I hate EA, please join me.

[zippy57]

1.5, actually.

[BruceWayne]

Lol, I stand corrected. The last time I've checked it was just above 2.

[Airock]

The most hated company is at it again.

 

I was actually looking forward for a new SimCity, since the first beta videos and reports were out. But after all the shit that went down, I won't buy that game, until it's in the bargain bin and freed of its flaws and maybe not even then. Online DRM, 1/4-size maps compared to the now 10 years old SimCity 4, cloud saving and computing, cutting of essential game features (subways anyone?), no support for modding (which was a big part of the fun for SC4) and the list goes on and on.

 

This doesn't really come as a surprise to me, but the SimCity fanboy side of me really wanted it to be a good game. Luckily I don't preorder games and usually wait for the first week of reviews. But things like "worst gaming launch ever", coming not only from game sites, but serious news outlets, the TV news(!), 50k+ online petitions really are a bad sign usually.

 

This EA anti-consumer behavior only affirms me in my strict EA diet. Hit them where it hurts, never preorder, don't buy and play their games (don't pirate either). Sales is the only score they care about, even if the game has a 2.0 metascore.

 

Well said; this is exactly how I feel.  I saw reports of some people who bought digital on origin get denied refunds.  So they called their credit card companies and issued chargebacks.

 

You know, chargebacks cost EA the $60 cost of the game +$35 chargeback fee.   Some people even told EA they were trying to save the company $35 by getting a refund through origin, but they denied lol. 

 

This was after an EA rep issued a statement allowing refunds, later redacted stating "I wasn't authorized". Wow,...even their own employees feel bad for the customers.

[Emily]

EA games.

 

-__________________________________________________________________________________________________-;

[BruceWayne]

By the looks of it, Maxis has to share the blame as well, and can't/doesn't want to hide behind EA for this one. https://twitter.com/simcity/status/310496083841261569

 

About the modding statement they made: I wonder, when it's time for them to announce the "SimCity marketplace", where you can buy buildings/mods/recolors for 1$ a pop (like for The Sims 3). I think the shit has not hit the fan in all its glory, yet.

[Airock]

By the looks of it, Maxis has to share the blame as well, and can't/doesn't want to hide behind EA for this one. https://twitter.com/simcity/status/310496083841261569

 

About the modding statement they made: I wonder, when it's time for them to announce the "SimCity marketplace", where you can buy buildings/mods/recolors for 1$ a pop (like for The Sims 3). I think the shit has not hit the fan in all its glory, yet.

 

That is a straight up lie lol. The IP SImcity is owned by EA. Also, maxis is a subsidiary of EA meaning EA owns more maxis stock than maxis does.

 

I'm sure they have some design freedom, but EA has the final say. They also are certainly the reason its always online singleplayer.

 

Nice find,...dammit,...everytime I think of what a good game this could have been, makes me mad. ANY fan can tell them EXACTLY what needs to be in the game. Everyone knows what makes a good simcity. You have to try to fuck up making a simcity game, or have EA tell you it needs to be multiplayer only. That'll do it.

[Guest Lehshara]

If you don't already know Simcity (2013) has an online-only requirement Origin DRM.  Because of this, many features have been cut or left out entirely. Now there are no local saves, and modding is impossible.  Fuck you EA, fuck you so hard cash rains from the sky and back to the people unlucky enough to have been conned into paying for your garbage.

 

It should be illegal to force us to use Origin over another DRM software like Steam which I support and use for Skyrim. Always online requirements for single player games is so Bullshit. I would never buy a game like that, no matter how much I loved Simcity 4.

 

If you've ever enjoyed a Simcity game, or cringe at the thought of always online DRM, please sign this petition:

 

https://www.change.org/petitions/electronic-arts-inc-remove-always-online-drm-from-simcity-and-future-games

 

 

Edit: Petition @ 52,000 signatures.  

 

So 52,000 x $60 = $3,120,000 worth of potential/obtained revenue for EA is unhappy with the situation. Petition has made it into the New York Times, and nearly all media and critic game review sites.

 

Amazon even removed the sale of the game for a period stating connectivity issues (probably due to a large amount of refund requests)

 

 

Update @53.5k now lol rolling em im,.....facebook is actually useful for something now

 

Thats why I pirate most of EA games

 

Well... what else can I say? If their motto is:

 

"EA... Yo Yo yo! we cut ya game in piecez! den we sell remuved contentz as DLCs mothafucka!"

Srsly... Soon they will start selling Multiplayer mode as a DLC.

 

 

F*ck it! I say let's go to EA headquarters and burn them alive while we dance around with sticks and torches in ours hands.

 

Being serious, I didnt'n bought the game, but I'll still sing the petition. It's better than sitting around waiting to have that shit on my favorite future games.

 

 

You have my torch.

 

 

[Veta]

No we don't burn EA , we stop buying their games , it's a pretty effective method .

[Someone92]

Isn't online registration there to prevent you from reselling your games than to stop piracy?

[Airock]

No we don't burn EA , we stop buying their games , it's a pretty effective method .

 

 

Thats gonna be pretty easy. If EA can even fail at making a simcity game where the fans tell them exactly what to put in it, and they so "no, we doing a simcity mmo" Then they have no chance at making a game worth anyones time or money.

 

EA just goes around buying IPs and blowing them up. Once EA gets to your favorite IP, its over.

[Dannyboy13]

Always online DRM is total bullshit, I was ready to buy simcity until I heard about the DRM. EA is a perfect example of how greed is ruining this industry, between it's online passes, day one dlc, and microtransactions that are starting to pop up in games, the greed is getting to a sickening level. They ruined Bioware for me as well, which I can never forgive them for doing. 

[polluxval]

No we don't burn EA , we stop buying their games , it's a pretty effective method .

 

We need to burn them. Because even if you stop buying their crap, there will be always someone else who will do it. For every mad customer there are 2 or 3 retarded customers. :/

So I say:

 

[Kamen Rider Kuuga]

I'm not sure why it is that companies cannot get the fact that DRM doesn't effect piracy in any way; it's always been cracked in a very short time frame. DRM, if anything, only hurts the honest consumer who just wants to pay money and get a game that works by making them jump through hoops, then leaves the game useless when servers go down. Worse, it can drive the honest consumer to do exactly what the DRM was designed to stop; piracy so they can get a copy of the game that isn't bogged down by their bullshit.

 

I can assure you, if they stopped treating their customers like potential criminal scum, sales of EA games would rise. But instead they'll just keep going, sales will fall and at the end of the day they'll just sit there and blame piracy anyway.

[Yami X]

Already signed I haven't bought an EA game since 2007.They can go fuck themselves. 

[gregathit]

Don't buy the line about 'always online' being to prevent piracy.  That is just a smoke screen and always has been.  The issue is and always will be about control.  If they can control what, when and how you do things then they win in pretty much every way conceivable. 

 

Now I am not opposed to micro transactions in the least bit IF:

1. They are for skins or other things that are NOT essential to the story line.  This can be alternate outfits, alternate guns, background trivia info and other "collector" stuff.

2. It is not shoved in your face all the time via advertising 'in game'.

3. The prices are reasonable (reasonable will vary for folks so there is no point in capping it with a dollar amount).

4. It is clearly labeled as something that is non-essential to completing the game and understanding the story line.

[zippy57]

I feel somewhat the same about Day-One DLC. When it's actually DLC but isn't something that feels like it's necessary for the game, I'm okay with it. When it's content that really looks like it should be part of the game as released I don't care for it. And when the DLC is already in the game and you want me to pay so I can be allowed to access content that's already on my computer... well, let's just say I feel no obligation to pay for something twice.

[Guest pacesetter2012]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-LE0ycgkBQ

[zippy57]

I can't help but point this out:

 

Super Mario 64: 9.8

Halo 2: 9.8

Sonic the Hedgehog 2: 7.9 (XBLA version, original N/A)

SimCity: "Please don't purchase it"

 

Other than that, it seems pretty accurate.

[Something]

We all know some douchebag who's gonna buy Madden NFL 14 when it comes out even though there's no improvement whatsoever over successive titles. Same goes for Cawadooty. So far as I can tell there's an epic disconnect between management and the game dev team. EA's dev team produces masterpieces like Dead Space, management demands the creation of watered-down pieces of garbage to appeal to Gaming's lowest-common-denominator like Dead Space 2 and Mass Effect 2. These aren't bad games by any stretch of the imagination, they are, however, former shadows of their glorious past, and thus are painful to look at.

[HentaiGnome]

To be fair, I've played many EA-published games in the past and most likely will continue to do so depending on how good the game really is. But I do agree that the DRM thing sucks and I really, REALLY hate the fact that they screwed over Bioware's Star Wars: The Old Republic with the stupid free-to-play restrictions, I mean all you really have available to you is the Story Mode and everything else is either gimped or inaccessible, WTF!!!

[beck11]

Isnt the DRM essentially hard coded into the game by Maxis? In any case Im not surprised by EA, older gamers will remember a time when they used to be just as bad but then had their profits nose dive. Had a slight resurgence in which they became media/fan darlings by green-lighting interesting games like Mirror's edge. Didnt last long though...

 

Coincidentally their latest turn towards the ways of evil came about with the release of Dante's Peak or Dante's inferno; an ill-conceived game with derivative traits of other popular action games, namely God of War. This is the problem with EA, they are so very profit driven that they focus test out the ass and have a very "me too" attitude when making decisions. If your only concern is the bottom line then your games will show that as well. Tepid, shallow games that might appeal to the lowest common denominator are not what keep people coming back for more. Add to that, price gouging and treating a certain sub section of your customers like potential criminals will see them back to where they were a few years ago desperately clawing back at the success they used to have. Personally I think they currently are too massive to fall back that hard but you never know, gaming always seems like a bubble about to burst with the way things are going.

 

I personally have no ill towards EA simply because I just dont buy their games anymore and nothing they do interests me in the slightest cause almost inevitably, anything they release seems to be a huge disappointment these days. From what I hear of the new SimCity game it dosent appear to be as bad but falls way short of the older games. Throw in the server issues and things arnt looking to great for the franchise. A game series killed because someone did not do due diligence on the potential server load....what a way to go.

 

EA sucks. Winning Eleven 4 lyfe!

[Guest Lehshara]

I love EA's response to petition.

 

[spoiler=EA Post]Blah Blah Blah.... require "advanced engineering", so is practically impossible.

 

 

Wait... but, Assassins Creed received "DRM free" update... so wtf?

 

 

Also...love this (twitter post)

"Just realized the irony that a game focused on building infrastructure is unplayable due to a lack of infrastructure,"

[gregathit]

That twitter post is freaking hilarious Lehshara!!!!

 

Good find!

[zippy57]

Blah Blah Blah.... require "advanced engineering", so is practically impossible.

So what they're saying is they don't know how their own game works?

[polluxval]

 

Blah Blah Blah.... require "advanced engineering", so is practically impossible.

So what they're saying is they don't know how their own game works?

 

They are trying to mock users.... but they failed miserably.