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SimCity 5: How Not To Design a Single Player Game
It seems that the requirement to be online and save games on a remote server even in single player mode is leading to a less than ideal launch for SimCity 5. choke writes "Players attempting to play EA/Maxis' new SimCity game are finding that their save games are tied to a particular server, are facing problems with disconnects, inability to track friends or search for specific coop games online and failures to load game, and wait times of 20 minutes per login attempt. The question is, why the online restriction? Does this possibly indicate future micro-transactions in game?"
The always on connection is nothing more than DRM in disguise. If the pirates hadn't been so keen to rip every game they could get their grubby little hands on this sort of nonsense probably wouldn't have happened.
Yes I know, the truth hurts. But if you're a company thats spent 10s if not 100s of millions on developing a game you're no longer going to watch that investment go down the toilet via a DVD bit copier. They figure that since most gamers now have always on broadband the inconvenience is minimal. Except when they fuck up like this of course.
Are you joking? Have you been living under a rock the past 10 years? The online restriction has 100% everything to do with piracy, anything else is simply a side effect. It is no secret, piracy has been raping the game market, well guess what, you can't have free games forever! Each year you have more games pushed to server only for the one simple reason of authentication. EA are not scumbags! They are in business like every other single business on the planet, to make money. If you would rather steal games than pay for them then they don't have much of a choice, if you don't like it then don't buy the fucking game! It is pretty simple.
And Greed is good.
Their greed for max profits. Your greed for min cash outlay. A balance will be reached. It appears that your price point lies outside of a larger group that is willing to pay the amount EA demands.
Now, go an try real sex with a real woman. Beats SIM Sex every day.