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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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
You're right. The problem is a systematically badly managed company.
Your developers don't set your priorities, your deadlines, your feature set, or your budget. They don't cancel your project in the middle, they don't suddenly decide there's a pressing need to implement a new set of features.
So, either management laid out a perfectly awesome plan and it was hindered by developers. Or management were idiots and incapable of shepherding good product out the door.
This is kind of like saying your bridge is 6 months late because of the welders, when they've been working double shifts for months while the CEO vacations and collects his huge performance bonus.
Sorry, but to me, it's the management of EA who gets to own this issue, not the developers. Because they're the only ones who can make any change in how they do things.
Anybody who has ever worked for a publicly traded company has listened to those quarterly "rah rah" calls and thought to themselves ... "do we actually work at the same company?" Because it's staggering how often the people at the top don't have the slightest clue about what is really happening, and the front-line workers just say "whatever", and get on with their day.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.