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In Wake of Poor Reviews, Amazon Yanks SimCity Download
An anonymous reader writes with an excerpt from Geek.com: "In what must be a big blow for EA and Maxis, Amazon has stopped selling download copies of the just released SimCity. The game has at time of writing received 833 reviews on Amazon, and has an average rating of just one star. That's because 740 of those are one star reviews. Only 20 people gave it 5 stars. There's few better ways to gauge how a game has been received, and this is pretty damning as to how EA has handled the launch."
Not sure if this is good for the PC games industry, or bad. It's good, because games with bad DRM shouldn't succeed. It's bad because I like PC games, and want the industry to focus on PC games again.
Any other big releases with always on drm that actually are playable in the first few weeks that you can remember?... I can't remember any such titles recently.
I bought the sucker yesterday and it doesn't work at all. Can't get past the launcher. If only I had just downloaded the pirated version I would have a working game.
Too bad they made all the money from the idiots who pre-ordered. Never-ever-ever-ever pre-order a game, unless you don't mind getting literally nothing in return. Uninformed markets are broken markets.
I really want to buy SimCity, it looks pretty awesome, but I'm not going to allow EA to treat me like a thief and I'm certainly not going to pay them for the privilege.
Not to exempt the game from all criticism, but the one that's constantly cropping up is 'always on DRM'. Perhaps there is, I honestly don't know, but if so it's only part of the story.
The game is partly calculated server-side. This is why you need a constant internet connection, because some of their servers are doing the work for you. This is almost certainly also why they've collapsed in a heap.
It seems there are enough legitimate criticisms of the game without trotting out the true-but-half-the-story "always on DRM" line. I assume they'll eventually fix the servers and I need to wait for the Mac version anyway, but I'm still concerned - much more worried by fundamentals such as the overall city size for instance.
Cheers,
Ian
The game has at time of writing received 833 reviews on Amazon, and has an average rating of just one star. That's because 740 of those are one star reviews. Only 20 people gave it 5 stars. There's few better ways to gauge how a game has been received...
A star rating on Amazon is one of the best ways to gauge a game's reception? On the contrary, I'd say the fact that 20 people rated a game that lacks basic functionality as worthy of five stars is an indication that the star system is ineffective and fails to tell you much of anything. Were those 20 people rating the graphics of the splash screen? We're they rating what they imagined the game would be like once they could save? Were they purists who believe saves are a form of cheating, and they welcome this new, more-realistic gameplay?
Actual discussion of what is good and bad is and always will be the best way to gauge a product's reception.
even when 740 out of 833 people give something a one star review, 20 people will still give it 5 stars.
You mean, EA has only 20 employees?
Only 20 dedicated to astroturfing on Amazon.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Yeah, and out of everyone I know who played the game (dozens, including me) there are maybe 1 or 2 that continue to play the game (I don't, though I'll pop in from time to time to see if anything has changed). The initial success was great and it sold like hotcakes. The continued success? Not so great because the game is so damn boring. I don't believe I'll be playing D3 in a decade from its release, like I was with D2- partly because the game sucks and mostly because I doubt Blizzard will keep its servers going that long.
Do you really think it need to be referer free? I can't imagine anyone reading this story, and then thinking: Hey I need to buy this game now :}
Amazon referrals are a lot more tricky than that. When you load an amazon page with a referral code it sets a cookie on your system that lasts for something like 24 hours. Any purchases you make while that referral cookie is active send cash to the original referrer (and amazon also gives them a report on what you bought, but not your identity, at least not directly) -- even if you never actually purchase the original item.
That's why some websites will do annoying things like make every image clickable as a referral link to amazon, making it much easier to accidentally click a link so that if 12 hours later you buy something unrelated at Amazon, the referrer still gets the cash.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I don't know exactly who was responsible, or how it happened; but they managed to go from 'concept so sweeping it makes Civilization look myopic' to '5 mini-games, all shitty, plus a low rent 3d modelling application that lets you share penises with eyeballs online'
1. 'Cell Stage': Ooh, a more or less direct unimprovement of Flow a flash game from 2006!
2. 'Creature Stage': Hasn't everyone always wanted to see Simlife rebooted as a terrible over-the-shoulder 3rd person action title?
3.'Tribal Stage': Because the world needs more really terrible RTSes.
4.'Civilization Stage': See #3. So terrible that even the game's developers had mercy and added a 'superweapon' that would automatically cause you to win the stage and end the pain.
5.'Space Stage':Is it possible to clone Escape Velocity and simultaneously add lots of fiddly complexity and suck out any reason to play? Lets find out!
Blizzard doesn't care what you do after the purchase, or whether you keep playing. They already have your money. If anything, many people stopping playing after first few days is better for them - less server load.
Yes, Diablo 3 was a roaring success - it made Blizard loads of money. I'd hazard a guess that this is big part of why EA dared to come up with similar scheme.
This absolutely not true. Of course Blizzard cares about whether people are going to keep playing or not. It is a brand. It is IP with value. They do not want it watered down. Future sales matter, people's passion about it fuels the RMA, people buying collectors editions of future Blizzard games because of access to D3, posters, merch, a steady stream of small sales (like D2 got). On top of those concerns, top talent wants to go to places where they make great games. There are real people in these places.
Z
Yeesh.. at least there's some good reviews out there.. for instance this one.
http://www.jonathancresswell.co.uk/2013/03/review-simcity/
"It's bad because I like PC games, and want the industry to focus on PC games again."
I call Troll. This is all bad and everyone knows it. There is no 'PC gaming industry'...the Personal Computer (PC) is a type of platform for consumer games.
The problem is the notion of requiring an internet connection to use. The problem is FEE PER USE.
DRM is bad for *any* industry in its current usage. Sure there is no law against properly implementing DRM in the right situation so not to harm your users, but that virtually never happens. Once DRM creeps into a type of media it is historically resulted in anti-user DRM implementations.
Lamenting something like 'PC games' is the exact wrong thing to notice. Lament FEE PER USE as industry standard across all gaming platforms.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Or PeerGuardian Linux.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PeerGuardian_Linux
Music is everybody's possession.
It's only publishers who think that people own it.
Fuck Beta
~John Lenno