# DRM - a whole new level.



## Foxbat (Mar 6, 2013)

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/05/gamers-line-up-to-play-simcity/

Just look at the above and marvel as DRM disappears up its own rectum. This proves that piracy is not the real danger. The real danger is a company assuming all its customers are idiots and will buy no matter what.

I'm now utterly convinced that this industry is being run by people intent on destroying it.


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## thaddeus6th (Mar 6, 2013)

Not a SimCity sort of chap, but an American I know elsewhere was staggered and significantly unimpressed to hear about the 'features' of the latest instalment.


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## Janga (Mar 6, 2013)

If I paid to play a game and then have to wait a half hour or longer in a queue to play it every time I wanted to.... I would be pissed.

Sim City? No thank you.


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## Karn Maeshalanadae (Mar 7, 2013)

I was never going to get this anyway. It seems that EA is getting worse and worse every year.

It is, however, getting to the point where one has a harder time finding decent games of certain genres without having to go to one of the big, heartless publishers-or developers.


I've pretty well decided to boycott Blizzard ever since Diablo III's release, and despite the crap that was DA:2, I felt ME:3 saved Bioware, despite its ending(s). But EA has Bioware by the berries, so, I don't know how much longer they'll be able to produce anything decent, either.

And now this. They've pulled a Blizzard for Sim City, and while I enjoyed Sim City in its glory days, this just shows that I will never buy the thing. It's a shame, really...so many franchises ruined by DRM. And so many games that could have been great hits were it not for it...


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## allmywires (Mar 7, 2013)

I've been following the shambles on r/simcity with at first disbelief...then annoyance, and now resignation. Because of being in the UK we're the absolute last to get the game and it seems we're going to get chucked in with the piranhas. I've been waiting for this game for years and years and years and when it comes tomorrow I either won't be able to play it or it'll completely bug out on me, it seems. Such a shame, it looks like a great game (apart from the tile size, which I'll refrain from mentioning as it's been argued to death).

Also, nothing stops pirates. They'll find a work around somehow. So EA has f*cked us all over for the sake of a small minority that they won't even have affected at all, except perhaps making them work a bit harder.


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## Dozmonic (Mar 7, 2013)

Diablo 3 was pretty poor and means I won't be buying any Blizzard game on the merit of previous games in the franchises

SimCity was always such a single player game that always on DRM and server side cities really is a slap in the face.

http://i.imgur.com/rUvSn7L.jpg made me laugh


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## Karn Maeshalanadae (Mar 8, 2013)

Hehe. Yeah, but it did make me feel nostalgic, so I decided to go ultra-retro and get SimCity 2000 working again.


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## allmywires (Mar 8, 2013)

Just got my copy. I'll let you all know how it goes...


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## allmywires (Mar 8, 2013)

Well, it was all going great until just now. I played 5 hours straight and it was amazing. Now just went to have dinner, came back on and...my cities had disappeared. Poof. Gone. Think it's a server issue (what else...?) because others have reported this - all the servers are busy now and it had me on Europe East which I'm fairly sure was not the one I was on earlier. Guess I won't be getting any gametime tonight, then.


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## Dozmonic (Mar 8, 2013)

Your cities are server specific from what I heard, so you may have to hunt to find the server you were on


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## allmywires (Mar 8, 2013)

I managed to find it again by not clicking 'resume' but the 'new game' option or whatever, played for about half an hour, then it said my city wasn't processing properly and effectively kicked me from the game...tried to get back in and the servers were full so I'm giving up for the night. Downloading Sims 3 instead. Maybe I'll have to wait to play this game properly until EA fixes it, or all the people whining about it on the Internet (which seems to be everyone, judging by the Amazon reviews) stops playing it and frees up the server space!


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## Foxbat (Mar 9, 2013)

Hope it finally starts to go well for you allmywires

The big thing that bugs me about this is - example - I have Sim City 2000. If I wish, I can re-install and play whenever I want (Available on GOG.com for $4.99 by the way). If the company goes bust, I can still play Sim City 2000.

What if the company behind the new Sim City goes bust? Will they leave the servers on? I don't think so. Will EA release a special patch to release it from 'always on' (assuming that they can and it's not too greatly embedded in the core programming). My answer to the latter would be - Going on reputation - No! And even if they say 'yes', this is a company I stopped trusting a long time ago.

So, what we have is a game on hire that may disappear when you least expect it (along with all those hours of work you put in). I never buy software that is 'always on' for those concerns I've just mentioned.

Anybody, please feel free to correct my perceptions if I'm wrong.


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## Foxbat (Mar 9, 2013)

Just a small addition to my previous post - it's worth having a look at some of the reviews on Amazon.


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## Robert C Adams (Mar 9, 2013)

For the Diablo III players/haters, have you seen the youtube video 'If Diablo 3 Were a Girl'?  Not super hilarious but fun.


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## Rahl Windsong (Mar 11, 2013)

Rule of thumb in buying PC games, if EA had anything to do with it DON'T BUY IT! They should really get get some special award recognition for destroying more games then any developer, or publisher in the history of PC gaming.

I won't even buy their NHL hockey games any longer they have pissed me off that much, and their NHL franchise is actually not that bad, or at least that was the case last time I bought one in 2001...


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## Karn Maeshalanadae (Mar 11, 2013)

I hate EA as much as anyone, but anymore, they're one of the Big Three, and with the exception of the Elder Scrolls series, they seem to be the only ones left to get an RPG from.


I've already turned my back on Blizzard. Ever since Activision bought them out, they lost their quality. I look back on and play Diablo II with fondness, as also do I do so with Black Isle games, but...nothing new for me from them. Diablo III settled that.


I only wish the Japanese were releasing more classic RPGs over here...


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## Foxbat (Mar 15, 2013)

An interesting development.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/14/modder-runs-simcity-offline-maxis-remains-silent/

Despite EA's insistance that the coding is entirely dependent on on-line play, and that it is impossible to build this game to run off-line (the sub-text obviously being that it is not DRM), one modder has managed to get it running off-line indefinitely. 

Could it be that such a great and respected company as EA has misspoken, told a mistruth, furbished us with inadvertant inaccurate data......or just plain lied?

Surely not


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## allmywires (Mar 15, 2013)

Mm, yes, suspicious indeed...I guess it could mean that this forces EA's hand so that now it's been proven to be possible, they'll have to add an offline patch. Well, I hope so, because I'm going home for a month tomorrow and our internet is currently broken and isn't very fast to begin with anyway. Not that I've played SimCity for a few days because I got a little bored of the whole setup...but that's another story. Nice job, EA...


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## Karn Maeshalanadae (Mar 15, 2013)

If there were any decent indie fantasy RPGs out there, I could tell EA to shove it just like I pretty much am to Blizzard. As far as I can see, these days, it really just seems down to the Big Four vying for consumer attention when it comes to the industry, at least for PC gaming: Valve, Bethesda, Blizzard/Activision, and EA. Ever since the Diablo III fiasco, I'm pretty well boycotting Blizzard, and Valve really isn't into the fantasy RPG scene.


Which leaves Bethesda and EA. Bethesda does a lot of things right, I feel, with their games, but they all have the same kind of style and get vanilla after a while of playing.


So, if I want anything, it seems I have to go through EA until I find some indie titles that look nice, and that's getting to be a bit of a challenge...


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## Kylara (Mar 15, 2013)

Haha, wow that sucks guys...still the only PC games we have here are the entire age of empires set (mainly because my dad loves building stuff in it and looking at the tiny pixelated people) and skyrim, but skyrim is different. EA have totally mauled the PC gaming sets, total shambles...haha good on that modder! I do love a little cheeky modder


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## Karn Maeshalanadae (Mar 15, 2013)

Yeah, I have to agree there. I'll never get that SimCity anyway. I'm fine sticking with 2000.


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## Christopher Lee (Mar 17, 2013)

I don't play video games like I used to.  I've reverted to reading and writing more often.  But when I did, EA was two letters I learned to steer clear of.  I worshiped Blizzard for giving me Starcraft as a child, and then the original vanilla World of Warcraft.  But in recent years my trust in them had waned significantly to the point I no longer bought their merchandise.


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## allmywires (Mar 19, 2013)

Got an email yesterday from EA saying, 'We messed up, have a free game.' Included in that list was Simcity 4 (the others were quite sh*te but you know, whatever). Funny cos it didn't even hardly affect me. Probably going to get Simcity 4 when I tire of the tiny post-stamp cities in SC5.


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