

SimCity Developers' Reddit AMA Swiftly Turns Into WTF With The Online-Only DRM? - secretwhistle
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121214/16262621391/simcity-developers-reddit-ama-swiftly-turns-into-wtf-with-online-only-drm.shtml

======
fruchtose
Reddit communities are a minefield, at least in terms of the larger
subreddits; Reddit is a site which has a significant young, male, socially
liberal audience that is suspicious of advertisers. On Reddit, companies are
seen as inauthentic, because people pushing a product cannot contribute to a
community that was created without a profit motive (i.e. Reddit). For many
users, this suspicion extends to corporations as a whole, since the profit
motive poisons any interaction a company has with consumers; any interaction
is dismissed as inauthentic. This sense of cynicism has become pervasive
throughout the site, such that any self-promotion is questioned, even when
money is not at stake.

And EA thought it would be a good idea to advertise on Reddit? I can
sympathize with the team members who have no control over the business
decisions. I am sure they are great at making awesome games. However, a
cursory search of Reddit would show that more vocal Redditors hold extremely
hostile views of EA's games and business practices; these opinions cover such
grounds as studio acquisitions, DRM, game quality, content distribution
methods, DLC pricing schedules, and artistic vision--just to name a few topics
of scorn. Given the extensiveness of the Reddit echo chamber, I wonder who at
EA made the brave decision to send the SimCity 5 team into it.

~~~
redthrowaway
Reddit also has a fairly dim view of IE, but that didn't stop the IE9 team
from having a fairly successful AMA[1]. The difference was, the Redmond boys
owned up to past failures and seemed genuinely interested in fixing them. EA's
response to customer dissatisfaction appears to be to claim that they're
wrong, and should not be dissatisfied. Two different approaches led to two
entirely different outcomes.

An AMA on reddit can be successful for anyone, so long as they're primed on
how best to interact with the reddit community. Obama was well-primed, and his
inclusion of several reddit in-jokes in his replies (no doubt at the
insistence of staffers) made for a very successful AMA, even if it was an easy
crowd for him. On the other hand, Woody Harrelson should also have faced an
easy crowd, but his ignorance of what's expected in an AMA led to that
infamous clusterfuck.

EA should have known that online-only DRM would be a big issue, and they
should have prepared a better answer to it. That they didn't is only their
fault, especially given what I suspect is fairly high reddit usage among the
rank and file there.

[1]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dkk3l/iama_we_are_memb...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dkk3l/iama_we_are_members_of_the_ie9_product_team_here/)

~~~
wlesieutre
Last year I had a few weeks between real internet connections at my house, and
it really drove home how bad an idea these systems are. Even Steam, which
ostensibly has an "Offline Mode" did not do as well as I'd have liked because
one of the residents didn't have it set to log in automatically.

So now we're in a situation where all of her games refuse to open and we won't
be back online for a while. But you'd think Steam would have no problem
authenticating through a tethered EDGE connection. It's not a ton of data, and
it doesn't need low latency. But it didn't work. Even if webpages loaded
(albeit not quickly), Steam would not log in.

So it strikes me as incredibly arrogant for companies like EA and Ubi to come
along and tell me that these always online systems aren't a problem. They are.
And it sucks how many users accept them. Even when we're not talking about
days/weeks like I discussed above, small Comcast outages here are not
uncommon, and it's crazy that games will quit or entirely refuse to run when
they happen.

I absolutely agree that they should have seen the reaction coming. The same
kind of systems have been in place with games like StarCraft 2 and Assassins
Creed, and they've all gotten similar receptions on sites like Reddit.

~~~
redthrowaway
It's interesting that you had issues launching Steam games without an Internet
connection. I've never had a problem with it, although I've got a MBP and so
my library of games is quite limited. Might the issue have not been Steam, but
rather something the game publishers had included that caused it not to work?

~~~
wlesieutre
If you have Steam set to remember your password and log in automatically, it's
fairly reliable. If you prefer to not leave passwords remembered, Steam will
not launch even in Offline Mode until you restore the connection and
authenticate. This is by design.

<http://i.imgur.com/NXCpk.png>

While I understand the reasons for designing it this way, it's still very
annoying to be caught off guard by it. I'm glad that nobody could get access
to any actual account data like my friends list, time played, etc. But I'd
much rather it be a system like the Mac App Store, where software will run no
matter what once it's been downloaded, and running things I've installed is
entirely separate from my account authentication and anything with personal
information in.

------
btown
The TechDirt article says this:

> [Developer] Kip's followup was downright laughable. > > "We will allow you
> to play for as long as we can preserve your game state. This will most
> likely be minutes."

Everyone seems to hate on the DRM, thinking that it's just a business decision
that is not at all integral to gameplay, but they all seem to be forgetting
one key thing:

The new SimCity is, at its core, a multiplayer game!

Sure, it's a multiplayer game with the majority of the user experience
dedicated to non-social, intra-city interactions. But your city lives within a
global economy, and if it's possible to mutate your offline state without
mutating your online state, then sync becomes a huge problem.

Consider the server that models a consistent virtual entrepreneur who's moving
or visiting from one city to another (which the new AI actually might do, from
seeing the videos). Now, say the destination city goes offline for hours. Both
the source city and the destination city could end up _believing_ that the
virtual entrepreneur is helping their city grow. If the offline time period is
short (i.e. the "minutes" that the developer refers to), then the offline city
can "snap back" to the correct state much as laggy players see themselves
jumping across a map in a shooter. But if it's a long offline period, they
could be snapping back in a very visible and jarring way. And it's near
impossible to test all of the edge cases unless you can make assumptions about
maximum latency before a disconnect.

The developers can only be faulted for not _communicating_ the intricacies of
an MMO to their audience well enough. Instead, they allowed their game server
to be characterized as a DRM device, and tried to respond to criticisms as if
it was just a DRM device.

I want to be able to play Skyrim offline. But I have no qualms about WoW
disconnecting me if I go offline for more than a few minutes, or if I tried to
log on with a stolen or copied account. I'd expect them to do the same to
other players who did so. On that note, we should really just be glad that
they're not making SimCity a subscription service!

~~~
wlesieutre
I think that a lot of people are aware of that; they question whether it
actually adds value to the game. Given the choice between an entrepreneur that
moves between cities (and other similar features) or a game that works when
the internet goes down for 5 minutes, I'd take the latter.

Having interactions like pollution between neighbors is pretty cool. But
there's no good reason it couldn't work with AI neighbors too. The online only
features feel tacked on to force players into staying online all the time.

~~~
wlesieutre
Perhaps a more important point that I should have mentioned: I can still play
Sim City 2000 (published in 1994). Games like this that depend on online
servers for basic functionality? I doubt they'll work in 18 years.

------
talmir
One thing about this DRM method that worries me is what happens in the future?

I still occasionally play my ooooold copy of simcity 2000. So if I do like the
new simcity, what happens ten years down the line? Will I still be able to
play it? Or will I not be able to authenticate/save/access old saves because
the official simcity server was taken offline?

It seems to me that we are buying digital products with an expiration date.
And that seems wrong to me.

~~~
bincat
That is broadly the reason why I don't have the Kindle, for example.

EA has in its bowels made a choice that Sim City fans will become its new cash
cow. They will be now free to sell you the game and turn it off when they
choose that releasing another version is more profitable. They easily could
have allowed the game to function without inputs from neighboring areas or
could have simulated it.

As a Sim City fan I am deeply disappointed since I have fond memories playing
the game from the very first release. But these days I have chosen to only
support and reward companies who do not make relationship with their customers
a power play.

------
csense
Capitalism is the answer to DRM.

If the games put out by bloated clueless bigcorps are filled with draconian
DRM, then their lunch should be eaten by agile indie startups that know
better.

If you buy video games, take note: Minimize or boycott entirely games that
have DRM. Reallocate that part of your video game budget to buy DRM-free
games. Use Gamersgate and Good Old Games; avoid Steam.

If you make video games, take note: There's at least some subset of people who
hate DRM, and they'll presumably be attracted if you use the words "DRM-free"
somewhere in your website/app description/marketing.

------
Pezmc
Online only DRM depresses me slightly, until the internet is available
"everywhere" we shouldn't be restricted to having to be connected to it.

I play games on the tube, trains, on holiday without wifi and many other
places where I don't have internet access.

Some of the most successful gaming devices of the past few years
(iPhone/iPad), don't require an internet connection to work, neither do the
major consoles. Why should be users be forced into this? Haven't they heard of
laptops?

