Yeah I can see what that can be a issue but for majority of people most of their gaming time will be at home or some where they do have a internet connection.
Okay I don’t want this to turn into a pro/anti always-on DRM argument but I need to make this long, drawn out point if for no other reason than to hopefully explain to you all why it is nothing but sh*t and why every company that announces it should be viewed with great disgust. Yes this will be emotionally charged at times, but I hope by the end you’ll understand my view and why as gamers this is the “correct” one. If you don't feel like reading all this and don't mind watching something that has some language that is NSFW, then instead watch
this and
this, as they basically make the same points I am.
You’ve probably heard of Diablo 3. It was another major release, and like the new SimCity, it implemented always-on DRM for a completely stupid and unnecessary reason, claiming that it was to preserve the legitimacy of their auction house that no gamers wanted and quite frankly didn’t even need to use in order to enjoy the game. Anyways, remember when the game launched? Do you remember what happened when gamers tried to play the game they waited over a decade for and threw down $60+ of their hard earned money to play? Most of them were greeted with “Error 3006,” which was caused by the game servers unable to handle all the load of all the players trying to login and just PLAY the damn thing. It didn’t matter if the player intended to play online or offline. That’s right. If Johnny wanted to play Diablo 3 the same way he played 1 & 2, which was all by himself without the help of other players so he could feel like an independent hero, Diablo 3 and it’s always-on DRM said “Tough sh*t buddy! We don’t care that you are playing all by yourself! Because we implemented this stupid system and didn’t prepare our servers for the demand, you don’t get to play our game!”
There is NO reason to believe that this same clusterf*ck won’t happen with the new SimCity as well. Players will be met with similar errors trying to login just to play their game. It doesn’t matter if they don’t want to play with other people. They will be forced into the same boat as the people who want to play “multiplayer” with other people. This is what you and many other people don’t realize about the fatal flaws of Always-On DRM. In order for you and everyone else to enjoy the simple pleasure of playing the game you threw down $60+ to play, you need to rely on A: Your internet connection working, B: EA’s servers being up, and C: EA’s servers aren’t shut down. The fact that you need to rely on 3 separate variables that are completely out of your control is complete BS, and it should not be tolerated.
Let’s start with the first part, which is an always connected stable internet connection. For many of us that may seem like a given. We all stream Netflix videos fine and play Call of Duty and other games rather well, so why should we worry about this? We’ll be fine, right? Well yeah, you’ll be fine as long as your connection doesn’t have any issues, EVER. God forbid you want to play when you’re having connectivity issues. And let’s not forget that not everyone is as blessed as us when it comes to internet stability. There are a good number of people out there who do not have powerful connections that are stable. What about them? I guess they need to find a new ISP that is worthy enough to comply with the burdensome DRM. And to go back to the Diablo 3 example, there were MANY places that did not have what Battle.Net deemed to be stable enough to handle their game. France was hit with numerous problems even after tons of patches were released that did not alleviate the problem. And the problem was so bad in South Korea that it took a class action lawsuit for Blizzard to rightly refund the money of the numerous players who could not get on to play the game. Not even to play with other people, but just to play the game. And let’s not forget about those little things that MANY ISPs are implementing nowadays known as bandwidth caps. As we all know, SimCity can be a very addicting and time consuming game. Now we have to worry about hitting our monthly caps just for the privilege of playing this game? Well, once again, “TS” says EA! We need to protect ourselves from piracy via all means possible!
As far as the second point goes, if you need to see the flaws of Always-On DRM, one only has to look to Ubisoft. They tried to implement the same thing with their games. As to be expected, it caused people to be unable to play their games due to server overload, people who did not have 100% perfect internet connections were constantly booted from games, and whenever the servers went offline for whatever reason, people were not able to play their games. Oh, and the DRM did NOTHING to curb piracy, because the pirate groups simply modified the executable and config files to bypass it. So really, all it did was punish people who legitimately purchased the game, and gave people a very acceptable excuse to pirate and not give Ubisoft any money for these games. Eventually Ubisoft saw the light and removed the Always-On DRM from the majority of their games, but essentially there has never been a successful story of a game that required a constant internet connection other than an MMO.
Speaking of servers and my point C, I don’t know if you are aware of this but EA is infamous for shutting down their game servers without warning and within an amazingly short period of time. What happens when EA shuts down these servers as well? What if 4 years down the road someone wants to get back into the new SimCity? In theory, without the servers being up, the game won’t launch. So now this game has a shelf life of usability. And it’s not like other games with a single and multiplayer component, where even if the multiplayer section is dead, you can still enjoy single player. Do you really think that EA is going to do the right thing and keep these servers up for as long as humanly possible?
If you really think that they would, then I think we need to step back and think back to what EA has done to “benefit” gamers as of late. For one, they completely ruined the NFL Football videogame market by getting the exclusive rights and shoving half-assed Madden games down our throats for nearly 10 years now. They’ve shut down numerous game studios after a single release because it didn’t fill their minimum 1.5 million sold quota, thus discouraging creativity and instead encouraging what will just sell. They introduced that nice perk called “Online Pass” which discourages used games sales and forces us all to type in long and annoying codes simply to have access to all the content that we paid for, or buy the ability later. They also have crammed this more down our throats by putting completely unnecessary and sub-par multiplayer components on to what are essentially single player games. I’m sorry, but no matter how much EA tries to justify it, Dead Space 2 (and the upcoming 3) and Mass Effect 3 do NOT require multiplayer and their implementation does nothing but deprive precious resources and crafting that could be better used to perfect the single player experience. Oh, and they created Origin because apparently Steam needed competition and all us gamers were always thinking, “Oh good. I always wanted to have to deal with 2 separate DRM techniques and online stores!”
And as far as EA’s justification from a gameplay standpoint, it is complete BS. I can believe the idea that the processing power to coordinate all these cities that interact with each other is more than what our standard computers can handle, but I’m pretty sure that if I wanted to play all by myself and with my own city that my Intel i5 2500K with 8 GB Ram and 1 GB graphics card can handle the job sufficiently. And don’t tell me “You can log on and set your game to private and never have to interact with any other people.” …. OR I COULD JUST PLAY OFFLINE BY MYSELF! This would be akin to taking your child out of the backyard with their toys and taking them to a park where they just sit by themselves not interacting with anyone and playing with their same toys. Why bother taking them out if they’re not interacting with anyone? Just let them play by themselves, and just let us play by ourselves!
If anything can be taken from this it’s that NONE of you should be accepting of this Always-On DRM, and you need to be well aware of what comes with it. This isn’t just a case of “As long as you are always online everything will be hunky dory.” At the end of the day this is nothing more than EA doing what it does best: PISSING GAMERS OFF. EA does not care about us gamers. All those visionary people who set off to make EA a trailblazer and home of originality have LONG since left the company. EA is one of the largest gaming companies in the world, and yet they still can’t seem to make ENOUGH money and will continue to use draconian and unproven techniques like these unless gamers like us take a stand and say, “Sorry EA. We are tired of eating your sh*t. Take this sh*t back to the chef and tell him if he serves it again we’re never coming back again!” I’m not saying that you all should not buy the new SimCity. I won’t be buying it simply because I haven’t been into the series since SimCity 2000 and I simply don’t have the time for it nowadays. What I’m saying is that their Always-On DRM is bullsh*t, their “justification” of it is bullsh*t, and people like duckydan are MORE than in their right to deny EA their money because he is being forced to jump through hoops that he shouldn’t have to. Demand better from companies like EA, because it doesn’t bode well for us gamers when the biggest dog in the industry sets a standard in crap like this.
Ok I’ve said my peace.. *phew*
