Sorry, I didn't mean to single you out in any fashion there, Henroid. Just used that comment as a launching off point.
I'm so fundamentally opposed to the demands that Sim City be turned into an offline single player game, though. It is not a consumer's right to demand that an artist change their creation to better suit them, and I think it's a dangerous road to go down. We can criticize, and we should, but people have to be careful with demands.
Removal of tacked on always online DRM? Yes. Removal of what the developer considers core gameplay features? No.
Also, there are so many more facets to the always online trend than simple outrage. Just from an archival perspective, what happens when they decide to stop running servers? Is the game lost to the ether? Is there anything fundamentally wrong with an experience being somewhat ephemeral?
OneAngryPossum on
+1
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
Sorry, I didn't mean to single you out in any fashion there, Henroid. Just used that comment as a launching off point.
I'm so fundamentally opposed to the demands that Sim City be turned into an offline single player game, though. It is not a consumer's right to demand that an artist change their creation to better suit them, and I think it's a dangerous road to go down. We can criticize, and we should, but people have to be careful with demands.
Removal of tacked on always online DRM? Yes. Removal of what the developer considers core gameplay features? No.
Also, there are so many more facets to the always online trend than simple outrage. Just from an archival perspective, what happens when they decide to stop running servers? Is the game lost to the ether? Is there anything fundamentally wrong with an experience being somewhat ephemeral?
People aren't demanding it be converted into singleplayer. They demand the option for singleplayer be present. True singleplayer, offline. And it's not unreasonable. Nothing about this is "remove the multiplayer."
I misspoke, but I think you know what I meant. It's a demand for a game that isn't the developer's vision. I'm not ok with that.
Taking it for granted that this was a colossal fuckup, there's nothing inherently wrong with requiring a constant connection to a game that isn't traditionally multiplayer or online. Providing an option to play such a game single player isn't just disabling the login screen. If Maxis wanted to make a game that plays the way they want it to play offline they would have to fundamentally rebalance the entire experience. If all players want is the ability to play the game as is offline, they're asking for a game that Maxis probably doesn't think lives up to their quality standards (of course, the current game fails there too). If they want a real offline and single player experience, they're asking for a non-trivial amount of development time to bring that version of Sim City up to the standards that Maxis would accept.
I get hating the always on requirement, but suggesting a single player option be provided dismisses the work Maxis did to make the game they made. Core mechanics wouldn't function the way they do if they hadn't built the game for online audiences.
Sorry, I didn't mean to single you out in any fashion there, Henroid. Just used that comment as a launching off point.
I'm so fundamentally opposed to the demands that Sim City be turned into an offline single player game, though. It is not a consumer's right to demand that an artist change their creation to better suit them, and I think it's a dangerous road to go down. We can criticize, and we should, but people have to be careful with demands.
Removal of tacked on always online DRM? Yes. Removal of what the developer considers core gameplay features? No.
Also, there are so many more facets to the always online trend than simple outrage. Just from an archival perspective, what happens when they decide to stop running servers? Is the game lost to the ether? Is there anything fundamentally wrong with an experience being somewhat ephemeral?
Are they artists or a company trying to sell a product? This isn't the statue of David. This isn't some artist trying to put out some message. Why do we have to be careful about saying what we as consumers want? We might get it? If (and I'm saying that's the case) the majority of gamers didn't want something, shouldn't the manufacturer know?
You could turn it around and say we are saying they should add to the gameplay features. Add an offline mode. It could have both.
Yes, there is something wrong with an experience being ephemeral if it need not be. If something is good, why limit it's longevity? Somebody made this point before but Super Mario Bros. is good. Imagine not being able to go back and play the classics.
I believe the chance of Maxis making a single-player patch for this is about the same as the chance of me spontaneously sprouting golden bananas from forehead and being proclaimed the king of Australia.
Sadly. Always wanted to be king
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
Even if the developers had a 'vision' of what the game is, they're probably savvy enough to know singleplayer's importance.
I have to emphasize that the publisher is very much capable of making demands of the developers, and can even filter or control their messaging to the public.
Sorry, I didn't mean to single you out in any fashion there, Henroid. Just used that comment as a launching off point.
I'm so fundamentally opposed to the demands that Sim City be turned into an offline single player game, though. It is not a consumer's right to demand that an artist change their creation to better suit them, and I think it's a dangerous road to go down. We can criticize, and we should, but people have to be careful with demands.
Removal of tacked on always online DRM? Yes. Removal of what the developer considers core gameplay features? No.
Also, there are so many more facets to the always online trend than simple outrage. Just from an archival perspective, what happens when they decide to stop running servers? Is the game lost to the ether? Is there anything fundamentally wrong with an experience being somewhat ephemeral?
Are they artists or a company trying to sell a product? This isn't the statue of David. This isn't some artist trying to put out some message. Why do we have to be careful about saying what we as consumers want? We might get it? If (and I'm saying that's the case) the majority of gamers didn't want something, shouldn't the manufacturer know?
You could turn it around and say we are saying they should add to the gameplay features. Add an offline mode. It could have both.
Yes, there is something wrong with an experience being ephemeral if it need not be. If something is good, why limit it's longevity?
I'd be upset if audiences demanded that Michael Bay recut Transformers so that it's not an insufferable piece of schizophrenic trash. Selling a piece of art as a product doesn't mean it isn't still art, and art doesn't have to be a classic for the creator to have final call on its appearance/offerings.
Please, god, don't let this turn into a games as art debate, because it's incredibly far removed from this thread's subject.
As for why people should be 'careful' about saying what they want: there is a difference between saying "This game was a bad idea, fails to make a case for it's online features, and I hate it," and saying "This game was a bad idea, they should 'fix it' and give me the game I want." Criticism is good. Ridiculous (and I haven't seen a strong case made that they aren't ridiculous) demands to be given something that the developer didn't make are bad.
I generally fall on the side of the fence that thinks people aren't entitled enough. We get run the fuck over by moneyed interests on a daily basis and we take it for granted. That isn't the same thing as feeling like a creator owes you something in one of their creations.
The rest of your arguments are addressed, though probably not to your satisfaction, above. I'm legitimately curious: what would it take for a game to 'merit' an always online connection for you? There seems to be an arbitrary divide for MMORPGs and the like that's not really based on any firm lines, and nobody is making an effort to provide any.
OneAngryPossum on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
I'm legitimately curious: what would it take for a game to 'merit' an always online connection for you? There seems to be an arbitrary divide for MMORPGs and the like that's not really based on any firm lines, and nobody is making an effort to provide any.
Can I take a shot at answering this?
What games and game makers have to do to merit "always on" is actually not asking for a whole hell of a lot. The checks for connection have to be as infrequent as possible, and there has to be reasonable accounting for things like the wind blowing and screwing with internet connections. That's on the function side. On the feature side, I have no issues with SimCity (aside from multiplayer being forced - SimCity having a multiplayer aspect is something I would dream about).
My actual problem with "always on," aside from the stupid implementation of it, is with telecoms having shit management and support of our infrastructure.
I mean it takes ridiculous scales sometimes ... like voting EA as the worst company in the world while there are companies out there that make families poor, homeless, that kill people or that spill oil in the sea and destroy our planet etc. It's things like these that make me ashamed to be a gamer ... we are pricks! "We" literally put our hobby - our "luxuries" - before anything else and before real world problems ... we are a spoiled bunch of pricks! We waste so much energy complaining about things that 90% of the world don't even care about .. which I would call "being passionate" if it would not have blown up to ridiculous proportions ... it's not "passionate" anymore, it's bitchy, whiny and an unhealthy believe of entitlement.
Stop with the fucking entitlement claims. Ever since the Mass Effect ending that has become some people's favorite word. They have decided that entitlement means not being a corporate cheerleader. This is a business EA is not making games out of some artistic sense or out of the goodness of there hearts so this belief that we should not complain about things is utterly ridiculous. Unless your claim is that EA is entitled to our money and praise?
It is not a consumer's right to demand that an artist change their creation to better suit them.
Apparently you don't know how capitalism works.
Consumers can demand safety measure changes, or that art is good or bad so don't make anymore of this. Consumers don't traditionally change currently existing art, they just decide the fate of more of that kind of art being made.
I believe the chance of Maxis making a single-player patch for this is about the same as the chance of me spontaneously sprouting golden bananas from forehead and being proclaimed the king of Australia.
Sadly. Always wanted to be king
It's not an exaggeration to say that it's basically about as likely as Blizzard putting on a World of Warcraft patch that lets you play the game alone by scaling difficulties like a conventional RPG with a lot of grinding.
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
I've been thinking more and more why always online DRM is something that, apologies to Henroid, can never been "well" implemented at today's technology. Let me see if I can put it in to words.
Right now we have certain technologies that through long use plus government regulation are incredibly reliable (at least in the United States). Electricity is one. The electricity is almost always on, and when it's not it either gets repaired quickly or is due to an act of God which everyone knows about. Maintenance done on electrical lines is always done while the power is still on, because no one wants to have to experience a power outage while routine maintenance is going on.
Telephony is another example. In fact I just found out a couple of days ago the uptime for telephones: 99.999% availability (or at least I gather that is what they go for). Telephones hardly ever go down. Even cellphones have improved dramtically over the past decade, to the point that I can't remember the last time I was unable to call someone on a cell phone that didn't involve activation of a new phone or dead battery.
The huge problem, though, is that internet is no where near that level of ubiquitous stability. It's not even close. It may have stopped now, but a few years ago broadband companies were still doing that "you get up to xx speed!" and if you aren't getting that speed they would say "well, it says "up to" so you can't complain." Even within one's own home, on a wired cable connection, the internet still hiccups. I can easily remember the last time my internet went down, my cable internet - it was last night. There are no regulations requiring 99.999% uptime on internet, as far as I know. And even if there were, mobile internet is even less near universal stability than wired internet is.
Maybe if we lived in a world where fiber to the home connections were everywhere, but we're not even close to that. Verizon Fios (the company I work for) stopped their new buildouts several years ago, along with just straight-up selling off their less lucrative territory.
All this is just to say that a company that builds it's model around such a comparatively unstable model had better have DAMN good reasons for doing so. MMOs, real MMOs have an excuse and we all put up with their downtime because the entire nature of those games is to be internet based. I haven't yet seen a convincing argument as to why SimCity can be classified as an MMO now, particularly as no one has marketed it that way.
I'm legitimately curious: what would it take for a game to 'merit' an always online connection for you? There seems to be an arbitrary divide for MMORPGs and the like that's not really based on any firm lines, and nobody is making an effort to provide any.
I mentioned it above. It's about player expectation. It's about why a person is playing the game. People don't play MMOs because of the sweet graphics, quality narative, and tight combat. The Online part of an MMO isn't just an extra feature. It's the main feature as to why people play the game. Without that part you have a game like Kingdoms of Amalur, which was originally created as an MMO and then switched to be single player later. While still well received it only achieved moderate success and the company that made it also went immediately bankrupt. I don't think people are buying and playing Simcity because of the multiplayer aspect. They're playing it for the city building simulation. Online isn't the point, it's just a feature.
I've been thinking more and more why always online DRM is something that, apologies to Henroid, can never been "well" implemented at today's technology. Let me see if I can put it in to words.
Right now we have certain technologies that through long use plus government regulation are incredibly reliable (at least in the United States). Electricity is one. The electricity is almost always on, and when it's not it either gets repaired quickly or is due to an act of God which everyone knows about. Maintenance done on electrical lines is always done while the power is still on, because no one wants to have to experience a power outage while routine maintenance is going on.
Telephony is another example. In fact I just found out a couple of days ago the uptime for telephones: 99.999% availability (or at least I gather that is what they go for). Telephones hardly ever go down. Even cellphones have improved dramtically over the past decade, to the point that I can't remember the last time I was unable to call someone on a cell phone that didn't involve activation of a new phone or dead battery.
The huge problem, though, is that internet is no where near that level of ubiquitous stability. It's not even close. It may have stopped now, but a few years ago broadband companies were still doing that "you get up to xx speed!" and if you aren't getting that speed they would say "well, it says "up to" so you can't complain." Even within one's own home, on a wired cable connection, the internet still hiccups. I can easily remember the last time my internet went down, my cable internet - it was last night. There are no regulations requiring 99.999% uptime on internet, as far as I know. And even if there were, mobile internet is even less near universal stability than wired internet is.
Maybe if we lived in a world where fiber to the home connections were everywhere, but we're not even close to that. Verizon Fios (the company I work for) stopped their new buildouts several years ago, along with just straight-up selling off their less lucrative territory.
All this is just to say that a company that builds it's model around such a comparatively unstable model had better have DAMN good reasons for doing so. MMOs, real MMOs have an excuse and we all put up with their downtime because the entire nature of those games is to be internet based. I haven't yet seen a convincing argument as to why SimCity can be classified as an MMO now, particularly as no one has marketed it that way.
I dunno why you're apologizing because everything you said is 100% correct. I've gone on and on about internet infrastructure being shit, and maybe I haven't been articulating it well I guess.
I'm legitimately curious: what would it take for a game to 'merit' an always online connection for you? There seems to be an arbitrary divide for MMORPGs and the like that's not really based on any firm lines, and nobody is making an effort to provide any.
Can I take a shot at answering this?
What games and game makers have to do to merit "always on" is actually not asking for a whole hell of a lot. The checks for connection have to be as infrequent as possible, and there has to be reasonable accounting for things like the wind blowing and screwing with internet connections. That's on the function side. On the feature side, I have no issues with SimCity (aside from multiplayer being forced - SimCity having a multiplayer aspect is something I would dream about).
My actual problem with "always on," aside from the stupid implementation of it, is with telecoms having shit management and support of our infrastructure.
I absolutely agree with this. I know a lot of people (mistakenly) think I'm defending EA or something here, but I'm not. They brought this entirely on themselves, and there's no excuse for the bullshit customers have had to put up with just trying to play the game that they paid for. The important thing here is that I think Maxis would agree. People aren't playing the game they made, they're playing a compromised version that was chipped away at to try and meet basic customer expectations.
And your breakdown of function vs feature is right on. Everybody deserves that their purchase function as they reasonably expect, and as they were promised. Things get hairier when people start asking for a change in a feature that's right at the heart of the game, even if it doesn't work like they want it to. I equate it to asking for a plot change, or at least some cinematography changes, and I think that's going too far.
Like I mentioned above, my main concern with functional always on requirements is archival. It's ridiculously hard as is to properly archive and store the hardware and software that doesn't require any outside help, and I have no idea how that should be handled when a server-dependent game goes down. Most of the time server code isn't even public, and emulated options aren't reliably accurate. It's a weird problem.
+1
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
I dunno why you're apologizing because everything you said is 100% correct. I've gone on and on about internet infrastructure being shit, and maybe I haven't been articulating it well I guess.
I thought it was you that said that "when correctly implemented" always online DRM is the least obtrusive type of DRM.
My entire argument is that there is literally no way to "correctly implement" something which by it's very nature is going to be down maybe... I dunno, 25% of the time? I can't get availability numbers for internet because companies keep that shit under wraps.
Like I mentioned above, my main concern with functional always on requirements is archival. It's ridiculously hard as is to properly archive and store the hardware and software that doesn't require any outside help, and I have no idea how that should be handled when a server-dependent game goes down. Most of the time server code isn't even public, and emulated options aren't reliably accurate. It's a weird problem.
This got discussed on a recent Idle Thumbs, how there's games starting to exist solely on the "cloud," and once those services go down, the games literally cease existing. We're in a new era and it is freaky as shit. But anyway, that's probably another thread.
I'm legitimately curious: what would it take for a game to 'merit' an always online connection for you? There seems to be an arbitrary divide for MMORPGs and the like that's not really based on any firm lines, and nobody is making an effort to provide any.
I mentioned it above. It's about player expectation. It's about why a person is playing the game. People don't play MMOs because of the sweet graphics, quality narative, and tight combat. The Online part of an MMO isn't just an extra feature. It's the main feature as to why people play the game. Without that part you have a game like Kingdoms of Amalur, which was originally created as an MMO and then switched to be single player later. While still well received it only achieved moderate success and the company that made it also went immediately bankrupt. I don't think people are buying and playing Simcity because of the multiplayer aspect. They're playing it for the city building simulation. Online isn't the point, it's just a feature.
But was it just a feature for Maxis, or a central tenet of design? I agree EA didn't emphasize the nature of the game hard enough in marketing, but is that something that should be held against the game itself? Can I dislike Fight Club because the advertising didn't mention I'd have to look at Brad Pitt's torso a lot?
Answer: no, because that was a pleasant surprise and the actual equivalent is not hiding sexy abs but rather hiding that every theater would be set on fire for the duration of the film's run time.
Which also doesn't fall on the director, in my mind.
Edit: I have no idea why this seemed like a good analogy in my mind, but I'll leave it here anyway until I come up with something that features cars, dogs, or stoves.
OneAngryPossum on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
I dunno why you're apologizing because everything you said is 100% correct. I've gone on and on about internet infrastructure being shit, and maybe I haven't been articulating it well I guess.
I thought it was you that said that "when correctly implemented" always online DRM is the least obtrusive type of DRM.
My entire argument is that there is literally no way to "correctly implement" something which by it's very nature is going to be down maybe... I dunno, 25% of the time? I can't get availability numbers for internet because companies keep that shit under wraps.
Oh sure, but I mean I've always been trying to keep up with my constant view that until internet infrastructure improves "always on" is completely fucked. In the assumed scenario that internet is stable, I am conceptually fine with "always on" if we have to live in a world with some fashion of DRM or another. It's why I've asked questions like wondering if the industry is trying to strong-arm the issue of improving internet infrastructure by just making it a more depended on resource.
I'm legitimately curious: what would it take for a game to 'merit' an always online connection for you? There seems to be an arbitrary divide for MMORPGs and the like that's not really based on any firm lines, and nobody is making an effort to provide any.
I mentioned it above. It's about player expectation. It's about why a person is playing the game. People don't play MMOs because of the sweet graphics, quality narative, and tight combat. The Online part of an MMO isn't just an extra feature. It's the main feature as to why people play the game. Without that part you have a game like Kingdoms of Amalur, which was originally created as an MMO and then switched to be single player later. While still well received it only achieved moderate success and the company that made it also went immediately bankrupt. I don't think people are buying and playing Simcity because of the multiplayer aspect. They're playing it for the city building simulation. Online isn't the point, it's just a feature.
But was it just a feature for Maxis, or a central tenet of design? I agree EA didn't emphasize the nature of the game hard enough in marketing, but is that something that should be held against the game itself? Can I dislike Fight Club because the advertising didn't mention I'd have to look at Brad Pitt's torso a lot?
Answer: no, because that was a pleasant surprise and the actual equivalent is not hiding a sexy torso but rather hiding that every theater would be set on fire for the duration of the film's run time.
Well to me it doesn't matter how much Maxis thought it was a central tenet of design. It's about why the player is playing it. If you're playing it FOR the multiplayer aspects, you have an easier justifying it being always online. People play MMOs specifically for the massively multiplayer part, so it's easy to justify the always online nature of it. Unless Maxis expected people were mainly playing Simcity for the online features it's a lot harder to justify being always online.
Well to me it doesn't matter how much Maxis thought it was a central tenet of design. It's about why the player is playing it. If you're playing it FOR the multiplayer aspects, you have an easier justifying it being always online. People play MMOs specifically for the massively multiplayer part, so it's easy to justify the always online nature of it. Unless Maxis expected people were mainly playing Simcity for the online features it's a lot harder to justify being always online.
But why should consumer expectations (that the developer actively discouraged) outweigh what the developer wants to make? I think the biggest mistake EA made here was straight out calling this Sim City, but I can't imagine the game would be made without that kind of name clout.
I've been thinking more and more why always online DRM is something that, apologies to Henroid, can never been "well" implemented at today's technology. Let me see if I can put it in to words.
Right now we have certain technologies that through long use plus government regulation are incredibly reliable (at least in the United States). Electricity is one. The electricity is almost always on, and when it's not it either gets repaired quickly or is due to an act of God which everyone knows about. Maintenance done on electrical lines is always done while the power is still on, because no one wants to have to experience a power outage while routine maintenance is going on.
Telephony is another example. In fact I just found out a couple of days ago the uptime for telephones: 99.999% availability (or at least I gather that is what they go for). Telephones hardly ever go down. Even cellphones have improved dramtically over the past decade, to the point that I can't remember the last time I was unable to call someone on a cell phone that didn't involve activation of a new phone or dead battery.
The huge problem, though, is that internet is no where near that level of ubiquitous stability. It's not even close. It may have stopped now, but a few years ago broadband companies were still doing that "you get up to xx speed!" and if you aren't getting that speed they would say "well, it says "up to" so you can't complain." Even within one's own home, on a wired cable connection, the internet still hiccups. I can easily remember the last time my internet went down, my cable internet - it was last night. There are no regulations requiring 99.999% uptime on internet, as far as I know. And even if there were, mobile internet is even less near universal stability than wired internet is.
Maybe if we lived in a world where fiber to the home connections were everywhere, but we're not even close to that. Verizon Fios (the company I work for) stopped their new buildouts several years ago, along with just straight-up selling off their less lucrative territory.
All this is just to say that a company that builds it's model around such a comparatively unstable model had better have DAMN good reasons for doing so. MMOs, real MMOs have an excuse and we all put up with their downtime because the entire nature of those games is to be internet based. I haven't yet seen a convincing argument as to why SimCity can be classified as an MMO now, particularly as no one has marketed it that way.
I'd never really considered the stability of utilities, or the fact that internet access isn't considered to be in the same area yet. Here's hoping that changes sometime soon.
Is there a problem with making a game for the market segment that has a reliable internet connection, or is willing to put up with some amount of inaccessibility though? And aside from the weight of Sim City's online past (and the technical failures), what argument can be made that this game shouldn't be online only? Part of the backlash was based on how highly the game was rated prior to it's release, suggesting that it does work and make a case for itself when it's not being hamstrung by server issues.
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Well to me it doesn't matter how much Maxis thought it was a central tenet of design. It's about why the player is playing it. If you're playing it FOR the multiplayer aspects, you have an easier justifying it being always online. People play MMOs specifically for the massively multiplayer part, so it's easy to justify the always online nature of it. Unless Maxis expected people were mainly playing Simcity for the online features it's a lot harder to justify being always online.
But why should consumer expectations (that the developer actively discouraged) outweigh what the developer wants to make? I think the biggest mistake EA made here was straight out calling this Sim City, but I can't imagine the game would be made without that kind of name clout.
I've been thinking more and more why always online DRM is something that, apologies to Henroid, can never been "well" implemented at today's technology. Let me see if I can put it in to words.
Right now we have certain technologies that through long use plus government regulation are incredibly reliable (at least in the United States). Electricity is one. The electricity is almost always on, and when it's not it either gets repaired quickly or is due to an act of God which everyone knows about. Maintenance done on electrical lines is always done while the power is still on, because no one wants to have to experience a power outage while routine maintenance is going on.
Telephony is another example. In fact I just found out a couple of days ago the uptime for telephones: 99.999% availability (or at least I gather that is what they go for). Telephones hardly ever go down. Even cellphones have improved dramtically over the past decade, to the point that I can't remember the last time I was unable to call someone on a cell phone that didn't involve activation of a new phone or dead battery.
The huge problem, though, is that internet is no where near that level of ubiquitous stability. It's not even close. It may have stopped now, but a few years ago broadband companies were still doing that "you get up to xx speed!" and if you aren't getting that speed they would say "well, it says "up to" so you can't complain." Even within one's own home, on a wired cable connection, the internet still hiccups. I can easily remember the last time my internet went down, my cable internet - it was last night. There are no regulations requiring 99.999% uptime on internet, as far as I know. And even if there were, mobile internet is even less near universal stability than wired internet is.
Maybe if we lived in a world where fiber to the home connections were everywhere, but we're not even close to that. Verizon Fios (the company I work for) stopped their new buildouts several years ago, along with just straight-up selling off their less lucrative territory.
All this is just to say that a company that builds it's model around such a comparatively unstable model had better have DAMN good reasons for doing so. MMOs, real MMOs have an excuse and we all put up with their downtime because the entire nature of those games is to be internet based. I haven't yet seen a convincing argument as to why SimCity can be classified as an MMO now, particularly as no one has marketed it that way.
I'd never really considered the stability of utilities, or the fact that internet access isn't considered to be in the same area yet. Here's hoping that changes sometime soon.
Is there a problem with making a game for the market segment that has a reliable internet connection, or is willing to put up with some amount of inaccessibility though? And aside from the weight of Sim City's online past (and the technical failures), what argument can be made that this game shouldn't be online only? Part of the backlash was based on how highly the game was rated prior to it's release, suggesting that it does work and make a case for itself when it's not being hamstrung by server issues.
Well as others have said, games for which the entire point is that they are online get a pass on the stability issue.
Essentially SimCity should have been marketed as being online only, as having no more single player, if that is truly the audience they were going for. The very fact that the general populace wasn't aware of the fact that it's supposedly an MMO now says to me that knew they'd lose part of their audience if they went SimCity Online. Whether it's Maxis or EA doesn't really matter to me. Someone was acting sketchy here. Your argument that "this is the game they wanted to make, and if you didn't want to play that they don't buy the game" doesn't hold water because it's not the way they marketed it (and while magazine interviews are part of marketing, either calling attention to the online aspect in the title or "forgetting" to says a lot more about what the company wanted the audience to know about it).
No, I don't disagree with you on the marketing thing. I followed the development haphazardly and didn't know it was always online until fairly shortly before release, so I've got no expectations on the consumer failing to follow the market or some other libertarian bullshit. EA sold this badly, and I wouldn't be surprised if they went with the Sim City moniker instead of throwing some sort of subtitle on despite knowing it'd piss off fans.
What I meant to ask is, regardless of the marketing, if you think there's anything inherently problematic with developing this game as they did, knowing that some people simply wouldn't be able to access it? And aside from bad marketing and terrible support, why is 'always online' a valid criticism in and of itself? I've talked a bit before about some of the bigger things Maxis did that make their online priorities clear (allocation of resources within regions, region-wide projects, message boards built into said regions) and I think they made a decent case for themselves.
Plenty of people disagree with me there, and that's fine, but I just don't see a lot of evidence that the game would stand up very well minus that online component.
No, I don't disagree with you on the marketing thing. I followed the development haphazardly and didn't know it was always online until fairly shortly before release, so I've got no expectations on the consumer failing to follow the market or some other libertarian bullshit. EA sold this badly, and I wouldn't be surprised if they went with the Sim City moniker instead of throwing some sort of subtitle on despite knowing it'd piss off fans.
What I meant to ask is, regardless of the marketing, if you think there's anything inherently problematic with developing this game as they did, knowing that some people simply wouldn't be able to access it? And aside from bad marketing and terrible support, why is 'always online' a valid criticism in and of itself? I've talked a bit before about some of the bigger things Maxis did that make their online priorities clear (allocation of resources within regions, region-wide projects, message boards built into said regions) and I think they made a decent case for themselves.
Plenty of people disagree with me there, and that's fine, but I just don't see a lot of evidence that the game would stand up very well minus that online component.
Those are reasons why always online was bad. It was not explained properly. I think people need to fully be aware of what they are getting into before buying the game. If you inform people on what they are buying, especially when it's something that already has stigma attached to it, they will be less mad at you when things screw up.
Look what Maxis has done since the launch. The head of Maxis is openly communicating with people, apologized about the current state of the game, and offered a free game for the trouble. Comments are going from anger and range to acceptance and understanding, mind you there are still people who are very mad.
"Wait" he says... do I look like a waiter?
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
I want to write a longer post, but before I do in your opinion @oneangrypossum is online DRM art or a service?
I want to write a longer post, but before I do in your opinion @oneangrypossum is online DRM art or a service?
It depends on exactly what the intent behind the always online drm is. If they intend it to be a limiting factor on game play, then it'd be part of the art of the game. What I mean by that is if the always online nature of the game changes the experience of playing the game, then it's part ofthe design of the game and therefore part of the art of the game. However, in the case of Diablo 3, it was obviously just there as drm. In that case it is all service.
I want to write a longer post, but before I do in your opinion @oneangrypossum is online DRM art or a service?
I'm not sure I agree with the phrasing of the question: I don't consider what Sim City is doing right now to necessarily be purely DRM, for example. I also wouldn't classify straight up always online DRM as a 'service'.
That said, I mostly agree with Death of Rats. If a game requires you to be connected to the internet at all times because the developers believe that any part of their online features are a critical to the experience, then clearly that's game design. If the game is just dialing up its home server continuously throughout the game with no online features whatsoever, obviously that's always online DRM being used in a way that's not an aspect of the game design.
It's a murky area, to be sure, but it's basically down to developer intent. Since we're not naive and take everything from major publishers and developers with a grain of salt, that's going to involve reading the tea leaves on occasion. Example: I think Blizzard could have made a case for Diablo 3's online requirement, but they didn't. The game functions essentially the same in single player as it does in multiplayer, intentionally scaling every aspect to adjust. The only thing left at that point is the presence of the auction house, which Blizzard has claimed since day 1 they didn't mean to force such a dependency on. Clearly they messed up the balance, but the very fact that what they want to do obviates the necessity of their online features means those online features should in no way be necessary.
Not a straightforward answer, I suppose, but that's what I've got.
Edit: A shorter version.
Yes, always online requirements can be an aspect of a game's artistic design. It's common to see it used purely as a piracy prevention technique, however, which doesn't fall under the design umbrella.
OneAngryPossum on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
The answer is online DRM is neither an art nor a service. It's a measure of control to make sure nobody is stealin' vidja gaemz. BUT it can piggyback onto online services that enhance gameplay.
Unfortunately both those things are being done wrong.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
I want to write a longer post, but before I do in your opinion @oneangrypossum is online DRM art or a service?
I'm not sure I agree with the phrasing of the question: I don't consider what Sim City is doing right now to necessarily be purely DRM, for example. I also wouldn't classify straight up always online DRM as a 'service'.
But the problem is you've bought up the "Art" argument, which then implies that the DRM "service" is art and that's absolute 100% bullshit on every conceivable level. The DRM is a service, it's the equivalent to return to a previous analogy of going to a restaurant and being served. The wait staff and front of the business, the time the food takes to come out and other aspects are the service. The food is the product you are actually paying for and depending on where you go, can be every bit "art" as you see in a gallery. The service is service: Not art. The food is the product. I feel there is absolutely merit to people not telling a developer/artist whatever that they should change it, but I feel there is absolutely no merit to your implication there is no merit for customers telling a provider their service is garbage and should change. Two different concepts in my mind.
The DRM is a service. You need to connect with it to provide the game to you and for it to work. It's exactly the equivalent of going to a restaurant and expecting to be able to order something, then having it given to you in a timely manner. Except of course for much of five days depending on where you live, this didn't work at all and unlike any other customer in any other business, gamers are the only one who defend nonsense like this with "BUT IT'S TOTALLY ART". Really? It's totally art to shit all over your customers by preventing them from getting your food and then delivering it without any of the condiments you promised when you do? That's art? And you think this is something that should be immutable and your customers shouldn't ask you to change it? Really?
Honestly, who would let a restaurant get away with that? Why should we let a publisher providing a service?
That said, I mostly agree with Death of Rats. If a game requires you to be connected to the internet at all times because the developers believe that any part of their online features are a critical to the experience, then clearly that's game design.
And yet, Death of Rats argument is nonsensical because he goes and argues Diablo III the always online feature is DRM. Yet so far I have yet to see anyone give me a coherent reason why Sim City shouldn't be single player. At the very least, I have yet to see an argument that differentiates why Diablo III forcing multiplayer down peoples throats who liked to play it Single Player is different to what Sim City has done - which is pretty much force a multiplayer design on a game previously able to be played Single Player very competently.
But again, I don't view "DRM" as art and your argument earlier is the biggest load of nonsense I have heard in this debate. Most people are not asking for game features, they are asking to be able to play a game they paid for without the ability for it to be taken away from them on a moments notice. They are asking for the service to change, not the actual game which makes your point about art irrelevant. If I go to a restaurant (and I so apologise for continuing this analogy) I may love their food (And a lot of people have told me they love Sim City) but I can absolutely hate their service and want that to change. Asking for the service to be changed =/ changing the artists vision.
Again, the "arrow to the knee" of your argument is that you CAN play it "Single Player". You CAN play a region without other players. You CAN completely ignore other people if you want. If the games art was literally so important that they didn't want people playing it without others, why did they allow this? They could just decide a player can only occupy X of Y regions, NEEDING other players to fill the rest. But they didn't. So this argument collapses like a gigantic house of cards. Secondly they patched out features that are multiplayer reliant, like the leaderboards, the global resource economy and similar. If multiplayer is so essential to this game, why are they patching out features essential to making it an actual multiplayer game?
It's just the same as Diablo III IMO: It's ramming down a DRM service in a game that has no reason to not have a single player offline mode in the quest for more profit. In Diablo III, the in built auction house. In Sim City, future microtransactions and killing off modding.
On that note, those of you who can't tolerate EA's Origin and online-only games should tap out early before you get excited about this: Yes, you will have to register an Origin account in order to play, and yes, you must be online at all times while playing in order to start playing. EA has confirmed that you will not be kicked out if your connection is interrupted. Moving on.
This doesn't sound to me like the game was always a pseudo-MMO and the above is definitely a gigantic bold faced lie (unless at one point it wasn't? And again, if it wasn't that completely supports my argument that the DRM = Forced by EA = Not for the benefit of the game/consumer). Alternatively, it could be seen as a slight manipulation of the truth because the game continues working for up to 20 minutes offline (which makes you wonder what all those "required" online features are doing while missing that long) until it calls home, see's you aren't on the internet and then dumps you out. Usually losing all your progress in the process as well. So are they simply lying in this case or manipulating the truth (there is the merest kernal of truth in this statement)? What service was being promised and how were they advertising it? Because I am finding the more I start looking the more confused I get until closer to release, what exactly they were trying to say with their marketing of the "Always online" part of this. Is gamespy lying or misrepresenting what was said? I find that hard to believe because they literally have nothing to gain from doing so, but it's sending out some massively mixed signals because we know for a fact their original statement was the correct one.
You know, I realize that in my previous discussion with @LockedOnTarget I was totally wrong to imply blame anyone for buying this game and then complaining that the online DRM would prevent it from working. I had no idea the marketing for this game was this confused and how much do people read about a game? They might read a couple of previews to see what has changed, maybe see "It's always online" and then see "But it totally doesn't boot you off if you lose your connection" and think "Oh that's fair enough". So honestly, there is no way I can fairly blame anyone for thinking the game would work offline or have some kind of offline mode given the confusing messages from early previews of the game. For that I sincerely apologise, had I followed the previews more closely I would have realized just how confused or perhaps, outright deceptive, the marketing for the always online feature was until much closer to the games release.
if not for the DLC business model, you would NOT be getting this content included in the game. It just wouldn,t be ready for launch, it would get cut. The end.
Bullshit. Most DLC you see these days is cut from the game and sold back, some even available on the game's release date. The "added chapters several months later" variety is all you're talking about here and it's definitely the minority of DLC these days.
Good job missing the point. games are finished long before release dates. You think developers sit on their hands in the months between finishing a game and it being released? No. They work on content that wasnt finished in time for manufacturing, and have it done for release day, and it becomes day one DLC.
If they couldnt sell that content as DLC, you're fooling yourself if you think that you would get it anyway for free. If not for the ability to generate a return on the investment to make that extra content, they would put developers to work on content for their next game rather than new content for the existing game.
I've addressed everything you said in various posts on this very page. I talked about Diablo 3 directly beneath your quote, in the same post. You can dismiss it as nonsense if you want to keep insulting me, but that's not an argument.
I'm kind of tired of belaboring the point with you though. If you want to discuss some of this instead of intentionally ignoring me or hand waving all disagreements away, I'm all for it.
I'm legitimately curious: what would it take for a game to 'merit' an always online connection for you? There seems to be an arbitrary divide for MMORPGs and the like that's not really based on any firm lines, and nobody is making an effort to provide any.
I mentioned it above. It's about player expectation. It's about why a person is playing the game. People don't play MMOs because of the sweet graphics, quality narative, and tight combat. The Online part of an MMO isn't just an extra feature. It's the main feature as to why people play the game. Without that part you have a game like Kingdoms of Amalur, which was originally created as an MMO and then switched to be single player later. While still well received it only achieved moderate success and the company that made it also went immediately bankrupt. I don't think people are buying and playing Simcity because of the multiplayer aspect. They're playing it for the city building simulation. Online isn't the point, it's just a feature.
I'm pretty sure this is wrong. There was going to be an Amalur MMO but it was never finished Kingdoms of Amalur was a regular RPG set in the same world and made by different devs.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
That comic would've been fucking glorious if Will Wright was still at Maxis. Can you imagine?
That comic is still fucking glorious because you can replace the word pee with the title of any game and have a perfectly appropriate press release for any game.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
I've addressed everything you said in various posts on this very page. I talked about Diablo 3 directly beneath your quote, in the same post. You can dismiss it as nonsense if you want to keep insulting me, but that's not an argument.
Except you are avoiding the point about service vs. art. You're the one who said this:
I'm so fundamentally opposed to the demands that Sim City be turned into an offline single player game, though. It is not a consumer's right to demand that an artist change their creation to better suit them, and I think it's a dangerous road to go down. We can criticize, and we should, but people have to be careful with demands.
And I am calling you out on it. It's well within the consumers right to demand an artist change their service when it fails to provide the art [game] that the customer paid for. That's the argument and I effectively said "Where is your evidence the online only is a part of the art". Then I linked to a website before release stating that EA had clarified the always online part actually wasn't an "Always online" part. This was either blatant deception or a severe lack of proper communication, but it also cripples your argument that they justified the game being always online. If they were so confident in their semi-MMO style, why not directly call the game "Sim City: Online" and why were they so confused in their marketing early on?
What does that tell you?
Please stop trying to avoid the critical flaws and gaping holes in your argument. I am not insulting you by pointing out your argument is the Titanic made out of Swiss Cheese. Your arguments simply do not hold up and if you're going the pretentious "art" argument, I really think you need to give special justification for why anti-consumer online DRM schemes are art.
Edit: I mean if I sound more angry, it's because I am. I effectively blamed people for being ignorant, while I have been entirely ignorant that EA had performed some pretty scummy marketing practices when it came to this game before release. Yet we're supposed to be buying their statements as fact that the game "requires" the online DRM, that the online DRM was Maxis' choice and that we couldn't make it work offline (when previous statements are to the contrary). Frankly, I don't believe any of those but I do have this lovely bridge here in Sydney at a cheap price I can sell to anyone who does believe that.
I'm legitimately curious: what would it take for a game to 'merit' an always online connection for you? There seems to be an arbitrary divide for MMORPGs and the like that's not really based on any firm lines, and nobody is making an effort to provide any.
I mentioned it above. It's about player expectation. It's about why a person is playing the game. People don't play MMOs because of the sweet graphics, quality narative, and tight combat. The Online part of an MMO isn't just an extra feature. It's the main feature as to why people play the game. Without that part you have a game like Kingdoms of Amalur, which was originally created as an MMO and then switched to be single player later. While still well received it only achieved moderate success and the company that made it also went immediately bankrupt. I don't think people are buying and playing Simcity because of the multiplayer aspect. They're playing it for the city building simulation. Online isn't the point, it's just a feature.
I'm pretty sure this is wrong. There was going to be an Amalur MMO but it was never finished Kingdoms of Amalur was a regular RPG set in the same world and made by different devs.
I actually was fortunate enough to meet the developers before the games release and my understanding was Kingdoms of Amalur started out as an entirely different game/IP, more akin to God of War than trying to be an MMO (hence the combat system). When the studio (Big Huge Games) was bought, they converted their work into the Kingdoms of Amalur franchise and released it as a stand alone Single Player game as a sort of prequel to the MMO. KoA at no point was an MMO.
Edit: I would also like to point out that Sim City's metacritic has tumbled from 91 just after release to 68 on Metacritic. Not the "Users review bomb something" score, but the critics score and the divide is clear: Those who reviewed Sim City as a service have severely punished it. Those who reviewed Sim City only as a game have given it a terrific score for the most part. I so hope, so so hope, this sends a strong message to EA.
The gaping hole in my argument is that I understand the differences between these two things:
A person buys a DVD, finds it's scratched, and demands a working DVD.
A person buys a DVD, finds it's scratched, and declares the entire concept of DVDs to be invalidated and anybody who puts films on DVD to be a liar and a fraud.
Is that right?
Look, I've probably mentioned that technically the game is fucked in 90% of my posts. It is broken. People have every right to be angry about that. I've also explained numerous times why that is different from demanding a whole new game instead. I literally don't know how else to explain this, and the 'gaping flaws' in my logic aren't super clear to me. Go back, look at what I've actually said, and see if that provides you with some specific problems.
Also, really, 'calling me on it'? Come on, man.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited March 2013
Sorry, but I really really despise the "Games are art, how dare you ask us to change them" argument. It's one of my biggest red flags ever since the ME3 fiasco. Customers have every single right to say "I do not like this and if you expect further money or purchases from me, then I expect changes to these aspects". People demanding change as if they have a right to it are obviously not correct. People who - like me actually - who say "If you're not going to change things, then I am not going to give you any further money" are entirely right. Artists aren't owed my money and if they don't feel the need to listen, that's fine. I can feel the need not to give them any further money and that's an A-OK position to be in with a product/consumer relationship. Criticism can include a desire for change, but it should be a given that change isn't something that the artist/developer should make. On the other hand, if they want to make more money out of those consumers, maybe they should consider the criticism and perhaps change.
But this argument goes a step further, because we're not talking about art we're talking about a poorly delivered service. Here I have no platitudes: If the service sucks we should absolutely tell them their service is shit and change it. A lot of people don't feel Sim City justified it's online only nature and their schizophrenic marketing (I will go into that more below) proves to me clearly they weren't sure where to go there in convincing people. Always online DRM is bullshit, for a multitude of immensely valid reasons already given and we have every right to complain about it for changes. It's demonstratably an incredibly poor service again and again, with only one outcome: Screwing legitimate paying customers.
A person buys a DVD, finds it's scratched, and declares the entire concept of DVDs to be invalidated and anybody who puts films on DVD to be a liar and a fraud.
The more equivalent analogy is that someone buys a DVD, but nobody has adequately told the customer that the DVD doesn't work in the common DVD player of the time and then they need to wait a ~week for replacement firmware to be updated and sent out so the DVD now works. If we didn't live in a world with bandwidth caps, poor internet infrastructure and similar this anlogy would be a coherent argument: But we don't. Again, I would like to point out to you just how deceptively this game was marketed in many ways and I'll use another example. I encourage anyone to read this article from IGN. Particularly what stood out to me:
If you don't want to, you're not required to play with other players on a city-to-city level. Everyone gets their own region, and you only play with others if you invite them to settle in your region or open it up to everyone. Heck, you could even populate an entire region with cities that you exclusively control, manipulating them so that they create a symbiotic network that strengthens the region as a whole.
If you start out alone but decide you want to invite people, Maxis is aiming to make it as easy as possible through a friends list. Attached to your friends list is the CityLog feature of SimCity World, which lets you quickly see what your friends are up to, invite them to your game or just keep in touch. CityLog gives you snappy updates on pertinent actions by people in your social circles, letting you react to what they're doing and, hopefully, keep you feeling like you're a part of a greater community.
BTW, that's an official article for the game. I believe that fully bulldozes your "Well, it was designed to ONLY be played with other people" when in their marketing they are saying "Actually, you can totally play by yourself if you want and the MP isn't required - but we really really really want you to play it with others!". They were always conscious that people would want to play by themselves and in a multiplayer article, dedicate a good chunk of real estate to talking about how to play it by yourself. I'm sorry, but there is absolutely no way I can buy that they were marketing this game as solely a multiplayer experience that you absolutely NEEDED to be online to play with other people. That's a fantasy that doesn't exist from their actual marketing and you can get it both ways depending on the journalist and site you go to. Both ways! It's schizophrenic, almost like they were telling people what they wanted to hear and not what the game was actually genuinely about.
No wonder a lot of people have said they were entirely confused about the games online DRM before release.
And I thought their final paragraph was particularly interesting:
Librande hopes that even players who start out playing alone will eventually be lured by the appeal of online interaction."When you get real personalities involved, compared to playing by yourself or AI," said Librande, "the game takes on an extra depth to it...Sure, your neighbor might be a jerk or he might not play the way you really want to, but in terms of feeling like you're running a city and dealing with problems real cities have to face? It's kind of a cool story comes out of it." These interactions, even if they turn ugly, are exactly what Librande and Maxis want to see when SimCity releases in February of 2013.
It's really subtle and it puts my entire argument with LockedOnTarget earlier in the thread in a much different context (a context where I am clearly utterly wrong, but none the less), but really do read the entire article.
What doesn't it say at any point? In a discussion about online features? Well that's obvious and I'm finding this all over the place and some journalists - IGN are guilty here - did not put it up front in many of their articles this game had always online DRM at all. Wouldn't that be something - I dunno - important to mention? Compare with Gamespot, who actually did outright say "Hey, this game has always online DRM oh shit son" and some other outlets. I wonder though, how many people are like me who reads literally 5-6 different gaming websites on a regular basis? It's pretty easy to get an impression this game does have an offline mode and doesn't need to be played multiplayer.
For amusement, how many of the online features in that article have been patched out for the moment?
Who could possibly have predicted that SimCity would experience launch day problems due to its online requirement? Right: everyone. Everyone predicted that. And EA's Origin servers did not disappoint them, delivering slow download speeds, spotty connections, and log-in queues upward of a half hour. It's definitely not a disaster on the scale of Diablo 3's Error 37 fiasco, as I was able to get in and play within a half hour of the official launch, but far from smooth.
Yet this website made hardly any effort to tell your audience anything about the online DRM requirement before the game came out. Everyone did predict it would fail, but they just happened to keep it to themselves.
Who really failed the guy who bought the game and found it didn't work on release? The journalists who knew this would fail yet write glowing previews of the games features like the above or EA for being incompetent?
Also, from the review in progress:
I'm going to go ahead and predict that, much like Blizzard found with Diablo 3, Maxis will soon discover that the majority of SimCity players will want to play by themselves most of the time. The good news is that it's a totally valid way to play, and no significant options I've seen are closed off to those of us who play in private regions and single-handedly run all the cities therein. Progress is a little slower because you have to switch between cities, but it's definitely doable. It's very much like playing The Sims 2, which allows you to control multiple households, but in order to switch between them you have to go through a loading screen.
Reminds me of when I was running multiple cities in Sim City 3000 over different regions. Having one for low industry, high residential, a farming zone for very basic industry and such forth.
if not for the DLC business model, you would NOT be getting this content included in the game. It just wouldn,t be ready for launch, it would get cut. The end.
Bullshit. Most DLC you see these days is cut from the game and sold back, some even available on the game's release date. The "added chapters several months later" variety is all you're talking about here and it's definitely the minority of DLC these days.
Good job missing the point. games are finished long before release dates. You think developers sit on their hands in the months between finishing a game and it being released? No. They work on content that wasnt finished in time for manufacturing, and have it done for release day, and it becomes day one DLC.
If they couldnt sell that content as DLC, you're fooling yourself if you think that you would get it anyway for free. If not for the ability to generate a return on the investment to make that extra content, they would put developers to work on content for their next game rather than new content for the existing game.
Amplitude Studios has released four free add-ons for their 4X game, Endless Space. So, evidently, it is possible for developers to factor post-release development into the up-front price of the game, and to release additional content at no extra charge to the customer.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
The gaping hole in my argument is that I understand the differences between these two things:
A person buys a DVD, finds it's scratched, and demands a working DVD.
A person buys a DVD, finds it's scratched, and declares the entire concept of DVDs to be invalidated and anybody who puts films on DVD to be a liar and a fraud.
Is that right?
Look, I've probably mentioned that technically the game is fucked in 90% of my posts. It is broken. People have every right to be angry about that. I've also explained numerous times why that is different from demanding a whole new game instead. I literally don't know how else to explain this, and the 'gaping flaws' in my logic aren't super clear to me. Go back, look at what I've actually said, and see if that provides you with some specific problems.
Also, really, 'calling me on it'? Come on, man.
Except this isn't the case of a shift in technological paradigms like the DVD, which is something that worked fantastically well and was excellent for consumers and media distributors alike. Always-on is infinitely more comparable to the utterly vile DivX player, which required you to have a phone connection to watch your own movies on the discs you'd already bought and physically had in your possession. This is the same thing that is happening here; you buy your game from a company, but you only get to play it when they "allow" you to play it. Which is bullshit. The issue of consumer rights doesn't even need to be brought up, because the idea is bullshit purely on the merits of assloads of people not having reliable internet connections.
It's not workable, it's not good, it's too unstable, it's too easy to fuck up, etc. etc. Always-on for non-MMO games is just a bad idea, period.
if not for the DLC business model, you would NOT be getting this content included in the game. It just wouldn,t be ready for launch, it would get cut. The end.
Bullshit. Most DLC you see these days is cut from the game and sold back, some even available on the game's release date. The "added chapters several months later" variety is all you're talking about here and it's definitely the minority of DLC these days.
Good job missing the point. games are finished long before release dates. You think developers sit on their hands in the months between finishing a game and it being released? No. They work on content that wasnt finished in time for manufacturing, and have it done for release day, and it becomes day one DLC.
If they couldnt sell that content as DLC, you're fooling yourself if you think that you would get it anyway for free. If not for the ability to generate a return on the investment to make that extra content, they would put developers to work on content for their next game rather than new content for the existing game.
Amplitude Studios has released four free add-ons for their 4X game, Endless Space. So, evidently, it is possible for developers to factor post-release development into the up-front price of the game, and to release additional content at no extra charge to the customer.
That doesn't mean charging for extra content is wrong or that other cases of extra content would be free if they couldn't charge for it.
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I'm so fundamentally opposed to the demands that Sim City be turned into an offline single player game, though. It is not a consumer's right to demand that an artist change their creation to better suit them, and I think it's a dangerous road to go down. We can criticize, and we should, but people have to be careful with demands.
Removal of tacked on always online DRM? Yes. Removal of what the developer considers core gameplay features? No.
Also, there are so many more facets to the always online trend than simple outrage. Just from an archival perspective, what happens when they decide to stop running servers? Is the game lost to the ether? Is there anything fundamentally wrong with an experience being somewhat ephemeral?
People aren't demanding it be converted into singleplayer. They demand the option for singleplayer be present. True singleplayer, offline. And it's not unreasonable. Nothing about this is "remove the multiplayer."
Taking it for granted that this was a colossal fuckup, there's nothing inherently wrong with requiring a constant connection to a game that isn't traditionally multiplayer or online. Providing an option to play such a game single player isn't just disabling the login screen. If Maxis wanted to make a game that plays the way they want it to play offline they would have to fundamentally rebalance the entire experience. If all players want is the ability to play the game as is offline, they're asking for a game that Maxis probably doesn't think lives up to their quality standards (of course, the current game fails there too). If they want a real offline and single player experience, they're asking for a non-trivial amount of development time to bring that version of Sim City up to the standards that Maxis would accept.
I get hating the always on requirement, but suggesting a single player option be provided dismisses the work Maxis did to make the game they made. Core mechanics wouldn't function the way they do if they hadn't built the game for online audiences.
Are they artists or a company trying to sell a product? This isn't the statue of David. This isn't some artist trying to put out some message. Why do we have to be careful about saying what we as consumers want? We might get it? If (and I'm saying that's the case) the majority of gamers didn't want something, shouldn't the manufacturer know?
You could turn it around and say we are saying they should add to the gameplay features. Add an offline mode. It could have both.
Yes, there is something wrong with an experience being ephemeral if it need not be. If something is good, why limit it's longevity? Somebody made this point before but Super Mario Bros. is good. Imagine not being able to go back and play the classics.
Sadly. Always wanted to be king
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
I have to emphasize that the publisher is very much capable of making demands of the developers, and can even filter or control their messaging to the public.
I'd be upset if audiences demanded that Michael Bay recut Transformers so that it's not an insufferable piece of schizophrenic trash. Selling a piece of art as a product doesn't mean it isn't still art, and art doesn't have to be a classic for the creator to have final call on its appearance/offerings.
Please, god, don't let this turn into a games as art debate, because it's incredibly far removed from this thread's subject.
As for why people should be 'careful' about saying what they want: there is a difference between saying "This game was a bad idea, fails to make a case for it's online features, and I hate it," and saying "This game was a bad idea, they should 'fix it' and give me the game I want." Criticism is good. Ridiculous (and I haven't seen a strong case made that they aren't ridiculous) demands to be given something that the developer didn't make are bad.
I generally fall on the side of the fence that thinks people aren't entitled enough. We get run the fuck over by moneyed interests on a daily basis and we take it for granted. That isn't the same thing as feeling like a creator owes you something in one of their creations.
The rest of your arguments are addressed, though probably not to your satisfaction, above. I'm legitimately curious: what would it take for a game to 'merit' an always online connection for you? There seems to be an arbitrary divide for MMORPGs and the like that's not really based on any firm lines, and nobody is making an effort to provide any.
Can I take a shot at answering this?
What games and game makers have to do to merit "always on" is actually not asking for a whole hell of a lot. The checks for connection have to be as infrequent as possible, and there has to be reasonable accounting for things like the wind blowing and screwing with internet connections. That's on the function side. On the feature side, I have no issues with SimCity (aside from multiplayer being forced - SimCity having a multiplayer aspect is something I would dream about).
My actual problem with "always on," aside from the stupid implementation of it, is with telecoms having shit management and support of our infrastructure.
Stop with the fucking entitlement claims. Ever since the Mass Effect ending that has become some people's favorite word. They have decided that entitlement means not being a corporate cheerleader. This is a business EA is not making games out of some artistic sense or out of the goodness of there hearts so this belief that we should not complain about things is utterly ridiculous. Unless your claim is that EA is entitled to our money and praise?
Apparently you don't know how capitalism works.
Consumers can demand safety measure changes, or that art is good or bad so don't make anymore of this. Consumers don't traditionally change currently existing art, they just decide the fate of more of that kind of art being made.
So I guess you don't understand it either.
It's not an exaggeration to say that it's basically about as likely as Blizzard putting on a World of Warcraft patch that lets you play the game alone by scaling difficulties like a conventional RPG with a lot of grinding.
Right now we have certain technologies that through long use plus government regulation are incredibly reliable (at least in the United States). Electricity is one. The electricity is almost always on, and when it's not it either gets repaired quickly or is due to an act of God which everyone knows about. Maintenance done on electrical lines is always done while the power is still on, because no one wants to have to experience a power outage while routine maintenance is going on.
Telephony is another example. In fact I just found out a couple of days ago the uptime for telephones: 99.999% availability (or at least I gather that is what they go for). Telephones hardly ever go down. Even cellphones have improved dramtically over the past decade, to the point that I can't remember the last time I was unable to call someone on a cell phone that didn't involve activation of a new phone or dead battery.
The huge problem, though, is that internet is no where near that level of ubiquitous stability. It's not even close. It may have stopped now, but a few years ago broadband companies were still doing that "you get up to xx speed!" and if you aren't getting that speed they would say "well, it says "up to" so you can't complain." Even within one's own home, on a wired cable connection, the internet still hiccups. I can easily remember the last time my internet went down, my cable internet - it was last night. There are no regulations requiring 99.999% uptime on internet, as far as I know. And even if there were, mobile internet is even less near universal stability than wired internet is.
Maybe if we lived in a world where fiber to the home connections were everywhere, but we're not even close to that. Verizon Fios (the company I work for) stopped their new buildouts several years ago, along with just straight-up selling off their less lucrative territory.
All this is just to say that a company that builds it's model around such a comparatively unstable model had better have DAMN good reasons for doing so. MMOs, real MMOs have an excuse and we all put up with their downtime because the entire nature of those games is to be internet based. I haven't yet seen a convincing argument as to why SimCity can be classified as an MMO now, particularly as no one has marketed it that way.
I mentioned it above. It's about player expectation. It's about why a person is playing the game. People don't play MMOs because of the sweet graphics, quality narative, and tight combat. The Online part of an MMO isn't just an extra feature. It's the main feature as to why people play the game. Without that part you have a game like Kingdoms of Amalur, which was originally created as an MMO and then switched to be single player later. While still well received it only achieved moderate success and the company that made it also went immediately bankrupt. I don't think people are buying and playing Simcity because of the multiplayer aspect. They're playing it for the city building simulation. Online isn't the point, it's just a feature.
I dunno why you're apologizing because everything you said is 100% correct. I've gone on and on about internet infrastructure being shit, and maybe I haven't been articulating it well I guess.
I absolutely agree with this. I know a lot of people (mistakenly) think I'm defending EA or something here, but I'm not. They brought this entirely on themselves, and there's no excuse for the bullshit customers have had to put up with just trying to play the game that they paid for. The important thing here is that I think Maxis would agree. People aren't playing the game they made, they're playing a compromised version that was chipped away at to try and meet basic customer expectations.
And your breakdown of function vs feature is right on. Everybody deserves that their purchase function as they reasonably expect, and as they were promised. Things get hairier when people start asking for a change in a feature that's right at the heart of the game, even if it doesn't work like they want it to. I equate it to asking for a plot change, or at least some cinematography changes, and I think that's going too far.
Like I mentioned above, my main concern with functional always on requirements is archival. It's ridiculously hard as is to properly archive and store the hardware and software that doesn't require any outside help, and I have no idea how that should be handled when a server-dependent game goes down. Most of the time server code isn't even public, and emulated options aren't reliably accurate. It's a weird problem.
I thought it was you that said that "when correctly implemented" always online DRM is the least obtrusive type of DRM.
My entire argument is that there is literally no way to "correctly implement" something which by it's very nature is going to be down maybe... I dunno, 25% of the time? I can't get availability numbers for internet because companies keep that shit under wraps.
This got discussed on a recent Idle Thumbs, how there's games starting to exist solely on the "cloud," and once those services go down, the games literally cease existing. We're in a new era and it is freaky as shit. But anyway, that's probably another thread.
But was it just a feature for Maxis, or a central tenet of design? I agree EA didn't emphasize the nature of the game hard enough in marketing, but is that something that should be held against the game itself? Can I dislike Fight Club because the advertising didn't mention I'd have to look at Brad Pitt's torso a lot?
Answer: no, because that was a pleasant surprise and the actual equivalent is not hiding sexy abs but rather hiding that every theater would be set on fire for the duration of the film's run time.
Which also doesn't fall on the director, in my mind.
Edit: I have no idea why this seemed like a good analogy in my mind, but I'll leave it here anyway until I come up with something that features cars, dogs, or stoves.
Oh sure, but I mean I've always been trying to keep up with my constant view that until internet infrastructure improves "always on" is completely fucked. In the assumed scenario that internet is stable, I am conceptually fine with "always on" if we have to live in a world with some fashion of DRM or another. It's why I've asked questions like wondering if the industry is trying to strong-arm the issue of improving internet infrastructure by just making it a more depended on resource.
Well to me it doesn't matter how much Maxis thought it was a central tenet of design. It's about why the player is playing it. If you're playing it FOR the multiplayer aspects, you have an easier justifying it being always online. People play MMOs specifically for the massively multiplayer part, so it's easy to justify the always online nature of it. Unless Maxis expected people were mainly playing Simcity for the online features it's a lot harder to justify being always online.
But why should consumer expectations (that the developer actively discouraged) outweigh what the developer wants to make? I think the biggest mistake EA made here was straight out calling this Sim City, but I can't imagine the game would be made without that kind of name clout.
I'd never really considered the stability of utilities, or the fact that internet access isn't considered to be in the same area yet. Here's hoping that changes sometime soon.
Is there a problem with making a game for the market segment that has a reliable internet connection, or is willing to put up with some amount of inaccessibility though? And aside from the weight of Sim City's online past (and the technical failures), what argument can be made that this game shouldn't be online only? Part of the backlash was based on how highly the game was rated prior to it's release, suggesting that it does work and make a case for itself when it's not being hamstrung by server issues.
Well as others have said, games for which the entire point is that they are online get a pass on the stability issue.
Essentially SimCity should have been marketed as being online only, as having no more single player, if that is truly the audience they were going for. The very fact that the general populace wasn't aware of the fact that it's supposedly an MMO now says to me that knew they'd lose part of their audience if they went SimCity Online. Whether it's Maxis or EA doesn't really matter to me. Someone was acting sketchy here. Your argument that "this is the game they wanted to make, and if you didn't want to play that they don't buy the game" doesn't hold water because it's not the way they marketed it (and while magazine interviews are part of marketing, either calling attention to the online aspect in the title or "forgetting" to says a lot more about what the company wanted the audience to know about it).
What I meant to ask is, regardless of the marketing, if you think there's anything inherently problematic with developing this game as they did, knowing that some people simply wouldn't be able to access it? And aside from bad marketing and terrible support, why is 'always online' a valid criticism in and of itself? I've talked a bit before about some of the bigger things Maxis did that make their online priorities clear (allocation of resources within regions, region-wide projects, message boards built into said regions) and I think they made a decent case for themselves.
Plenty of people disagree with me there, and that's fine, but I just don't see a lot of evidence that the game would stand up very well minus that online component.
Those are reasons why always online was bad. It was not explained properly. I think people need to fully be aware of what they are getting into before buying the game. If you inform people on what they are buying, especially when it's something that already has stigma attached to it, they will be less mad at you when things screw up.
Look what Maxis has done since the launch. The head of Maxis is openly communicating with people, apologized about the current state of the game, and offered a free game for the trouble. Comments are going from anger and range to acceptance and understanding, mind you there are still people who are very mad.
It depends on exactly what the intent behind the always online drm is. If they intend it to be a limiting factor on game play, then it'd be part of the art of the game. What I mean by that is if the always online nature of the game changes the experience of playing the game, then it's part ofthe design of the game and therefore part of the art of the game. However, in the case of Diablo 3, it was obviously just there as drm. In that case it is all service.
I'm not sure I agree with the phrasing of the question: I don't consider what Sim City is doing right now to necessarily be purely DRM, for example. I also wouldn't classify straight up always online DRM as a 'service'.
That said, I mostly agree with Death of Rats. If a game requires you to be connected to the internet at all times because the developers believe that any part of their online features are a critical to the experience, then clearly that's game design. If the game is just dialing up its home server continuously throughout the game with no online features whatsoever, obviously that's always online DRM being used in a way that's not an aspect of the game design.
It's a murky area, to be sure, but it's basically down to developer intent. Since we're not naive and take everything from major publishers and developers with a grain of salt, that's going to involve reading the tea leaves on occasion. Example: I think Blizzard could have made a case for Diablo 3's online requirement, but they didn't. The game functions essentially the same in single player as it does in multiplayer, intentionally scaling every aspect to adjust. The only thing left at that point is the presence of the auction house, which Blizzard has claimed since day 1 they didn't mean to force such a dependency on. Clearly they messed up the balance, but the very fact that what they want to do obviates the necessity of their online features means those online features should in no way be necessary.
Not a straightforward answer, I suppose, but that's what I've got.
Edit: A shorter version.
Yes, always online requirements can be an aspect of a game's artistic design. It's common to see it used purely as a piracy prevention technique, however, which doesn't fall under the design umbrella.
Unfortunately both those things are being done wrong.
But the problem is you've bought up the "Art" argument, which then implies that the DRM "service" is art and that's absolute 100% bullshit on every conceivable level. The DRM is a service, it's the equivalent to return to a previous analogy of going to a restaurant and being served. The wait staff and front of the business, the time the food takes to come out and other aspects are the service. The food is the product you are actually paying for and depending on where you go, can be every bit "art" as you see in a gallery. The service is service: Not art. The food is the product. I feel there is absolutely merit to people not telling a developer/artist whatever that they should change it, but I feel there is absolutely no merit to your implication there is no merit for customers telling a provider their service is garbage and should change. Two different concepts in my mind.
The DRM is a service. You need to connect with it to provide the game to you and for it to work. It's exactly the equivalent of going to a restaurant and expecting to be able to order something, then having it given to you in a timely manner. Except of course for much of five days depending on where you live, this didn't work at all and unlike any other customer in any other business, gamers are the only one who defend nonsense like this with "BUT IT'S TOTALLY ART". Really? It's totally art to shit all over your customers by preventing them from getting your food and then delivering it without any of the condiments you promised when you do? That's art? And you think this is something that should be immutable and your customers shouldn't ask you to change it? Really?
Honestly, who would let a restaurant get away with that? Why should we let a publisher providing a service?
And yet, Death of Rats argument is nonsensical because he goes and argues Diablo III the always online feature is DRM. Yet so far I have yet to see anyone give me a coherent reason why Sim City shouldn't be single player. At the very least, I have yet to see an argument that differentiates why Diablo III forcing multiplayer down peoples throats who liked to play it Single Player is different to what Sim City has done - which is pretty much force a multiplayer design on a game previously able to be played Single Player very competently.
But again, I don't view "DRM" as art and your argument earlier is the biggest load of nonsense I have heard in this debate. Most people are not asking for game features, they are asking to be able to play a game they paid for without the ability for it to be taken away from them on a moments notice. They are asking for the service to change, not the actual game which makes your point about art irrelevant. If I go to a restaurant (and I so apologise for continuing this analogy) I may love their food (And a lot of people have told me they love Sim City) but I can absolutely hate their service and want that to change. Asking for the service to be changed =/ changing the artists vision.
Again, the "arrow to the knee" of your argument is that you CAN play it "Single Player". You CAN play a region without other players. You CAN completely ignore other people if you want. If the games art was literally so important that they didn't want people playing it without others, why did they allow this? They could just decide a player can only occupy X of Y regions, NEEDING other players to fill the rest. But they didn't. So this argument collapses like a gigantic house of cards. Secondly they patched out features that are multiplayer reliant, like the leaderboards, the global resource economy and similar. If multiplayer is so essential to this game, why are they patching out features essential to making it an actual multiplayer game?
It's just the same as Diablo III IMO: It's ramming down a DRM service in a game that has no reason to not have a single player offline mode in the quest for more profit. In Diablo III, the in built auction house. In Sim City, future microtransactions and killing off modding.
Also I am going to drop a quote here, from early in the games marketing:
This doesn't sound to me like the game was always a pseudo-MMO and the above is definitely a gigantic bold faced lie (unless at one point it wasn't? And again, if it wasn't that completely supports my argument that the DRM = Forced by EA = Not for the benefit of the game/consumer). Alternatively, it could be seen as a slight manipulation of the truth because the game continues working for up to 20 minutes offline (which makes you wonder what all those "required" online features are doing while missing that long) until it calls home, see's you aren't on the internet and then dumps you out. Usually losing all your progress in the process as well. So are they simply lying in this case or manipulating the truth (there is the merest kernal of truth in this statement)? What service was being promised and how were they advertising it? Because I am finding the more I start looking the more confused I get until closer to release, what exactly they were trying to say with their marketing of the "Always online" part of this. Is gamespy lying or misrepresenting what was said? I find that hard to believe because they literally have nothing to gain from doing so, but it's sending out some massively mixed signals because we know for a fact their original statement was the correct one.
You know, I realize that in my previous discussion with @LockedOnTarget I was totally wrong to imply blame anyone for buying this game and then complaining that the online DRM would prevent it from working. I had no idea the marketing for this game was this confused and how much do people read about a game? They might read a couple of previews to see what has changed, maybe see "It's always online" and then see "But it totally doesn't boot you off if you lose your connection" and think "Oh that's fair enough". So honestly, there is no way I can fairly blame anyone for thinking the game would work offline or have some kind of offline mode given the confusing messages from early previews of the game. For that I sincerely apologise, had I followed the previews more closely I would have realized just how confused or perhaps, outright deceptive, the marketing for the always online feature was until much closer to the games release.
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog
Good job missing the point. games are finished long before release dates. You think developers sit on their hands in the months between finishing a game and it being released? No. They work on content that wasnt finished in time for manufacturing, and have it done for release day, and it becomes day one DLC.
If they couldnt sell that content as DLC, you're fooling yourself if you think that you would get it anyway for free. If not for the ability to generate a return on the investment to make that extra content, they would put developers to work on content for their next game rather than new content for the existing game.
I'm kind of tired of belaboring the point with you though. If you want to discuss some of this instead of intentionally ignoring me or hand waving all disagreements away, I'm all for it.
I'm pretty sure this is wrong. There was going to be an Amalur MMO but it was never finished Kingdoms of Amalur was a regular RPG set in the same world and made by different devs.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
That comic is still fucking glorious because you can replace the word pee with the title of any game and have a perfectly appropriate press release for any game.
Except you are avoiding the point about service vs. art. You're the one who said this:
And I am calling you out on it. It's well within the consumers right to demand an artist change their service when it fails to provide the art [game] that the customer paid for. That's the argument and I effectively said "Where is your evidence the online only is a part of the art". Then I linked to a website before release stating that EA had clarified the always online part actually wasn't an "Always online" part. This was either blatant deception or a severe lack of proper communication, but it also cripples your argument that they justified the game being always online. If they were so confident in their semi-MMO style, why not directly call the game "Sim City: Online" and why were they so confused in their marketing early on?
What does that tell you?
Please stop trying to avoid the critical flaws and gaping holes in your argument. I am not insulting you by pointing out your argument is the Titanic made out of Swiss Cheese. Your arguments simply do not hold up and if you're going the pretentious "art" argument, I really think you need to give special justification for why anti-consumer online DRM schemes are art.
Edit: I mean if I sound more angry, it's because I am. I effectively blamed people for being ignorant, while I have been entirely ignorant that EA had performed some pretty scummy marketing practices when it came to this game before release. Yet we're supposed to be buying their statements as fact that the game "requires" the online DRM, that the online DRM was Maxis' choice and that we couldn't make it work offline (when previous statements are to the contrary). Frankly, I don't believe any of those but I do have this lovely bridge here in Sydney at a cheap price I can sell to anyone who does believe that.
I actually was fortunate enough to meet the developers before the games release and my understanding was Kingdoms of Amalur started out as an entirely different game/IP, more akin to God of War than trying to be an MMO (hence the combat system). When the studio (Big Huge Games) was bought, they converted their work into the Kingdoms of Amalur franchise and released it as a stand alone Single Player game as a sort of prequel to the MMO. KoA at no point was an MMO.
Edit: I would also like to point out that Sim City's metacritic has tumbled from 91 just after release to 68 on Metacritic. Not the "Users review bomb something" score, but the critics score and the divide is clear: Those who reviewed Sim City as a service have severely punished it. Those who reviewed Sim City only as a game have given it a terrific score for the most part. I so hope, so so hope, this sends a strong message to EA.
A person buys a DVD, finds it's scratched, and demands a working DVD.
A person buys a DVD, finds it's scratched, and declares the entire concept of DVDs to be invalidated and anybody who puts films on DVD to be a liar and a fraud.
Is that right?
Look, I've probably mentioned that technically the game is fucked in 90% of my posts. It is broken. People have every right to be angry about that. I've also explained numerous times why that is different from demanding a whole new game instead. I literally don't know how else to explain this, and the 'gaping flaws' in my logic aren't super clear to me. Go back, look at what I've actually said, and see if that provides you with some specific problems.
Also, really, 'calling me on it'? Come on, man.
But this argument goes a step further, because we're not talking about art we're talking about a poorly delivered service. Here I have no platitudes: If the service sucks we should absolutely tell them their service is shit and change it. A lot of people don't feel Sim City justified it's online only nature and their schizophrenic marketing (I will go into that more below) proves to me clearly they weren't sure where to go there in convincing people. Always online DRM is bullshit, for a multitude of immensely valid reasons already given and we have every right to complain about it for changes. It's demonstratably an incredibly poor service again and again, with only one outcome: Screwing legitimate paying customers.
The more equivalent analogy is that someone buys a DVD, but nobody has adequately told the customer that the DVD doesn't work in the common DVD player of the time and then they need to wait a ~week for replacement firmware to be updated and sent out so the DVD now works. If we didn't live in a world with bandwidth caps, poor internet infrastructure and similar this anlogy would be a coherent argument: But we don't. Again, I would like to point out to you just how deceptively this game was marketed in many ways and I'll use another example. I encourage anyone to read this article from IGN. Particularly what stood out to me:
BTW, that's an official article for the game. I believe that fully bulldozes your "Well, it was designed to ONLY be played with other people" when in their marketing they are saying "Actually, you can totally play by yourself if you want and the MP isn't required - but we really really really want you to play it with others!". They were always conscious that people would want to play by themselves and in a multiplayer article, dedicate a good chunk of real estate to talking about how to play it by yourself. I'm sorry, but there is absolutely no way I can buy that they were marketing this game as solely a multiplayer experience that you absolutely NEEDED to be online to play with other people. That's a fantasy that doesn't exist from their actual marketing and you can get it both ways depending on the journalist and site you go to. Both ways! It's schizophrenic, almost like they were telling people what they wanted to hear and not what the game was actually genuinely about.
No wonder a lot of people have said they were entirely confused about the games online DRM before release.
And I thought their final paragraph was particularly interesting:
It's really subtle and it puts my entire argument with LockedOnTarget earlier in the thread in a much different context (a context where I am clearly utterly wrong, but none the less), but really do read the entire article.
What doesn't it say at any point? In a discussion about online features? Well that's obvious and I'm finding this all over the place and some journalists - IGN are guilty here - did not put it up front in many of their articles this game had always online DRM at all. Wouldn't that be something - I dunno - important to mention? Compare with Gamespot, who actually did outright say "Hey, this game has always online DRM oh shit son" and some other outlets. I wonder though, how many people are like me who reads literally 5-6 different gaming websites on a regular basis? It's pretty easy to get an impression this game does have an offline mode and doesn't need to be played multiplayer.
For amusement, how many of the online features in that article have been patched out for the moment?
Edit: And for extra amusement, from the same sites review in progress:
Yet this website made hardly any effort to tell your audience anything about the online DRM requirement before the game came out. Everyone did predict it would fail, but they just happened to keep it to themselves.
Who really failed the guy who bought the game and found it didn't work on release? The journalists who knew this would fail yet write glowing previews of the games features like the above or EA for being incompetent?
Also, from the review in progress:
Reminds me of when I was running multiple cities in Sim City 3000 over different regions. Having one for low industry, high residential, a farming zone for very basic industry and such forth.
Amplitude Studios has released four free add-ons for their 4X game, Endless Space. So, evidently, it is possible for developers to factor post-release development into the up-front price of the game, and to release additional content at no extra charge to the customer.
Except this isn't the case of a shift in technological paradigms like the DVD, which is something that worked fantastically well and was excellent for consumers and media distributors alike. Always-on is infinitely more comparable to the utterly vile DivX player, which required you to have a phone connection to watch your own movies on the discs you'd already bought and physically had in your possession. This is the same thing that is happening here; you buy your game from a company, but you only get to play it when they "allow" you to play it. Which is bullshit. The issue of consumer rights doesn't even need to be brought up, because the idea is bullshit purely on the merits of assloads of people not having reliable internet connections.
It's not workable, it's not good, it's too unstable, it's too easy to fuck up, etc. etc. Always-on for non-MMO games is just a bad idea, period.
That doesn't mean charging for extra content is wrong or that other cases of extra content would be free if they couldn't charge for it.
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog