially if one seeks to nurture sustainable growth of brand value and enterprise in balance. Trouble is, you're asking EA to not function as the type of corporation they are. Yes, it used to be a company, now it is an enterprise. Yes, it had a distinct focus on those that create in the entertainment industry, now it simply utilises those as a variable based resource. This is normal for their choice of methods and orientation. EA is no longer a mere publisher, has not been one for a long time. It is much more similar to an investment broker, a venture capital firm. That may seem at odds with this whole idea of "games industry", but it is not. Because it is an industry. Keep in mind that EA is an American business entity. This is a factor. The focus is always project specific and short term. The long term focus is seperate from that of operations, it is part of what is known strategic corporate development. Something entirely different. Every project or venture, is in service of that and that alone. That is not a very stable situation for EA's resource reservoirs (for example, the studios) true, but that is irrelevant because resources are interexchangable, they are not relevant on that strategic level. Only their results are. The unfortunate situation exists that for the strategic targets of EA the studio is the same thing as the user, it is a variable of resource reservoirs. Just look up a quarterly release of the company and there really is not much beating around the bush on these matters. Sit through a presentation at an industry conference and the terminology does not hide it either. So what you are expecting or wanting is perfectly rational, it is however and always will be averse to the methods required for the strategic targets set. This as a natural result of the mindset that goes with the chosen targets and required methods of planning and operations. It is a short term cycle based model, with a multitude of asynchronous cycles in service of the target line. There can be no deviation from that target line, because of the intrinsic interdependancies involved. So no, EA will not orient or reorient itself toward a synergy or exergy driven business model. It is incompatible with their corporate structure, incompatible with the reward mechanisms for corporate guidance, incompatible with the required mentality. If anything, it requires a much more balanced view towards long and short term corporate and project development that at a grass roots level is simply deemed to eat too much of the margins. Yes, that the financial planning actually focuses on the margins is to be blunt, too stupid for words, it is wasteful. But then again, this is perfectly in line with any sort of venture / investment management operation. The goal is the self. Not that which enables.

That part of "being a good boy" really creeps me out, considering the history of institutionalised abuse .....