If that building on fire is recently released SimCity and the firemen trying to quell the blaze represent EA then you’ve got something of an idea of what’s going on right now.
Instead of trying to cover everything that’s happened in the past two days (SimCity released on the 5th of March 2013) I’m going to let the rest of the internet help me.
Wow… Wow! Ok, whew, let’s get started!
From David Thier over at Forbes.
SimCity still isn’t working for gamers all over the world, and the problem only seems to be getting worse for EA and Maxis.
Over at USA Today, Brett Molina writes,
SimCity requires players to always remained connected online, even for a single-player experience. This is counter to most video games where players can still play a portion of the title offline in the event of online problems.
Didn’t we see this same issue not that long ago? I’m being sarcastic; Diablo III had the same sort of issues. People had bought a product they could not use. Thank you always-online requirement!
Here’s a gem from Arc Technia, the headline is worth at least a full eye-roll:
EA “confident” it can avoid repeat of SimCity launch debacle
Kyle Orland, from the same article goes on to say,
The SimCity Twitter account is suggesting that players running into problems loading their cities switch to other servers, but it fails to mention that existing saved games and cities-in-progress are inextricably tied to the server they were created on (though that issue is directly addressed in an official FAQ regarding server waiting rooms).
Let me end this with a quote from Lee Hutchinson, senior news editor over at Ars Technia. He puts it well:
You show me a game with an online component whose launch hasn’t been a total fucking debacle of biblical proportions, and I’ll show you Santa Claus. Neither of those things exist. Heavily online-focused games have had lol-tastic catastrophic launches dating back to Ultima Online. Shit, even before that.
The primary problem is that it’s impossible to accurately judge launch day loads, and even if it were possible it’s economically unfeasible to scale an infrastructure to handle launch loads and ALSO to handle regular production loads. You either sink too much money into launch infrastructure and are left holding unneeded equipment, or you screw up the launch and things eventually fall in line with the infrastructure you DO have.
“The cloud” and outside elastic compute resources are most decidedly *NOT* a viable solution, either, at least not for almost every single game out there.
Oh but that ain’t all. Haters = homophobes.
AGAIN.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RgEA07lAZI&l
We haven’t covered this too much since it goes down the rabbit hole of “not video games” but EA is still pushing this shit so: as a homosexual, this is the most pathetic shit I’ve ever seen.
The thing that worries me is how the public would view any reasonable complaints as people being bigots, thanks to EA’s aggressive use of distracting the public.
While I agree with the final Ars Technica quote, but it distracts from the real issue at hand. Yes, EA totally fucked the launch of SimCity, and that’s to be expected of games that rely on DRM or MMOs, but SimCity should never have been an MMO. It’s about building big cities and managing as best you can, but instead we get city limits so small that it’s less like SimCity and more like SimTown. In this regard, SimCity has failed as a game.
*I agree with the final Ars Technica quote, but it distracts from the real issue at hand.
even if simcity was a 10/10 game which it certainly isn’t, the fact that there’s always online DRM, it’s on origin and is made by EA are factors which would put me off any game.
What’s the point in saying EA is bad if you just go and buy the games anyway.
What insults me the most about this debacle is that they think of us as stupid enough to believe even for one fucking second that they can disguise the hate on their company as homophobia. One of these days they are going to make a false flag operation like they did with dante’s inferno to make us “haters” look like homophobes.
“‘Outside elastic computer resources’ are not the solution…” It potentially could be, though. Assuming the infrastructure for this exists, and it probably does, you could conceivably hire on computer time and bandwidth from whoever had a surplus and dynamically scale to your needs… but but probably not for something with intrusive DRM. You’d probably have to farm out the verification too, and EA wouldn’t stand for it. In any case, you’d have to plan out this sort of process in advance – prepare the server software so it can be installed rapidly on whatever kind of hardware you were renting, and have some pipes set aside for moving save games around to wherever they’re needed.
I’ve been boycotting EA for quite a while so I wasn’t paying full attention, but it seems like they must be actively avoiding learning lessons from the mistakes of others if they locked save games to specific servers. Either that, or their internal culture operates on the Lucas model and people get thrown out for pointing out errors.
http://rift.zam.com/story.html?story=25480
SHOW ME SANTA CLAUSE
“Of course, much of Rift’s incredible launch day stability can also be attributed to the extensive closed and open beta tests that Trion Worlds ran in the months leading to their official launch, and these tests were probably instrumental in allowing Trion to prepare for what was to come.”
And the sad thing is, EA did beta testing a for few weeks leading up to the launch. And they still couldn’t get it right.
AFAIK they didn’t even address most of the bugs and issues from the beta.
I don’t wanna jump on the hate train because I don’t care about SimCity but:
You can’t tell me that EA doesnt have the possibility to rent a server farm for a short time, then selling the servers again when they are not needed anymore.
Or you know, disabling that horrendous DRM instead of wasting everyone’s time with these kinds of issues.
Huh, I never thought of it that way.
Thad from Chad says:
Please buying the SimCity only $59.99 and online always with friend. Don’t be hesitating!
Sometimes I think the boss of EA is just some random guy who doesn’t know anything even about his own company and when his workers screw up, they tell him some BS about people being homophobic and he doesn’t even know what the real issues are.
I expected this to happen. I just lay back and enjoy the drama that unfolds. It’s a shame that Sim City, such a legendary franchise, is damned to have an always-online-drm and to be a soon-to-be microtransaction cashcow.
I try not to hate a company as a whole, I really do. It’s getting very hard for me to search for redeeming qualities when EA has pretty much strung all this shit together.
This is exactly why I did not buy the game I was so close to pulling the trigger on buying SimTown (that is the name I will use because it seems fitting) but I read a comment on an article online stating the problems companies have had with “Online always” games. It seems to me that they are sacrificing gameplay, technical support, and feasibility to pinch every dime they can by stopping piracy (which people will still find ways to pirate this stuff). Only game EA has made that I respect is Battlefield 3 and it is a good game but the makers of that game seem to have said Online Only will not fly with us EA. I blame Maxis for allowing EA to do this to THEIR game. Shame on anyone who buys anymore games from EA I am even reconsidering buying the Battlefield 4 game when it comes out.
I’ve come to expect EA to be a regular fuck up. They get voted worst company and pretend it never happened. How much longer can EA deny that their business model is shit, and at least NOT WHAT CONSUMERS WANT. fucking idiots
Incredible. http://www.destructoid.com/ea-simcity-s-broken-because-it-s-just-too-much-fun–248186.phtml
I can’t even explain how angry I am right now. I’m thinking I’m going to try to rail road the podcast into being only about how awful EA is this week. This is just absolutely unforgivable.
Also, just a reminder, don’t forget to nominate EA for Worst Company in America.
Send an email to WCIA@consumerist.com
And now to complete the circle, EA needs to tell players that they’re entitled for wanting to play the game that they purchased.
BTW I’m okay with the next podcast being derailed into Gather Your EA Hatred.
Can’t wait for that podcast
Well, that is really one of the most desperated attemps at damage control I saw in recent memories. Blaming the customers for wanting to play the game they just bought is audacious and really despicable. EA makes sure the want that title of the of the worst company again.
Stuff like this makes me a sad panda
Nice article, GYP, but as usual there’s some typos here and there, remember to proofread your stuff more often
If they wanted to get taken seriously they’d stop being shit
the title is not a complete sentence. it should be, the way EA handled simcity is a disaster