Cloud7Raymaker

Pre-orders and day one buys made this quarter look good. I recall about 1.2 million sales in the first week or two. Since then, not so much. In addition to that the $60 price tag is down to ~$30 at most places so EA is making less with each sale now... and the product still isn't really moving. Note there wasn't a profit listed for SimCity in their financials like some of their other games. Bottom line, this was a textbook example of what not to do with an existing IP that will be taught in business classes for some time to come. The anecdotal evidence seems to indicate EA will take a bigger hit to their reputation, and profits than they admit (or perhaps realize.) Most people still want to buy and own their games, actual MMO's aside of course. And even MMOs are losing players as pay-to-play-pay-to-win replaces a work-reward model. The game service/rental business model is a niche market, hopefully EA isn't betting their future on it.

"They aren't sinking, they are soaring. This isn't rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, it's rearranging chairs on the Hindenburg!" - SC In all seriousness, the announcement also included mention of 1.1 million sales over the past two weeks... which is downright awful for a AAA game. The bean counters must have figured out last week that the game was in trouble and EA would miss it's earnings guidance. Something had to be done. I'm not sure if this will fix things at EA, but their disconnect with fans on a number of recent titles needs to change if the company expects to remain a sizeable game publisher. Hopefully they get someone that will shake up the culture there.

Agreed in principle. Unfortunately though I can't deny that EA's marketing is responsible for creating those expectations throughout the marketing campaign up to the month prior to release. If EA's marketing would have just had an honest focus on how SC2013 is different, where it is better, where it approaches what how, we would have a whole lot less of an issue out of created expectations. People would have taken the product as something new, and not as something next (so to speak). But, that was a conscious strategic decision by EA. They wanted to use an existing customerbase as a catalyst for messaging, reception and exposure management. They elected to follow these methodologies. What pains me, is that when people proverbially punched through the marketing EA ignored it, classed such feedback as evil and jumped in a trench of Big Lie management. That's not just sad, that's also what ultimately kills brand value, which is really quite important for investment management - which EA relies on. Really it comes down to this. If any game company is going to use an existing IP to sell a product (or 'service'... ick) then that company must remain true to the IP's core features. EA could have called this game SimCity Online (my preferred title when describing it to others), but they didn't. The IP was misused and tricked a lot of people into buying a game they wouldn't have otherwise. And even for those that find the Online concept ok, the simulation portion of this game is pretty bad right now. Thus even more people are rightfully angry. The fact that SC4 has way more features than the new game plays into this only in that it sets a certain expectation for a new entry in this series. If the question is asked "will you choose to play the new game" and "if not, why?" a large part of the answer in most cases seems to be this game just doesn't live up to its legacy, but it is marketed as if it will.

Sadly, no. > No terrain Editing. > No user-generated content > City size is too small, regions may appear large but still play like a bunch of small plots. > Agent simulation appear to be limited to 100k or so vs. the statistical method used in SC4 for millions - meaning the current game engine will never work right for city-sized populations. > Power/water/garbage/sewer modeling are all simplified from previous games and yet still broken. > Traffic is broken, also there are few transportation options right now besides roads. Always-online is a deal breaker for me. So removing that requirement would be a start. But this game has so much wrong with it for me to overlook, and the single biggest problem seems to be the game engine which I highly doubt will get tossed and re-built from the ground up at this point. The game as it stands now meets the vision of the development team as Lucy Bradshaw has stated. They may address some of the traffic issues, but the underlying simulation mechanics are likely to remain poor. The creative stuff (maps, buildings, etc.) brought a lot of fun to the game for me. Without those in the new game I'm more likely to just keep playing SC4.

Sad. Online co-op on a game of this type is a broken concept. Lucy's vision is one of failure I believe, and nothing anyone says will convince her otherwise. I'd be willing to bet the 'thousands' of players she speaks of are consumers that are stuck with a flawed $60 game and are trying to get the most out of their purchase. Time will tell. EA can monitor server load, I suspect the player count will drop steadily over the next month. If Simcity Online lasts 6 months I'll be surprised. Guess with this middle finger to the player base I can stop waiting for EA to make a game I would spend money on. Surely there is a developer out there that can do this genre the right way and make a lot of money (and good will) doing so. For now I'll dust off my old copy of SC4 and even share some of the content I created for that game. Something I can’t do with this lesser version and likely never will be able to do.