EA trying to make up with us consumers....but not in the way we want.

[Danceofmasks]

*shrug*

I don't care. This fixes nothing.
I don't mind the way Simcity is, so long as some brass from EA says it won't happen again.

And yes, it's possible to prevent.
First thing's first, you have to have stress tests.
Then, based on the results of the stress tests, you have server capacity, linearly scaled to the number of sales you expect.
If your sales exceed your expectations, stop selling copies until you expand your capacity.
This is fucking common sense. Try to buy something that can't be provided in any other industry, and see what happens.
Heck, launch capacity doesn't even have to stay around ... ideally, you launch enough games that when one's playerbase stabilises, you can repurpose those servers for the next game.

It's not a question of costs.
The more copies of a game sells, the lower the overheads are.
Therefore, it's cheaper, per unit sold, to provide stable servers.

 

[Signa]

Bribery? When any other company shits the bed, like Sony in its epic sever debacle, and gives away something people don't start calling it bribery.

You know even though EA is evil its become such a punching-bag that I feel more sympathy for them then for some of the dicks here.

EA is trying to fix things. Its DRM sucks but removing it isn't going to happen. Fixing their severs and managing the number of users they have is the best they can do. Let's hope somebody comes up with better DRM of that kind or that EA uses something less offensive, like the DRM Steam has. Let's also hope that people are prepared for the inevitable delays causes by dickbags who will eventually hack EA's server as a way of showing how much they suck but only wind up hurting everyone who paid for the game.

But it is closer to bribery than what Sony did. Sony failed to keep its security strong (something that need apologizing for), and as fallout from that, people were unable to connect to their online servers. It sucked, but that kind of thing is expected to happen every now and then. It might not be completely fair, but one can still blame the hackers for that debacle because Sony didn't ask to be hacked.

EA on the other hand asked for this. They wanted you to buy their game, and they weren't ready to provide the service that they demanded you use. Unlike Sony who offered free access to their servers, EA charged all their customers full price for the game that doesn't even partially work. Sony offered the free games as a gift and apology after they got the servers fixed. EA is offering the game as appeasement, because every single one of their customers are mad. There is no promises to get it fixed to the level everyone wants (no more DRM), they are denying refunds (something a customer is entitled to if the product is non-functional), and even removing features and content from the customers whom the game is actually working for (Leaderboads, fast-paced game modes). Offering a single game that many of the gamers probably don't want or care for is more of an insult than an apology.

 

[ksn0va]

EA actually tries some form of compensation, and people complain. Why am I not surprised? I mean, granted, their screw up is still a big deal. I'm not disagreeing there. It could have also been avoided by having an offline mode. The fact that there isn't an offline mode is a big deal for Simcity. But the title just screams "overly self-important" to me. "They are giving compensation, but not the compensation I want!"

Just out of curiosity, what would have been the compensation fans wanted? The game being made free?

Plain simple: removal of DRM. Any way, I would buy this stuff only if it had no always-online DRM, but I also need no EA games - the sell nothing I want to buy or even get for free.

Normal DRM is fine actually, it's just the way EA and Ubisoft does theirs. It's really disappointing if in the future you'd only have to download half of the game and the other half would be on their servers.

 

[major_chaos]

[(which is why I have absolutely no intention of picking up Dead Space 3, ever, and I blame EA's "We want to broaden the game's audience" approach for ruining a series I enjoyed).

Kinda off topic, but really what is the problem? And I say that with no sarcasm or malice, I'm just wondering. I just finished DS3 and while it isn't as good as DS2 its far from the abomination that people are making it out to be. Crafting is fun, the Co-Op is totally optional, The human enemies show up rarely and go down almost instantly, and the cover/dodge roll are so utterly useless and awkward they might as well not even be there. The game is so close to being "DS2 with weapon crafting" which leaves me still trying to figure out what it is people hate so much. (If you are afraid of derailing the thread feel free to PM me a response)

OT: EA gives away something for free and people complain, never saw that one coming /s. EA has free giveaways surprisingly often, and yet people complain every time. Hell I remember a ways back they were flat out giving you one free <20$ game on origin and people were either "WHAAAA ORIGIN" or bragging about how they used an exploit to get a second free game like it made them Robbin Hood instead of a massive tool. Come to think of it, I don't seem to remember Valve ever giving me free anything.

 

[KeyMaster45]

The problem should be that Simcity is unplayable, which they acknowledged already. They aren't telling you to stop complaining, they are rewarding you for buying a broken game and hoping that you don't trade it in. I fail to see how that is the problem. They offer an open hand in gratitude and you interpret it as a slap in the face.

It's a PC game, it can't be traded in.

I'm still laughing at how people legitimately think that gamers being upset with not being able to play the game they paid 60 bucks for counts as being entitled. EA could probably shit down your throats and you'd call it chocolate ice cream.

Giving you a free game doesn't excuse what is causing these problems in the first place, namely the extremely aggressive DRM. This isn't a gesture of good will on their part, it's just damage control so they can continue to push that nonsense to all of their major titles.

I agree with this. The issue at hand is not just this singular game, and while giving people a free game for their troubles is a nice gesture it is still a hollow one meant simply as damage control. A free game doesn't change the fact that EA is actively sabotaging its own customers by using draconian DRM schemes, and everyone person it pacifies only encourages them that this kind of thing is going to fly in the future.

I don't feel sorry for anyone who spent money on this game and is now proceeding to ***** about it. In fact, you're part of the encouragement problem. Stop buying shit from EA if you don't like what they're doing.

The people who willingly bought it and now smile and nod with contentment at the situation are even worse. They fail to grasp why EA's behavior is unacceptable or they just flat don't care what the ramifications of their purchase.

This debacle would have never happened in the first place if people had just shown some self-restraint or pulled their heads out of their asses long enough to send EA a message with their wallet. This game should have sold horribly, people should have lost their jobs over it, departments of EA should have collapsed, and EA's stock-price should have plummeted. Nothing shy of an apocalyptic financial failure of this game would have had any effect, and nothing shy of the lack of sales causing Maxis to crumble under EA's tyrannical weight would have sent strong enough ripples through the industry.

"The core game is really well made" is not excuse enough for this. If we want it to stop then we need to have some self-control, stop being such fucking fanboys for EA, Ubisoft, Valve, anybody we feel is forwarding the cause of abusive DRM. Loyalty to these companies is going to get us nowhere, so lets stop being loyal. These companies live and die by the money that comes out of our wallets; it's high time we used that to thin the herd. Destroying or seriously wounding these companies is our only course of action.

People say all the time that we should put up with this crap because game developers and publishers are ultimately business out to make money. I say that we should take that to heart. Let's start treating them like businesses instead of artists. Let's kick the fuckers where it hurts; right in their bank accounts. Collateral damage to the lower employees be damned. It's high time this industry crashed hard again.

 

[bug_of_war]

EA actually tries some form of compensation, and people complain. Why am I not surprised?

This is a great thing EA is doing. Everyone is always getting onto EA for being greedy, yet they just gave out SO MANY codes. Thats not greedy, thats customer service.

Two people on this website who have the same thoughts as me? MY MIND IS BEING BLOWN!


OT: Pretty much same as above. Stop crying about everything EA is doing. Most likely at least 1000 people are getting free games now, and if it is a 20 dollar cap, that's 20,000 dollars that EA and the devs who made the games are not going to be recieving. Sometimes I believe I'm going to stumble apon a thread titled, "EA is no longer going to distribute Spore (a game disliked by many)" and hear people crying about it and saying how stupid EA are for getting rid of a game most people agreed was below average.

Seriously people, EA is not satan, stop being hipsters/neckbeards and hating EA because they're a big business.

 

[bug_of_war]

Yeah I will believe it when I see what game it is.

I almost guarantee you though, it is going to be a game that has already left its profit making cycle (Everyone who wanted it will already have bought it) and is going to be a first party (EA) title. Meaning no thats not 20,000 dollars (lol) that they are not getting, they already made the money the game they are going to give away was going to make, and this just has people who cant put 2 and 2 together praising them.

Now, if they give away a newer game like Deadspace 3 or some such, then I will eat my words, but until then, yeah you should really think harder into exactly what they are doing and why. It costs them nothing, and makes less discerning/critical customers praise them. Then again the people who are giddy about this are probably the ones who will just keep buying products from them that dont work.

I am basing my assumption off of what they did last time when they gave away a free games voucher thing. Last time it was 20 dollars for any game on Origin, thus, unless the consumer pays for a first party game EA is still loosing out. Also, my figure of only 1000 people bought the game is FAAAAAAAR far below minimum sales for most games. A more reasonable number would be somewhere between 20,000 to 50,000, and even then they could be considered low numbers seeing how as most games nowday break the 100,000/million mark. Lets now assume that of the (average it out to 35,000) EA gives out 15,000 20 dollar vouchers. Lets also assume that 50% of the people buy first party games. Now we have 7,500 people spending their 20 dollars on games EA will make a loss on. They end up loosing 150,000 dollars. That doesn't spell "greedy" to me. It tells me that EA is a company that acknowledges that it fucked up and is trying to appease the people who got screwed over.

As for your comment about, "Then again the people who are giddy about this are probably the ones who will just keep buying products from them that dont work" I agree with you. Most people who constantly complain about EA seem to be the people who buy all of their games. So I think we're in agreement here that it's kind of the average consumers fault for continually buying something they don't like, thus giving the company a reason to keep on keeping on. Personally, I have never bought a game from EA that I didn't like, but I am aware of the games that they put out that have flaws. The reason for this is probably because I am more forgiving than most people on this sight, and I also am a little bit more sensible in my spending. That's just speculation though so take from it what you will.

 

[RJ 17]

[(which is why I have absolutely no intention of picking up Dead Space 3, ever, and I blame EA's "We want to broaden the game's audience" approach for ruining a series I enjoyed).

Kinda off topic, but really what is the problem? And I say that with no sarcasm or malice, I'm just wondering. I just finished DS3 and while it isn't as good as DS2 its far from the abomination that people are making it out to be. Crafting is fun, the Co-Op is totally optional, The human enemies show up rarely and go down almost instantly, and the cover/dodge roll are so utterly useless and awkward they might as well not even be there. The game is so close to being "DS2 with weapon crafting" which leaves me still trying to figure out what it is people hate so much. (If you are afraid of derailing the thread feel free to PM me a response)

I've had 3 good friends of mine tell me that they didn't like it, and every bit of news that was revealed about the game just made me groan.

The co-op is optional, yet there's sections of the game that can only be done if you're playing co-op. Either way I'm in the group that feels co-op shouldn't have been added in the first place since it's hard to build atmosphere and get scared when you've got come jackass teabagging necromorphs in the corner.

The universal ammo system takes a large part of the "survival" element of a "survival horror" game out. Ammo's supposed to be limited so you don't get your own badass weapon and just mow through everything like it's not even there.

I've heard that the combat is much more "generic 3rd person shooter" and actual "survival horror".

In general, they specifically set out to make the game more generic so it would "appeal to a larger audience" and from what I've been told they succeeded...at least in making it more generic. As for that "broader audience", well from all accounts that I've heard (excluding your own) this is the worst of the series. 2 of those 3 friends I mentioned earlier specifically told me it's a waste of time and money.

 

[Rastrelly]

It's really disappointing if in the future you'd only have to download half of the game and the other half would be on their servers.

Even more: think for a second what will happen if the servers will be stopped, say, in 10 years (and - I suppose - this will happen earlier in fact). Good bye, potentially interesting nostalgic gameplay experience! Same fate is awaiting for Mass Effect 3 (2-3 years more and the game will be simply impossible to complete the way you want or even to launch without using help of cracked versions and cheats).