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?"

Comments

EA at it again

[cod3r_]

Seems like every new EA release has similar issues. With hordes of bad amazon reviews because of it.

Re:EA at it again

[Applekid]

The next big trend: "premium" support. Free access to a "community" support forum, where other users -- for free -- may or may not help. Then for bigger problems you can call a 1-900 number, or a 1-800 number to pay up with a credit card per incident. Maybe the Premium box set versions of their games includes one free incident resolution (expires 3 months from purchase, no guarantee they will actually fix the issue).

Re:EA at it again

[tlhIngan]

There is no need for everything to live on the server in order to have the game be multiplayer, no matter what anyone tells you. That might be the only way the simcity team could get it to work, though.

It's really DRM. Online gaming is really the only way to have a pretty robust DRM scheme that can't be cracked.

Games saved on server? Means they can leave out code ot save games locally. It doesn't matter if you crack the game - unless someone writes local game save code, pirates can't save their games (which is a pretty big restriction).

Likewise, the server can require everyone have unique issued serial numbers. Hell, all you need to do is prevent two people from using the same serial number at the same time (you can transfer the serial number for used game sales, if any company REALLY cared for that - though buyers would have to worry about the original owner depriving them of the game by continuing to play it)..

Even better is such a DRM scheme requires zero intervention on the user's computer - you don't need any spyware installed or anything. The only real danger is someone trying to reverse engineer the server a la Bnetd. And we know how that turned out.

Re:EA at it again

[dgatwood]

What really annoys me is the absolute limit of what I can do to these bastards is not give them money. There needs to be a way to take money away from companies that deliver exceptionally bad products.

There's no limit to how much money you can take away from them if you buy the product and can convince the jury that you were irreparably harmed by it. :-D

Alternatively, there's no limit to how much damage you can do if you encourage people to post negative reviews on Amazon. Most sane people will think twice before buying a product whose reviews look like this:

1.5 out of 5 stars
5 star: (17)
4 star: (8)
3 star: (11)
2 star: (15)
1 star: (191)

EA has RUINED it with the persistent DRM that prevents you from saving your game to your computer. ”
KiloEchoNovember | 92 reviewers made a similar statement

Unless EA starts astroturfing to bring the ratings up, I suspect this game is pretty much doomed to be a total bust, at least as far as sales on Amazon are concerned. You don't just "get over" that strong a negative reaction to your product.

And if enough folks posted such consistently harsh reviews at every game review site, every store site, etc., then companies like EA would have exactly two choices at their disposal: correct their craniorectal inversion or go out of business. That's the nice thing about online shopping: by putting lots of information about the product at your fingertips, it forces companies to compete on quality instead of just competing on price.

This is unfortunate.

[Servercide]

I miss the era simple gaming. Where myself and my buddies would have a LAN party. COD4 was a godsend when I was deployed.

Wrong lesson.

[PhxBlue]

From the Ars Technica story:

Hopefully EA will learn from the experience and buff up its servers ahead of the game's official European launch on Friday.

As nice as that would be, it's the wrong lesson. The lesson EA needs to learn here is the same one that every other video game publisher has to learn: don't build inherently single-player games with always-on requirements! There was no reason for this in SimCity.

Maybe the next SimCity will learn that lesson from this one. Maybe EA will release a patch that offers the option of offline play. We can hope ... but as it stands now, I wouldn't be surprised if this is the end of the SimCity series -- Maxis' version of Master of Orion III, if you will.

I thought EA were not scumbags?

[h4rr4r]

Didn't someone just claim that EA were not scumbags?

Because this is again stuff a scumbag does.

In another X years, you will not even be able to save progress with this game. Why would anyone buy into that?

Re:Why the online restriction...??

[Shikaku]

To sum up:

1) To prevent you selling the game. I'm guessing that there is some unique key for the copy you bought tied to your online profile.

Greed

2) To make you have to upgrade when they shut off the servers for SimCity 5 when they launch SimCity 6. EA are known for this. Anyone tried play FIFA 2011 or The Sims 2 online recently...?

Greed

3) To try and stop piracy. Instead of just having to activate online, which could be bypassed by some enterprising cracker, now bits of the game need a connection to actually function. Makes the job of cracking it more difficult I guess

Greed

I think it's pretty obvious why it will not sell well and yet another series dying (Dead Space 4 being cancelled because of poor sales of 3) because of greed.

EA is a toy maker, not a game maker.

[BitZtream]

EA hasn't been a game maker for years. They're just another Hasbro now. Turning out cheap copycat toy after cheap copycat toy. The only difference is who's branding they put on the game. They want everyone to pay more and more regardless of how much they paid for the game up front and that is much more difficult offline. With an always on, always tied to your account, always able to verify, always able to control the save game so you can't possibly just hex edit yourself the extra ???? you need.

The reason EA games suck is not because they are more greedy than useful, the reason EA games suck is because they are hundreds of times more greedy than useful. Ubisoft is hardly any better, those they at least learned how retarded always on was and stopped.

Remember, always connected means you in no way own your game. When they turn off the servers, your game goes away and you don't get your money back, its just done. No one will play SimCity5 again after that point.

Won't effect me.

When I first heard about SC5 after seeing the fucktarded SimCities Socities, I thought KICK ASS! A new SimCity ... and then put it in the back of my mind until it was actually released so I don't nag myself about it until then ... then yesterday I read a review on arstechnica.com ... Always on, small play area, economy is entirely unpredictable and irrational in its turns from bust to boom to bust with no logical reason why, all sorts of further issues in the full article. All of the issues seemed to stem from the fact that force you to play and depend on other people.

NOT EVERYONE WANTS TO FUCKING PLAY GAMES WITH INTERNET MORONS OKAY?

I certainly don't. Sometimes, I do. Sometimes I will play with friends, in certain games, when my mood fits it. But any game that I'm going to sit down and dedicate hours of effort and planning to, I'm only going to play with about 3 select friends who will NEVER have the time to be online at the same time as me (kids tend to make schedules hard on you). The rest of the Internet is pretty fucking annoying to deal with in those games, I certainly don't want my game to have to deal with how that jack ass sells his commodities and prices which screw my plan or spews his environmental mess at me.

I ALREADY HAVE REAL LIFE, I DON'T WANT IT IN A GAME.

In a game I want to be in control. I don't want to be at some little 'Anonymous' asshole's whim.