Sim City 5 (2013) - Sim<parameter: string>

[kuronosan]

People just need to stop caving and refuse to buy the game. The more people that bite the more reason they have to continue to do business this way.

It's depressing to see that this is the largest gaming fuckup in modern history and people are STILL defending it. I played the original Sim Cities and as a fan of the series having looked forward to this game I am not going to encourage games like this to see the light of day by spending money on something I can't play on my own time whenever I want.

If the rest of the gaming community was smart they would do the same. Unless of course you enjoy seeing all the games you love ruined by corporatism and greed.

[Scythiroth]

It just feels like such a lose/lose situation. If you don't buy it, EA will just think no one likes Sim City anymore and not make it period, but if you do buy it, they will just keep adding in all their bullshit to get more and more money from people. Yay, more reasons to hate EA.

[Ksandra]

I think the whole demand a refund (at amazon since the honor it) is probably the best bet.

The sales let them know people want the game, the returns let them know people aren't satisfied with a shit product.

[Correction]

It just feels like such a lose/lose situation. If you don't buy it, EA will just think no one likes Sim City anymore and not make it period, but if you do buy it, they will just keep adding in all their bullshit to get more and more money from people. Yay, more reasons to hate EA.

The best way to punish them is not to pre-order the game, because it's how they know they've got you regardless of how the game turns out. You pre-order a game sight unseen for some stupid and often virtual tchotchke, which invests you in the ownership and makes not buying it harder than buying it. Meanwhile you've floated the publisher an interest free loan until the game comes out and if it's broken, buggy or an unfun mess, you're fucked. And they laugh all the way to the bank.

[Necronus]

If anyone is looking for a semi-alternative. Anno 2070 is on 66% Steam discount today and doesn't require always online. I think this is the lowest its been on Steam.

[Souj]

It just feels like such a lose/lose situation. If you don't buy it, EA will just think no one likes Sim City anymore and not make it period, but if you do buy it, they will just keep adding in all their bullshit to get more and more money from people. Yay, more reasons to hate EA.

This. Hell, they just canceled Dead Space 4 because 3 wasn't as profitable as they wanted. It made them money, just not as much as they wanted. And they didn't question if it had anything to do with the retarded changes they made to the game, they just said fuck it and brought it all down.

[Lucavi]

People just need to stop caving and refuse to buy the game. The more people that bite the more reason they have to continue to do business this way.

And then they never make it again. Quigley already said that it took EA 6+ years after Sim City 4 to give him the green light after numerous protests, because they didn't think it would be profitable.

There -is- no winning situation for the consumer. If we buy the product, we get shafted by a shitty company. If we boycott the product, the company will simply kill the IP.

I don't know why you think there's some fairy-tale-ending route where if people boycott the big bad company, they're going to see the error of their ways and make everything better the next time around. What is currently happening now is pretty much the most realistic "best-case scenario" that could happen right now: people bought the game, but because so many bought it, and because its terrible, people are giving EA a serious pounding in the PR department. The media is jumping on it, and there's serious talk about the entire review process as a whole; something that wouldn't have been discussed had this game not come out.

You really need to come down from whatever cliff you're perched on. Ksandra has the right of it. Support the product, showing that there's interest, but request a refund, showing that you won't support a shitty product.

@Correction: Even if you don't pre-order it, you're still going to buy it day one, and if you buy it day one and its shitty, the result repeats itself. If anything, NOT pre-ordering it would have given EA more wiggleroom, because they could have claimed a somewhat legitimate excuse of "we had no idea how much interest was out there for this game". By them having the massive pre-order numbers, they were aware of interest; they simply chose to low-ball for the sake of profits or ignorance, and are paying the public price for it.

You're never going to "stick it to the man" like you may want to. You have to take what you can get, and win what little victories you can, and hope and pray that eventually, the big companies make a blunder so massive that it forces change.

Edit: To the Kurono's of the world: yeah, we get it. Everyone gets it. Reviewers get it.

But thanks to all the pre-ordering suckers like me, why would EA care? They've got my money. They're laughing all the way to the bank. Diablo 3 made a compelling case that it just doesn't matter, and gamers will eagerly gobble down whatever scraps the game companies feed them. I know I'm part of the problem. But what can I do about it? I wanted the extra DLC from the Digital Deluxe pack.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/0...al-all-wounds/

You can stop regurgitating the same thing every page. Its been firmly established that we - all of us, on BG, and abroad- comprehend your viewpoint.

[kuronosan]

And then they tell you no refunds and you get nothing but a crappy product no money back, and a crappier product the next time because they know you will buy it to "support" them. It's okay, I get it. You're satisfied with mediocrity because at least you get to have the game, which is better than nothing. Meanwhile, you're perpetuating the problem by buying into a system that has little interest in making a quality product.

In the future most everything will be digital download. Still think you'll get a refund?

[Shenrien]

If the refund process of a digitial download is nothing more than banning a serial ID I don't see why it would ever cause a problem, I had an issue with World of Warcraft where I disliked it took it up with Blizzard and after about a month of constant complaints I got my refund, the end result the serial key got banned, but I got what I wanted in return, and still play other IPs Blizzard puts out, not that if I didn't get a refund for the product that would have prevented me from doing so or anything.

[Lucavi]

I said nothing about -receiving- a refund. I said "request" a refund. Its still better than your twisted ideology that somehow boycotting a product That a Mega-company had little initial interest in producing will lead to anything more than a dead IP. We've seen what happens to games that don't sell. You don't see them anymore.

I'm not satisfied with anything, hence my continuing to post everywhere; official forums, twitter, these forums. I'm just able to comprehend the fact that not buying it does absolutely nothing but saves me 60 bucks that I didn't necessarily need. I'm able to comprehend that if the game doesn't sell, we don't see the franchise again. That if the game doesn't sell, we don't get all these lovely articles slamming EA from across the board; we don't get Fox News and MSNBC and Forbes coverage of this fiasco.

You speak with your wallet for necessary products, not fluff products. This is fluff; it means nothing to EA if they kill the IP. The only ones hurt are Quigley and the consumer at that point. Hell, you can even twist that around, because if you boycott a necessary product at times, they still won't suffer.

We'd get absolutely nothing related to Sim City. Is that what you want? Are -you- "satisfied" with not getting another Sim City? Were you satisfied in 2012 with not having a Sim City since 2002?

[SephYuyX]

So if offline has been "cracked", how long until this can be pirated, and be fully stable offline while still getting updates?

[Correction]

@Correction: Even if you don't pre-order it, you're still going to buy it day one, and if you buy it day one and its shitty, the result repeats itself. If anything, NOT pre-ordering it would have given EA more wiggleroom, because they could have claimed a somewhat legitimate excuse of "we had no idea how much interest was out there for this game". By them having the massive pre-order numbers, they were aware of interest; they simply chose to low-ball for the sake of profits or ignorance, and are paying the public price for it.

Waiting until a week after release is the optimal strategy here unless you're positive the game is going to be supply-constrained (see: Xenoblade on Wii). You reward publishers for putting out good games after you've had a chance to make the determination that you're not throwing your time and money away on broken shit. It's less to do with 'sticking it to the man' and more to do with making them stop and think 'uh oh more consumers are making intelligent decisions I guess we actually have to start giving a shit.'

So if offline has been "cracked", how long until this can be pirated, and be fully stable offline while still getting updates?

They still need to find a way around the fact that your city is saved on the EA servers.

[Manako]

I thought Anno required you to have a connection to play? You also need a Uplay account to play it. I have tried doing multiplayer and keep getting disconnected which is no fun. I think the main reason I stopped playing is because it kept crashing on me, no idea why that was happening. For The Sims I will only buy them on steamsale if they are less than 20 and actually add stuff to the game, Katy Perry is really just a stuff pack from what I can tell. Was super disapointed with the pets expansion, I feel like it was better executed in Sims 2. Pretty much at the point where I have no interest in purchasing anything from Ubi or EA :/ always let me down.

I could handle their stupidity with the network connections because I knew it was something that would go away, except that now they have turned off the features which were supposed to make being online actually worthwhile. The fact that their calculations are so dumbed down from SC4 really is painful, instead of building a living breathing city, I'm forced to build a city based on their poor AI design and that becomes unfun very quick. Maybe it was only added with rushhour but I distinctly remember being able to track sims throughout their day :/

[kuronosan]

So Luc basically you're saying as long as they're putting the game out it's okay for it to be a pile of shit because it's better than nothing, but hey...request a refund and somehow they will listen to your needs and put out a good game next time?

Companies with no incentive to change their policies will not change them just because you asked for your money back.

You have already spent your money, there you have already spoken with your wallet. You have said "hey, it didn't matter that this wasn't worth it because I asked for a refund and even though you said no what matters is that I asked".

I would laugh if I didn't feel so bad for your logic.

[SephYuyX]

[Xno Kappa]

The traffic AI in this game is fucking retarded lol. You're better off making one big ass single lane city.

[Gwynplaine]

It just feels like such a lose/lose situation. If you don't buy it, EA will just think no one likes Sim City anymore and not make it period, but if you do buy it, they will just keep adding in all their bullshit to get more and more money from people. Yay, more reasons to hate EA.

I find the former hard to believe. When has there ever been a situation where game developers said "oh create another sequel to a popular franchise? No. We must focus on a new IP instead." lol. Nope, they will keep cranking shit out.

[Correction]

lower stock prices = crashing.

'k

[Lucavi]

So Luc basically you're saying as long as they're putting the game out it's okay for it to be a pile of shit because it's better than nothing, but hey...request a refund and somehow they will listen to your needs and put out a good game next time?

Companies with no incentive to change their policies will not change them just because you asked for your money back.

You have already spent your money, there you have already spoken with your wallet. You have said "hey, it didn't matter that this wasn't worth it because I asked for a refund and even though you said no what matters is that I asked".

I would laugh if I didn't feel so bad for your logic.

You've still refused to refute my point; the only point that matters within all contexts of your tin-foil hat-wearing blather and bluster: if you boycott Sim City, you won't see another one. EA will kill the IP. If you think they won't, have a conversation with Quigley about why it took so long for us to get this one, and that was after a Sim City that sold very well.

Until you refute that, I've nothing futher to discuss with you.

[The Blackrose]

Sometimes you have to let the world burn to make your point.

If EA doesn't want to not make another game, then that's on them. Either there no market for it (in SC's case, obviously it is) or they had not thought out their cunning plan all the way through. Just means I don't have to spend a dime on an EA product. I don't have a problem with that.

Wouldn't be the first time EA left an IP in the ditch to die.