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Sound Off: Is SimCity the Lesson Publishers Needed? |
Listed in: News Tags: always-on drm, EA, Maxis, simcity, sound off
If there’s one thing that gamers and publishers seem most split on, it’s the necessity of always-on DRM. Publishers claim they need it to protect their titles (or, in the case of SimCity, to help the game run), gamers claim that it only hurts paying customers and doesn’t really do all that much to prevent piracy. It’s a hot issue, to be sure, and one that’s fresh in everyone’s minds now that SimCity’s launch has gone so preposterously bad.
EA and Maxis launched the re-booted, always-online SimCity last week. And now, seven days later, the servers still aren’t stable enough for everyone who bought the game to play. Gamers are still being booted out of cities, dealing with corrupt saves and sitting in infinite queues, wondering why exactly they should have to deal with any of this crap to play what really should have been a one-player game.
Meanwhile, the press coverage has been harsh. Sites have posted numerous articles following the disaster, and the horrible launch even made it into the New York Times.
So here’s this week’s Sound Off question: Do you think that SimCity’s launch was disastrous and high profile enough to make publishers second guess always-on DRM?
| 100% of voters think this story ROCKS! |
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Comments
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See, companies are out to make money. It's why they exist; we can't hate them for that alone. Customer loyalty, which this recent fiasco might've slightly damaged, is important, BUT customer loyalty is only needed to the company insofar as it helps them meet their goal of making money.
Know what else helps make money? Making it impossible for people to steal your shit. And I'll tell you what, as much as I hate the idea of always-on DRM and as anti-consumerist as it might be, it bloody well works.
So have EA learned from this? Hell yes. What have they learned?
To make sure their servers are up to the task from day one.
That's it.
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They keep punishing those, who bought their games, with it though, so that they can deactivate the games sometime down the line and get people to buy/play the new games.
Alas, the naivete of this generation.
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