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Forums - PC Discussion - EA: We rejected offline play for SimCity because "it didn't fit with our vision."

EA says you just don’t yet see the beauty of always connected games.

The brouhaha over Electronic Arts’ decision to require an Internet connection in order to play its highly anticipated SimCity 5 game continues, and the latest words from the company executive at the center of this mess probably won’t do much to calm matters.

As we’ve mentioned before, the new SimCity is designed so that it will only really work when the player is online. This requirement, along with EA’s utter lack of foresight and planning, resulted in a huge drain on the game’s multiplayer servers, leaving most people unable to actually play the game when it first launched.

Some have accused — and not without good reason — EA and its Maxis subsidiary of using the always-online mandate as crass, hardline method of curbing piracy. But Maxis’ general manager Lucy Bradshaw says otherwise.

“Always-Connected is a big change from SimCities of the past,” she writes. “It didn’t come down as an order from corporate and it isn’t a clandestine strategy to control players. It’s fundamental to the vision we had for this SimCity. From the ground up, we designed this game with multiplayer in mind – using new technology to realize a vision of players connected in regions to create a SimCity that captured the dynamism of the world we live in; a global, ever-changing, social world.”

Great, so EA was thinking of this as a primarily multiplayer game. So are any number of video games, but I can still pop a Call of Duty game into my Xbox and play on my own without having to connect to the Internet.

Bradshaw says there was some notion of allowing for offline play, but…

“[W]e rejected that idea because it didn’t fit with our vision. We did not focus on the “single city in isolation” that we have delivered in past SimCities. We recognize that there are fans – people who love the original SimCity – who want that. But we’re also hearing from thousands of people who are playing across regions, trading, communicating and loving the Always-Connected functionality. The SimCity we delivered captures the magic of its heritage but catches up with ever-improving technology.”

Apparently “ever-improving technology” does not include servers that can keep up with consumer demand.

She also provides a big list of all the positives that online access offers, again all focusing on multiplayer and ignoring the fact that some people just want to build a city.

Of note on that list are these two items:
*Our servers handle gifts between players.
*We’ve created a dynamic supply and demand model for trading by keeping a Global Market updated with changing demands on key resources.

These seem to feed into EA’s stated goal of making money off as many in-game microtransactions as possible.

There are those who say they have been able to tweak SimCity so that it can be played offline indefinitely. Of course, we have to wonder if EA will release a “patch” that disables this loophole in the future.

 

http://consumerist.com/2013/03/15/ea-says-it-rejected-offline-play-for-simcity-because-it-didnt-fit-with-our-vision/

 

Hahaha oh wow.....



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Well yeah all EA sees are dollar signs so that's their vision. $$$



"It didn't fit with our model to half ass the game and to add copious amounts of DLC, as well as the ability for hackers to fuck with your city."
-An honest EA employee



cool sig TheKoreanGuy 

 



I'm not going to get this until they allow offline play. I don't even have an internet connection on my gaming pc as it's also my music studio pc and i like to keep it as clean as possible.



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It keeps getting harder and harder to like EA.



 

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Screw your vision. It's my $ bitch!

All jokes aside, EA is isolating me with every games. Right now the only series they own I have interest in is Mass Effect, and they already made a lot of mistakes in the last one so my interest has been waning. Hopefully their get their sh!t together.



 

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SuperMarioWorld said:
I'm not going to get this until they allow offline play. I don't even have an internet connection on my gaming pc as it's also my music studio pc and i like to keep it as clean as possible.

Good news then, because I've heard of modders who hacked the game to play offline. Also, an anonymous Maxis employee came forward and said the game is entirely playable without having to run through EA's servers so offline play can definitely be allowed. Now it's up to EA if they are willing to own up to their mistakes.

And thanks! Yours is awesome too. NES ftw!



EA said that the game is all about regional play, they said this before they launched the game, I don't know why everyone is so surprised

If people didn't buy it, then they would definitely have re-considered, but given that it has probably sold nearly 1m copies already, they won't be too upset

Having said that, I feel that Maxis are going to be doing some serious PR work which will probably include some free DLC, though maybe not an offline mode as they seem to like their regions...



Munkeh111 said:
EA said that the game is all about regional play, they said this before they launched the game, I don't know why everyone is so surprised

If people didn't buy it, then they would definitely have re-considered, but given that it has probably sold nearly 1m copies already, they won't be too upset

Having said that, I feel that Maxis are going to be doing some serious PR work which will probably include some free DLC, though maybe not an offline mode as they seem to like their regions...

Why couldn't they just have an offline mode and an online mode, as in one where you can do whatever you want and the other where you do regional play? I think you already know the answer.

I agree though. We are only a small minority voicing our opinions compared to the vast majority that bought the game. But it still sucks and I'm sure others who bought the game and haven't been keeping up with it as much are thinking the same.