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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.
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.
Use always-on, internet-requring DRM they said. It will work fine, they said.
Sadly, EA will not admit DRM is the problem, they will just attribute it to "overwhelming demand".
But but but the game sites hyped it so much I just had to pre-order it
What if they ran out of digital copies after a week of two?
The game is partly calculated server-side. This is why you need a constant internet connection
You have the causation reversed. The game is calculated server side in order to force you to need a constant internet connection. There is no reason to do this except to act as a form of DRM.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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 :}
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?
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Biggest duds of the year? For whom? Certainly not Activision.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_III#Sales
Sales
Before its release, Diablo III broke several presale records and became the most pre-ordered PC game to date on Amazon.com.[98] Activision Blizzard reported that Diablo III had broken the one-day PC sales records, accumulating over 3.5 million sales in the first 24 hours after release and over 6.3 million sales in its first week, including the 1.2 million people who obtained Diablo III through the World of Warcraft annual pass.[99] On its first day, the game amassed 4.7 million players worldwide, an estimate which includes those who obtained the game via the World of Warcraft annual pass.[99] In its second quarterly report, Diablo III was reported to have pushed Activision Blizzard's expectations. As of July 2012, more than 10 million people have played the game.[100] Diablo III remains the fastest selling PC game to date, and also one of the best-selling PC video games. As of the end of 2012, it had sold more than 12 million copies.[5]
Certainly not from critics:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_III#Critical_reception
So unsuccessful that it was the 3rd best selling PC game of all time....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PC_video_games
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
They are hilarious. One person wrote about how the game had given him back his (real) life during the time it spend trying to connect to the server.
Maybe we aren't giving EA enough credit. Maybe they discovered the best DRM was to make a total crap game that no one would even attempt pirate.
This ea support chat screencap posted in one of the reviews seems worth sharing far and wide, and judging from the way it ends I would guess the owner doesn't mind my posting it here.
Seriously - they're like the Mountain Three Wolf Moon Short Sleeve Tee
Here are some choice examples of 5-star reviews:
"Got me off my video game addiction!"
"Like Russian Roulette, slot machines and slicing your wrists all in one!"
"Great Loading and Queue screen simulator!"
EA ruins game. Amazon saves day.
I did this. Amazon was great. Return/refund is the only way EA will ever take a hint.
I suggest:
1. If you bought from Amazon return it. Amazon made it painless for full refund of my opened game.
2. If bought from Orgin ask for refund. EA says in press release you can do this. Though I hear problems from customer service
3. If you cannot get refund from Orgin/EA call credit card company and have them stop payment for defective product.
Maybe EA will fix if this hurts their bottom line?
If problems get fixed in a month or so you can always buy the game again. Otherwise not worth my time now to play with so many problems
Did you see Amazon yanked it because it received so many bad reviews?
What??? No, I didn't hear that! Where can I learn more about it?! Maybe I'll head over to Slashdot and see if they have a post about it!
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
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.
I think there needs to be some clarification as to the nature of why the game thinks it needs to be always online. Some people have suggested that ALL the computing and simulation logic happens on EA servers, but this isn't true.
It has been shown that if you lose a net connection/connection to the server, the game will continue to run offline for about 20 minutes. During this time, YOUR city will continue to simulate properly. However, neighboring cities being developed by other people will freeze in time and be held in this state until such time that your connection is reestablished (if it doesn't before the timeout, the game session ends). Once it reconnects, the state of your neighbors is synced with your city and hence any changes to your neighbors' cities during the time you were offline will immediately be represented.
If you connection drops, your city lives in isolation. Once it reconnects, it returns to the world and is affected by the effects of your neighbors. If you happen to be developing a city next to a tard who is polluting like crazy, your city will suffer the effects. That's the whole purpose of the always-online feature - to provide this MMO-style relationship between players. BUT, given the game runs fine with your city if the connection drops, this is bullshit because it means it should be trivial to enable the player to just play on their own.
The simulation logic is there, available on the installed game. EA just doesn't feel it's worth having an offline mode despite it basically being readily set up for it - it thinks being interconnected with other players who might be dicks and ruin your city is much more important.
Raenex is a dickhead
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/