It’s also concerning, but not unexpected that EA would have several packs of day 1 DLC, which really should have been included in the actual game.

This one always makes me laugh.

For some reason if a company sells DLC on opening day many customers feel it is their divinely ordained right that it should have been included in the base price.

The extra DLC is the superheros and supervillans stuff.

SimCity has never had that kind of component. I've logged about 10 hours of gameplay on it so far and the game feels complete without any superhero stuff. I can imagine it may make life easier in the event of a disaster. Maybe if I took one of the opportunities like the fireworks display or the block party the superhero would help clean up the mess?

It is upselling, nothing more or less than that.

DLC is not usually important stuff they left out. Usually it is fun bits of content that can be added to an already complete game experience.

Again, this is absolutely not unique to games. "Would you like fries and a drink with that?", "Would you like that in the Extra Jumbo size?" "Would you like the disc with bonus features and deleted scenes?".

Also there's a unique park which apparently provides actual bonuses to your city, as well as the British, French, and German skins for buildings, and these types of multiple skins used to be included for free in Sim City games, along with editors for making your own building skins. The problem with day one DLC is that the publisher is removing content from the original game and requiring an additional purchase to unlock it. If you don't care about the extra stuff that's fine, but the people who do want it now have to pay much more than it's worth because it is DLC and not built into the normal price. Additionally, selling content DLC like this is undoubtedly one of the main reasons why there is no modding support in the new Sim City, again a strong argument about why this kind of DLC is bad for the consumer.

Ugh, let's not have this devolve into another DLC thread. Before moving on I'll mention that if the game isn't working properly on release day then there is not much justification for having spent time creating DLC available at launch rather than, you know, having the game function.

Back on topic, I can't stand a requirement that I be online to play a single-player game. It adds no benefits to me as a player (I don't care about having achievements in an online showcase to show off to others), introduces a lot of potential problems (as have been noted above), and adds ongoing maintenance costs to the game which divert sales revenues away from actual game development.

There's something to be said for a connection requirement for DRM, but one of the most consistent things I hear about this is that DRM is that it protects sales during a crucial, brief post-release period (I hear around two weeks). With such a short period, every day's delay or postponed/ruined play session due to server side problems or anything else beyond the game-buyer's control become far less excusable: the publisher protects sales income by deploying a less than functional product to consumers who are following the rules. No one really knows how many sales are lost to piracy anyhow, but EA has lost yet another sale to me as a direct result of this scheme.

And this is the trend developers are pushing for? To piss me off enough that I declare to hell with their product, and have called up a friend to see if she and her roommate wants to play Carcassonne The City with me?

Just Electronic Arts. There used to be a game developer called "Hasboro Interactive" and we boycotted them and now they are gone.

That's good because it's a great time to be in board games. Between a general increase in quality and kickstarter making a crap load of board games viable it's quite honestly one of the best times to be in board games since I've been playing them.

For anyone interested in getting into them, Tabletop is a great web series that will give you good overviews of board games that might interest you.

Haha... I was going to post it here too.

About the DRM discussion.... It is quite frustating I know, but there is always one hacker group that will break our software.

Those big corporations know that and they should have learned by now that making the DRM Wall wider and taller doesn't work.

They are blocking the legitimate customers and letting pirates go through.

This is not recent though. Even owning games like Diablo2 and AgeOfEmpires2, I had to download a crack version to play with NoCD.

More than a decade has passed, technology evolved a bunch and still: Diablo3 was cracked (even before release); Max Payne 3 was cracked; SimCity will be cracked.

Amazon has pulled the physical copies from their store. Undoubtedly they want to avoid the hassle of having their return policy being used massively. This has turned out to be quite a disaster. Some speculate that EA has become the current mess that it is under the present leadership of Gibeau and Riccitello.

Apparently asking EA for refunds is not going well.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BEvc-ozCIAAJrfy.jpg:large

First they offer refunds to disgruntled customers, then take back those words after too many people take them up on that offer:

http://i.imgur.com/ktqJ8Zq.png

In Australia, if you take home any product and it doesn't perform as advertised, you're legally entitled to an unconditional refund. They would have to warn about server outages on the box to get out of it.

On the last console game that I shipped, there were some disgruntled customers asking for a refund, which the publisher was refusing. Our CEO (the developer, who makes no money off sales and has nothing to do with selling the game) stepped up and offered to refund anyone out of his own pocket, just because good-will is a powerful thing.

EA has already won the award of "the worst company in America" and "the most hated company in America" before... they could use a bit of good-will...

Apparently asking EA for refunds is not going well.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BEvc-ozCIAAJrfy.jpg:large

First they offer refunds to disgruntled customers, then take back those words after too many people take them up on that offer:

http://i.imgur.com/ktqJ8Zq.png

Is that legal? Do you have to accept a new Terms of Service during that span of time?

Apparently asking EA for refunds is not going well.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BEvc-ozCIAAJrfy.jpg:large

First they offer refunds to disgruntled customers, then take back those words after too many people take them up on that offer:

http://i.imgur.com/ktqJ8Zq.png

In Australia, if you take home any product and it doesn't perform as advertised, you're legally entitled to an unconditional refund. They would have to warn about server outages on the box to get out of it.

On the last console game that I shipped, there were some disgruntled customers asking for a refund, which the publisher was refusing. Our CEO (the developer, who makes no money off sales and has nothing to do with selling the game) stepped up and offered to refund anyone out of his own pocket, just because good-will is a powerful thing.

EA has already won the award of "the worst company in America" and "the most hated company in America" before... they could use a bit of good-will...

I guess it helps if you invoke consumer laws... http://i.imgur.com/VEJIVmk.jpg.. remember online customer service is almost always outsourced (and sometimes you even get bots) so if you want to get any sort of help it's better to call, otherwise your only option is to pretty much threaten the representative. Of course, nobody likes doing that, and it shows the sad state of EA's customer ethics.

lol @ the security question, too.

Is that legal? Do you have to accept a new Terms of Service during that span of time?

Refunds aren't dictated by a terms of service, they're dictated by local consumer laws. Companies can choose to go beyond the legal minimums if they feel like it.

e.g. many clothing stores offer "change of mind" refunds, which are a nicety that's not required by law, but they could abolish such policies at any time.

Ugh, let's not have this devolve into another DLC thread.

Of course not. I just wanted to illustrate why the quote bellow is wrong. ( And as I said, DLC are not a problem in themselves )

What the flow of events Should have been:
Server is down: Ah, sorry, you will have to manage your city with whatever external data you had at the last server sync. Your local save will be synced up with the server as soon as we are back online. It won't be as fun, or cool, but you will still be able to get some enjoyment from the game.

I'd agree with that, but that's the way it always works as new technology becomes pervasive. [...]

Let everything be part of the standard is not a good thing.