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SimCity Mac Launch Facing More Problems
The launch of the new SimCity back in March made headlines for the problems caused by the game's always-online DRM. EA Maxis even decided that people who bought the game early deserved a free game for their trouble. They also decided to postpone the launch of the Mac version of the game. Well, the delay is over; SimCity has arrived for Macs, and players are now facing a whole new set of installation and launch problems. "Those issues include a 'mutexAlert' error, which can be resolved by switching the OS to English. Another simply doesn't allow a player to install the game once downloaded. The suggested solution for that is to re-install Origin and opt in to the new Beta version. The game also apparently doesn't currently support Mac OS X 10.7.4 nor the upcoming 10.9 beta release." There are also reports that the game won't function on high-resolution display settings.
Did anyone expect anything less from this series of disasters?
No, really.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
of bad software.
Despite the vociferous pronouncements from many on here as to how high their salary's are as programmers and that you get what you pay for, it's amazing the amount of bad software, games or otherwise, the end user has to suffer with.
I speak from near daily experience when I say the quality of today's software is far below what one would expect considering the company's producing the software and the lofty salaries paid to the programmers.
It's similar to the financial industry where the mantra "best and brightest" is trotted out to excuse the salaries and bonuses of those who continually reek havoc in the financial markets and suffer no penalty.
If these are our best and brightest programmers shoveling out this software, can we try the worst and dullest to see if they can do better?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Maybe they're afraid that if they gave Mac users a non-broken version of SimCity, people would accuse them of playing favorites.
Really, this level of "quality" isn't much different from what the Windows users were delivered, so EA is just trying to be fair. "Look, we put just as much effort into our OS X products as Windows. Which just happens to be little to none. Now buy more DLC!"
I picked up SimCity based on the reputation of Maxis and the series, but at this point I'll seriously reconsider any future games from EA or it's subsidiaries.
I think there's some sort of secret meta-game here. They planned it all along. The actual "winning the game" is getting it to run at all and "playing" is all the troubleshooting. It's actually more of a realtime strategy puzzle game than a simulation, that was just the cover. That or EA absolutely sucks.
just pick them up through either Steam or Bittorrent and the problems largely disappear. Its mostly when they're delivered and managed through the Origin "service" that the problem really creep up.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
I've got an idea! Maybe if you can get some 3rd world country to train children to code your games 20 hours a day in exchange for only housing and basic sustenance then the development costs will be low enough that you can still afford cover up the huge faceplant that every game's release has become...
At least they're trying to keep the PC and Mac experiences as similar as possible. Also, EA - learn to actually release games. Can you at least pretend to have some respect for your customers?
someone that i know that works at EA (actually she work at Maxis) told me that an Experimental Linux port of the game may have 0 Problems if released, but apparently (according to his boss) they wont release it because they have not yet implemented a "good" DRM scheme for Linux.
What boggles my mind the most, is that there are so many stupid people who continue to willingly give EA money.
EA has no incentive to put out software that isn't crap, as long as people are happy to pay for garbage quality.
And of course, this sends a bad message to other companies as well. "EA is making money hand over fist. We can seriously improve our profits by tossing out our QA department, since users will throw money at us no matter what!"
Origin, a crapware that tries to imitate more successful distribution platforms like Steam and fails miserable. Crashes unexpectedly for no apparent reason and kicks you out of your game whether you are online or not. The UI almost doesn't make sense, if you search for DLC it doesn't show everything they have in the catalog unless you click "Available DLC" from in-game.
Take that pos and port it badly to Mac so we can spread the pain to those users too. :P
I can understand the reasoning for Origin since EA really doesn't want anyone else to get a cut of the action for selling their games, but I have to wonder how much this has cost them in developing the platform and dealing with the public image of it being such a crappy software that most people wouldn't touch it with a eleven foot pole. Maybe it would have been cheaper to continue using Steam et al, in both money and good will.
And this latest iteration of SimCity has no appeal for me what so ever.
Anyway, I'm done rambling now. TGIF.
--- Reality doesn't care about your opinions, it happens anyway and if you are in the way you'll get squished.
This has long since been EA's standard operating procedure. What galls me is that so many people continue to put up with it. They do the bare minimum to get out a functioning game then spend what they should have spent on development on licenses and marketing.
There does appear to a downward trend. EA's games have gone from merely being unpolished crap to showing a total lack of testing. The fact that gamers continue to stick with a company like this just goes to show how unprincipled consumers are. Through the years I've seen far too many people claim that they were unhappy, knowing full well what they were getting into, but went ahead and bought the game anyway. Like buying a game in anger somehow sent a message. The ones spending their parents' money think even less about any of it as from their perspective money does grow on trees.
Of course if you have an issue with EA you shouldn't pirate their games either. The message pirating sends to a company like EA is that their games are desirable, but they merely haven't made their DRM strong enough. They know full well that most consumers are suckers who will fork over the cash if they have no other recourse. Making a statement means no purchases and no pirating. Unfortunately, far too many people evidently can't survive without their gaming fix. And when you're talking about the testosterone fueled gaming then the problem is even worse, as evidenced by the continued popularity of the Madden and Battlefield series.
And that's one of the nicer leashes out there. This whole being on a long leash thing just doesn't appeal to me. Call me old-fashioned, but when I pay a buying price, I expect to actually own the game.
There is no shortage of DRM games available (and open source ones). I am personally loving the daily promotions at https://indiegamestand.com/ which offer a daily deal of Direct Downloads cross platform goodness. Groupees also is a great site http://groupees.com/bm9 the link is actually available to the latest deal.
The real worry is not steam. Its Appl stores like those on iOS and Surface RT...and the bleed from these into Desktop Computers, as both Microsoft and Apple force their stores pretence of security....making them mandatory is just a matter of time.
This is a Mac afterall.
Testing: A wonderful thing.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Chances are you own none of the software you bought. You're just borrowing it; doesn't matter if it comes of a spinning magnetic tape or through the internet - you have very little claim to do as you please with the bits you "bought".
Origin worked just fine throughout SimCity's launch fiasco. Heck, the download speeds were often even faster than Steam's. It was SimCity's servers and online-only stupid design which completely blew up.
I think there is another gaming depression looming similar to the great Atari game depression of the early 80's.
The problem is that companies like EA are so profit hungry that almost everything they do in games today is to drive more profit. Always on ensures no piracy, DLC ensures a constant revenue stream after a game release, Freemium is almost one of the most blatant attempts at gaming cash grabs ever because they know that stupid people will drop hundreds of dollars into a "free" game just to be able to advance to level 2. Nintendo has destroyed everything that was successful about it. Microsoft is pushing forward with a product that is already unpopular and Sony is just Sony.
This is happening on the PC, Tablets, Phones and Consoles, no platform is immune to the greedy corporations.
And so you might say what about the Indies, they are going to save gaming! Not if they are trying to push Freemium products like they are doing.
Eventually consumers are going to get fed up and stop buying games. I have no interest in the next generation systems and have generally stopped playing games even on mobile devices. I mean when Angry Birds started wanting you to buy power up's and Might Eagles to help you through the games then its obvious there is no integrity left in this industry. When I need to invest $40 to upgrade a dinosaur in the last Freemium game I will ever play, something is VERY wrong with the gaming industry.
What needs to happen is an almost universal collapse of ALL game companies before we might see a new generation of companies that actually respect their customers and not just their customer's money.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
The games industry continues to be a shitshow of project management incompetence. Unrealistic deadlines, budgets blown, line workers (i.e., devs in their twenties) death marched... it's like after three decades, they still haven't figured out how to actually make what they make.
What always surprises me is that a very similar model for producing creative content already exists and works really, really well, for the most part. Movies and TV shows deal with comparably large budgets, multiple different yet co-ordinated creative teams, and go through a similar lifecyle of design, execution, post-production, and release. You hear about film productions that go bad largely because it's uncommon for them to do so, and that's virtually always driven by a single figure with excessive influence (e.g., Michael Cimino on Heaven's Gate, Kevin Costner on Waterworld). For the most part, films and TV get made profitably, people get paid, and this is all with a bunch of union labour too. Roles and responsibilities are well-defined; financing models well worked out. They even know how to integrate IP franchises to everyone's benefit.
Why don't Hollywood producers move over to videogames and explain how it works?
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
your luck is better than mine then.
i have not yet had a single good experience with Origin.
always end up having to download the cracked game to play something i bought legally.
sometimes have to wonder why i bother buying it at all.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
I tend to agree with you, and those are only the faults of the project management that is directly working on a given product.
But if you think past the job of the project manager, management also includes hiring the right people for the job. There will be honest mistakes of course, but if a large company like EA repeatedly releases crap, the problem is not just one or two bad developers that were hired by accident.
In this case, the hiring process seems to suck at some point. Either they are unable to find competent developers, or they tend to hire bad managers.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Hmm. Another body, this time Mac Sim City, and no real clues as to who killed it.
The Fellowship representatives, Elizabeth and Abraham, arrived in town two days ago and headed out to Minoc this morning. Maybe they had something to do with it.
Humble Bundle!
Koalas. They're telepathic. Plus, they control the weather. -Margaret
Not to mention...
This needs to have an online multi-player component...
With less content and more DLC, plus shit they can buy, like new skins or clothes and stuff...
With always-on DRM so that those evil pirates won't copy our games... and can we use that to pipe more ads into the games too? Live?
Oh, and that ending is too polished. Leave it hanging so that we can bring out episode IV next year...
Most of that doesn't come from the dev-deam
The problem is fundamental: server based. Anything that requires a connection to play is a loser game. Connections are not reliable, universally available or fast everywhere. By requiring a connection they instantly limit their audience and turn off those of use that won't accept that shackle. Major problem is that they can just decide to shut down the servers one day and then the game you paid for is dead. Worthless.
Launch issues are temporary. Their QA sucks.
"Let's not fix this pathing agent that ruins every service and traffic. But there is good news, I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance switching to GEICO."
The only thing that worked was the "Quit" button.
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