
The Power Of Silence: Why The SimCity Story Went Away - Vekz
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/04/22/the-power-of-silence-why-the-simcity-story-went-away/
======
JacobAldridge
I facilitated a workshop recently where one of the speakers specialised in,
among other things, crisis PR. She said that the two best ways to approach
most brand attacks were 1) Silence, and this wasn't appreciated enough by
brands wanting to respond; and 2) to 'burn' the story by giving access to mid-
level news organisations or softer journalists - once they run with the story,
it's often 'burnt' for larger / hard-hitting outlets because it's been
covered.

Definitely won't work for all crises, but was eye-opening to me, and a good
lesson to those of us with businesses.

Bonus tip: the best / worst time to make a social media complaint is on a
Friday night - most businesses don't pay someone to monitor social media on
the weekend, and conversely most people interact when they're not at work, so
complaints are more likely to go viral without a response for many days.

~~~
PakG1
_Definitely won't work for all crises_

The golden standard for PR crisis management is probably Johnson & Johnson:
[http://www.aerobiologicalengineering.com/wxk116/TylenolMurde...](http://www.aerobiologicalengineering.com/wxk116/TylenolMurders/crisis.html)

They definitely didn't choose silence. You're right, you definitely have to
choose your strategy carefully, depending on your situation.

~~~
skrebbel
If something goes wrong and it's your fault and you don't want to pay the
consequences, silence may not be so bad.

J&J had the opposite situation. Something went wrong and it _wasn't_ their
fault. Choosing to pay the consequences anyway made them look double good;
once for taking responsibility, and again for doing it when other companies
might've walked away.

The problem with EA is not so much their PR strategy per se, but their general
unwillingness to fix fuckups. No amount of marketing can fix a fundamentally
broken company.

------
georgemcbay
I can't speak to the media/publishing side of things, but personally I stopped
talking about SimCity because I stopped playing it.

Looking back at the whole fiasco, I'm positive that the always-online
requirement and server overload will forever define the game, but there was a
much bigger problem lurking below that issue, which is that the game sucks
anyway even if you disregard the early technical issues and the politics
around "always-on".

It is, IMO, by far the least fun Maxis "Sim" game I've ever played, and that
holds even if you include Spore.

~~~
ghshephard
I concur absolutely with you - I am the worlds great sim fan, and I've lost
countless thousands of hours watching my little guys (and gals) run around in
Stronghold, Settlers 7, and Caesar 3. I also got a lot of fun in previous Sim
City games.

The Latest SimCity got about 6 hours out of me, before I just went, "meah." -
I didn't really get the same sense of progress, or emergent features, or
ownership of the process and events that I get from other sims.

But - EA scammed me out of the $60 before I discovered that the game actually
sucked, so - maybe it wasn't such a bad strategy on their part after all. But,
with that said - this approach (hyping a game, limiting its playtesting, not
providing extensive reviewer copies) - only works so many times before people
start to get wise to your ways...

~~~
jahabrewer
> But - EA scammed me out of the $60 before...

Chargeback if you can't get a refund (like me, I bought on Origin). I called
up Amex, identified the charge, told them EA misrepresented the product, and a
day later I had a credit on my statement. Took three minutes.

~~~
peacemaker
EA made it quite clear if you were to do a chargeback they would cancel your
Origin account. Fine if you only have SimCity on there but you could end up
losing a lot more than $60 if you had a few of their games via Origin.

~~~
qu4z-2
If I were in that situation, this by itself would be enough to make me do a
chargeback.

Possibly over-reacting, but I hate it when people use underhanded tactics like
this, and I'd be ok with losing my other games just to spite them.

Sadly, I don't own any EA games, so I can't do this.

------
ChrisNorstrom
That's not "silence", that's the power of the "2 week give-a-damn limit". In
today's society we're overwhelmed with constantly breaking news from all over
the world. People tend to forget about things after about 2 weeks. There's
just so many new things to care about that it's impossible to not move on from
old news. Especially when it's just about a game. I'm sure gamers will keep
the Sim City fiasco in the back of their minds and pirate later games
published by EA but for now, we're really just tired of hearing about old
news.

Same thing happened with the whole "WarZ" fiasco. That team had false
advertising on Steam, a glitched game released, artwork from the walking dead
was stolen, bug reporters banned from the forums and censored. It was a lot
worse than SimCity, yet 2 weeks later we just stopped caring. It's a shitty
game, moving on, lets focus on something more important, like plastic in our
oceans.

~~~
Goronmon
_There's just so many new things to care about that it's impossible to not
move on from old news. Especially when it's just about a game. I'm sure gamers
will keep the Sim City fiasco in the back of their minds and pirate later
games published by EA but for now, we're really just tired of hearing about
old news._

Yeah, I think this about sums it up. When it comes down to it, all that
happened is that a company made a bad game. Companies have been doing this for
many years and will continue to do so for as long as the medium exists.

If anything, this whole SimCity fiasco has made me less of a fan of RPS in
general. It felt like half their site was dedicated to bad-mouthing the game
and EA for the first week or so after release. And, of course, they need to
throw out a piece like this after a while to generate page views and remind us
how terribly angry we should be that such a tragedy could have been allowed to
happen.

~~~
onli
You misrepresent what happened severely. It isn't the case that this is simply
about a bad game. This is about a game which didn't work for the people buying
it. Which got great previews and reviews(!) before the issues with their
servers arised. And which wasn't even a good game, because it was
fundamentally flawed, which at the beginning remained undiscovered.

Furthermore, this is not even about the game at all. It is about the crisis
management of EA/Maxis, who simply lied (I doesn't care whether she lied or
not, in effect it was a lie) when claiming that the Always-On-DRM, which
prevented people from playing the game, was necessary to run the game at all
because of server-side calculations.

I think RPS is right to make a story out of this fact. Companies who get away
lying their customers and the press should feel consequences of this. All too
often, and in EAs case this seems to me especially true, companies who behave
unethical create a growing mass of disgruntled players not respecting, and not
buying from, that company anymore, which the company can ignore for quite a
while when focusing only on quarterly results (and given the arrival of new
players all the time), until the negative image becomes so overwhelming that
their customer-base collapses.

~~~
Goronmon
_You misrepresent what happened severely._

Whatever you need to tell yourself in order to maintain the level of anger you
desire.

Nothing I saw from EA seemed out of the ordinary for a company trying to sell
the game they made. Unless you expect companies to only promote games that
meet certain quality standards when they are released.

I mean, look at Aliens: Colonial Marines. From my perspective, it was in much
worse shape than SimCity upon release, and I don't see RPS coming out with
stories about how the game has disappeared from the limelight.

Honestly, I feel like people got so angry about SimCity to deflect their own
responsibility for the purchasing decision they made. No one forces people to
buy games on release day, and everyone should know that the smartest thing to
do is to sit on a new game for at least a couple of days to let any issues
arise. That's the responsible thing to do as a customer, and obviously it was
something many people chose not to do.

~~~
saraid216
> No one forces people to buy games on release day, and everyone should know
> that the smartest thing to do is to sit on a new game for at least a couple
> of days to let any issues arise.

If that were true, no one would buy anything ever.

~~~
bostonpete
> > the smartest thing to do is to sit on a new game for at least a couple of
> days to let any issues arise.

> If that were true, no one would buy anything ever.

Your comment only makes sense if you assume that everyone always does the
smartest thing -- which seems not to be the case.

~~~
saraid216
Actually, it makes sense if you include the context that I quoted. Namely the
"everyone should know" bit.

------
dimitar
I blame the over-reliance of the journalism profession on PR to get stories.
Few bother to do their research nowadays and access to celebrities, company
spokespeople and officials are prised more than actually useful information.
You can see it in also in politics, science reporting.

RPS actually looks pretty good with this - maybe the web can provide a
solution to this question? PR and paid publications are ultimately boring,
even with the best efforts put in by professionals. If opinion and reporting
find a better way of getting monetised on the Internet we may see solution for
the boring, corrupt and uninformative media we have today.

~~~
mtgx
Yeah, I dislike the websites' reliance on PR, too. Some of the stories are so
obviously copy pasted from the press release. For example when Intel launches
a PR with a headline like "Intel Launches Amazing New Chip", 90% of the tech
sites out there are like "Intel Launches Awesome New Chip" or something along
those lines, and then proceed to basically rewrite's Intel press release. No
critical thinking involved. They do this with many other stories, too,
especially the ones they don't understand that much. They basically become a
distribution service for their press releases.

------
dotx3
While the story went away, did the problem for the company? I personally
didn't buy SimCity and I know several people that didn't because of what was
up in arms at the time.

To me the damage is done. I won't bother complaining or yelling. I just won't
pay $80 and if certain organisations keep associating themselves with poor
releases/games why would anyone keep handing over their money.

Especially when you're releasing something like the next SimCity sequel which
plays on older gamers' nostalgia, why would people pay for SimCity 2 in a
years time if they remember how poorly this one was sent out into the wild?

~~~
djt
I didnt buy it either and I haven't bought any EA games since Origin started.
I figure there are a lot of other games out there from businesses I'd rather
support.

I am confused by people that post on forums and get outraged then buy the
games anyway.

------
shin_lao
That might simply related to the fact the SimCity is a failed game, people
stopped playing it and moved on.

There are bigger news to run.

------
sjtgraham
This reminds me of the Instagram TOS fiasco. Instagram essentially was burned
very badly by doing the right thing, i.e. by being extraordinarily forthright
about changing their terms. Usually TOS provide the company the ability to
change their terms without any notice whatsoever; we are somewhat unreasonably
expected to regularly check back ourselves and try to find changes. Instagram
tried to do right by their users by clearly communicating upcoming and
significant changes that would affect their users, and the Internet
collectively and unilaterally sh*t the bed. I remember thinking they were
crazy for doing that, because it was obvious exactly how it would play out.

Sometimes doing the right thing is the wrong thing. Unfortunately sometimes
silence is golden.

~~~
acdha
Instagram was burned for telling a story about their ToS which didn't match
what they wanted to claim and then tried a classic non-apology apology rather
than admitting overreach. If the new ToS had only claimed what they said they
wanted this never would have blown up.

------
smutticus
I'm quite glad the story went away. Some company released a crappy product and
people got angry. Why? Just don't buy it.

It's not as if EA has redeemed themselves in any way. SimCity still has a 1.9
score on Metacritic. The public still agrees this game is a failure and their
sales will reflect that.

~~~
NamTaf
A number of reasons:

1) People pre-ordered, but didn't find out about the crippling problems until
after installing it. By that time, they'd opened it. People are used to
servers being overwhelmed for a few hours right on launch day. After that's
passed and the problem persists, the whole thing is too late.

2) EA was refusing refunds of digital downloads. [1]

3) Even if you subscribed to their crap and waited for them to fix it, the
game still exhibited crippling flaws which they refused or took ages to
address, for example with the game's pathfinding system [2].

I am sure there were other issues that people faced but not being someone who
actually fell in to the Simcity trap, I didn't follow it any more closely.

In short, the whole 'just don't buy it' attitude does not work as it's a naive
view that completely ignores several key parts of the puzzle. Importantly,
those key parts of the puzzle all involve the power resting in EA's hands
where the consumers have little leverage to affect change. EA already had
their money and had disclaimers on not needing to offer refunds, so the
approach of shut up and let the problem go away was fine for them.

[1] <https://help.ea.com/article/returns-and-cancellations> [2]
[http://games.on.net/2013/03/maxis-to-address-simcity-
pathfin...](http://games.on.net/2013/03/maxis-to-address-simcity-pathfinding-
complaints-as-more-bugs-are-found/)

~~~
marcosdumay
In a sane market, people would learn not to preorder after something like
that.

Nut games isn't a sne market. Most people with experience on it move away.

------
seldo
I think the simpler alternative is that it's just not a very interesting
story. A game company trying to cover their asses for a bad launch of an
unpopular design lied their asses off. So what? They seem to have got the
server issues under control now, and people are enjoying the game, so it's no
longer got the power of public anger behind it.

------
Tichy
Maybe it just wasn't a very intetresting story. Gamers had to wait a couple of
days for EA to fix their servers. Not very shocking at all.

~~~
ghshephard
The issue was more the fact that they had Always On DRM built into the game,
and didn't tell the full truth about what it was there for.

~~~
Tichy
You mean like every game on Steam.

~~~
ghshephard
Has Steam ever claimed that their DRM (where it's used) is either for (A)
Offline compute, or (B) MMO use?

Personally, it's not so much the DRM that EA has infected their latest games
with, or not even so much that it requires a constant internet connection
(though, Sim City was one of the great play-alone games left) - but that
they've been too cowardly too just come out and say, "Yes, we require you to
be connected to the internet to play this game so that we can reduce piracy."

Lying (or not telling the truth) about this obvious situation only makes them
look bad.

------
crazy1van
I think the power of silence depends on the severity of the crisis. If your
product is physically harming people or cost someone a lot of money, the
controversy probably isn't going away after a few weeks of silence. People
will not forget about a loved one being seriously physically or financially
harmed.

However, if the issue is a buggy piece of software that costs $60, that is
going to be quickly forgotten. People don't have the energy to stay upset
about something that in the grand scheme of things is so minor. If this is
still registering on your personal radar a month later as a serious problem,
consider yourself lucky.

------
raghavsethi
I'd been wondering why all the news suddenly dried up. Illuminating article.

------
mrmaddog
If neither silence nor the truth are options, the third best approach is to
wait until there is a larger story in the industry that you can hide behind.
Perhaps that was what EA was attempting, but unfortunately no larger scandals
have occurred.

Being able to ride (and manipulate) news cycles is an incredibly powerful
skill.

------
bentcorner
I don't think it really went away, at least for the fans at
<http://www.reddit.com/r/simcity>. It's like a constant steady flow of hate on
there, such that I actually feel bad for Maxis after reading a few posts.

------
diminoten
This is also true for getting attacked personally on the Internet. If you're
getting hit hard by say, 4chan, because they think you did something terrible
or whatever, completely ignoring the personal attacks goes a long way towards
stopping them.

------
qapf
There is an easier answer in all of this. RPS is out of news and trying to
bring back to life a story that got them a lot of clicks. Other than when they
are attacking someone, I don't see a lot of RPS links making the rounds.

------
Aqueous
Why did the SimCity story go away? Because the story _isn't that important_

------
gsibble
Those pictures freak me out.

~~~
tacticus
SILENCE WILL FALL.

I must say The Silence are a rather awesome enemy for the doctor.

~~~
Ygg2
I think you are wrong, those are just middle ranked PR division in EA.

~~~
DanWaterworth
The middle ranked PR division in EA is a good enemy for the doctor.

------
PakG1
When I looked at the big hubbub about Yahoo's decision to end telecommuting, I
couldn't help but think that Mayer was making the right decision by not
commenting. She was hired to turn around a company in crisis, there were major
problems, and she based her decision on data (seeing that many people who were
supposed to work via VPN weren't even logging in according to their VPN
records).

It was clearly a unique decision for a unique situation and not a comment on
telecommuting in general, despite what all the screamers were screaming.
Judging from various comments from alleged insiders, it was a good decision
because many of the telecommuters were just loafers.

Fact is, who cares what the screamers were screaming? Would people boycott
Yahoo's products because they ended telecommuting? This so cannot be compared
to buying products made in sweatshops, which many people clearly did for years
anyway (and still do). Would employees stop wanting to work at Yahoo?
Apparently, job applications are way up, including what industry considers top
tier candidates.

When you make the right decision, sometimes the best option is to stay quiet
and let the truth come out naturally. Of course, OP is more about the strategy
in general, not whether or not the truth comes out naturally (in fact, in OP,
they cared not for truth). I'm just saying I felt throughout the whole Yahoo
telecommuting thing, Mayer did the right thing. Screw the screamers. They had
no idea what they were talking about and wouldn't affect Yahoo in any way
anyway.

~~~
venomsnake
Nothing boosts the morale of a company in crisis than having a boss that rules
with decrees instead of leading.

~~~
PakG1
I'd love to hear a confirmed insider's view. Because I've ONLY heard good buzz
about what they've been up to. Everything has been anonymous sources only
(albeit many from journalists who promised anonymity), but I've yet to see any
anonymous upset sources. It really seems like Yahoo's got swagger back. So I'd
love to hear a confirmed insider's view.

------
jdechko
Unfortunately, EA holds a position where they can ignore the complaints of
fans. Fans of Sim City, Diablo, etc are the minority of their customers and
they can treat us however they want to.

Let's face it, Madden '13 and NCAA '13 will sell way more copies than Sim City
has. Why should EA give a crap about a few stories on the internet?

------
tomphoolery
I would be interested to know about "why" this whole debacle happened, but
much later after I actually get to play the game. I love SimCity, loved almost
every single version that Maxis has released, but this latest offering got me
scared. So from others out there who play the game...is it even usable at this
point?

~~~
tempaccount9473
Usually I'd say pirate it, put 10 hours into it, and buy it to support the
authors if you like it.

But right now, you can't play the new Simcity without shovelling dollars into
EA's pocket, and reward them for producing a fundementally broken game.

You just have to decide for yourself which is more important to you. Providing
feedback to bad corporate behavior by refusing to give EA your money, or your
curiosity to play (and ultimately be disappointed by) a shitty sim with all
depth and complexity removed in favor of "social" interaction and
microtransactions (buy packs of 2 buildings for $5, i.e.
[http://www.amazon.com/SimCity-German-City-Online-
Game/dp/B00...](http://www.amazon.com/SimCity-German-City-Online-
Game/dp/B00BLS4H22)).

However, if you care about the future of games, please don't give EA money.

------
macspoofing
Or the story didn't have that much mileage to be begin with. After all, it's
just a game, in a sea of other games.

------
rdl
Mostly I just stopped caring because I already knew EA was horrible, Origin
sucks and people only use it when forced by EA, and SimCity is a crappy game
(even independent of the DRM issues).

Bioshock: Infinite came out and was good. Other than that, I just sit and wait
for Civ V's next expansion, GTA:V, etc.

------
andrewljohnson
When I heard all the negative press around SimCity, I became nostalgic for my
childhood, and bought SimCity for iPod. I've really enjoyed playing it twice.
Even though the controls are different, I picked up the knack right away.

------
ekianjo
It went away because people don't talk about new games after they are released
for a couple of weeks. They whine and then most of them move on and look at
other upcoming games.

------
iuguy
It may seem shocking, but this happens throughout industries (and indeed with
governments up to a point - the luxury of silence isn't always available).

------
drorweiss
I guess crisis PR is exponentially more challenging in today's social media
reality. They can't just talk to a bunch of reporters to bury a story.

------
executive
The Power Of Silence: Why The Linode Story Went Away

------
finallyposting
"That the claims weren't true does not provide room to conclude that [Maxis
studio head Lucy] Bradshaw was 'lying' [...] such accusations don't help this
discussion."

What!? Perhaps part of the reasons evil triumphs in media situations like this
is that "good" white knights like the author carry water for people who, like
Bradshaw, objectively make the world a worse place.

Hanlon's razor is irrelevant here. Regardless of whether Lucy is so
stupid/irresponsible that she really didn't know such an essential detail of
her studio's feature product or is simply a manipulative sociopath, decency
dictates she be replaced.

~~~
dagw
_Bradshaw, objectively make the world a worse place_

I'm a huge Sim City fan and I'm really upset I'm not getting the Sim City game
I wanted, but let's keep some perspective here. Bradshaw and anything that
EA/Maxis says or does has absolutely no effect one way or the other on the
world.

~~~
alan_cx
So, there is no point in them existing then.

------
roel_v
The me the kicker was in the comments (one of the first few):

"JarinArenos says:

I browse plenty of gaming sites… but stories like this are why RPS is the only
one that gets AdBlocker disabled"

LOL, this is the audience we're talking about here - people who proudly
proclaim to the world how they support their causes by _gasp_ disabling
AdBlocker! I can see this guy sitting there, basking in his own self-
righteousness, how he's such a good guy for allowing some ads (all of which he
ignores) to be shown. And then people wonder why companies need to turn to
always-online DRM for their software? Ever wondered why the world is turning
SaaS-only, with all it's negatives? See it epitomized here.

PS thinking of it (and OT), isn't there an AdBlocker version that overlays ads
with a white float, rather than not downloading them at all?

~~~
krichman
The world is turning SaaS-only because it's easier to do business when you
have predictable monthly income, processes that are easily debuggable because
they are only on your platform, and a far simpler customer support scenario
(fixing one person's bug is fixing all persons' bugs). SaaS is basically
wholly unrelated to blocking ads.

What should this guy do to meet your approval? Unblock and click every ad?
AdBlock gives users more power to enter into agreements with websites that are
respectful with their users' attention and reject websites that are not. Use a
website occasionally? Add them to the whitelist. Meanwhile you never notice
the scummy websites that have giant ads mid-article nor the 20-year-olds in
your area trying to meet you for sex.

