

SimCity launch a disaster – error messages and random disconnections - agotterer
http://m.cnet.com/news/simcity-launch-a-complete-disaster/57573053

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Legion
What makes the Internet-required single player a deal breaker for me isn't
even the launch problems (those will go away), but the fact that the game will
ultimately be terminated once EA no longer finds it worthwhile to run the
servers.

Someone will probably eventually reverse-engineer the system to create a local
fake server, but that's no substitute for a game to not be broken by design.

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charonn0
This sort of cock-up is just one of the reasons why always-connected DRM is an
immediate deal-breaker for me.

> What we are doing is deploying more servers over the coming two days, which
> will alleviate many of the ongoing issues.

The issues are entirely artificial and should have been no surprise to EA.
_Every single time_ a game protected by always-connected DRM has been
launched, this same sad story unfolds. Einstein's definition of insanity seems
like a relevant item to mention here.

Always-connected DRM is a crutch for companies who are unable or unwilling to
replace a business model built around the premise that duplicating a digital
product is costly, which is simply not the case. Making it costly through DRM
only punishes paying customers, and makes cheap/pirated versions that much
more valuable.

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solistice
For a more obscure game I had been raving about, Anno 2070, has a similar
issue. If you earn any achievements (which affect ingame stats, enough to
break a game if they go missing), and your internet connection or more likely,
their teeny weeny little server goes down, those achievements go missing. This
thing was enough to dissuade me from buying a game I had been raving for
months about (read the reviews first, all about this DRM problem).

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rm999
Penny Arcade and at least a couple other reviewers anticipated this:

>My recommendation? Don’t preorder or buy the game unless you’d be fine with
non-functioning servers tomorrow. If that sort of thing would make you angry,
hold off until you know things are stable.

[http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/why-you-
sho...](http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/why-you-shouldnt-
trust-our-simcity-review)

That said the game is getting glowing reviews from reviewers who didn't have
to deal with the server issues. When these issues settle down I think it will
be a well received game. Personally I tend to play games like this when I'm
traveling and have no internet connection, so I'm not going to purchase it
until I know there is a way to play without an internet connection.

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jared314
This is the kind of story I always see, but rarely get to hear a post-mortem
or how they eventually fixed it.

