03-05-2013
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Professional Burger
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: McDonalds
Posts: 2,564
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Sim City is not what you think it is.
I just wanted to point out first that these are purely my own opinions on the new Sim City, and this is meant to be a discussion on the future of the gaming industry with Sim City being a leading example of what is to come. Be wary for the future of the gaming industry. SimCity is one of the many blatantly obvious examples of what EA intends to happen to gaming over the coming years. They took an iconic single player experience and made it require an internet connection at all times. If you plan on playing the game day one, do not listen to the reviews that Sim City is getting. "EA originally wanted reviewers to travel to their offices and play SimCity on their machines, under their supervision, and get a sense of the multiplayer features and overall game over a few days. The problem is that we’re not playing on final, retail servers. EA knew exactly how many reviewers would be playing the game, so our experiences with the always-on requirement is in no way representative of the final product." ~ (Penny Arcade) Essentially, they took Sim Cities single player experience and made it require online at all times. This is called DRM. There is no offline mode. What you are looking at in this picture is the supposed "Single player" (courtesy of TotalBiscut). Its not what you think it is. The save files for your game aren't even stored on your computer. But why would they turn a classic single player experience into an always online DRM-based game? Even if the always online DRM ends up not being much of a problem after launch day, think from a long term perspective and at gaming in general; you don't even own the game. We should not support companies like these that feel you are just renting their property for a limited time. Internet is going to become more and more integrated into video games over this decade because companies want you to not own the games you bought with your money. They will hide this idea and gloss it over with "Social" features and free to play, just like how Crytek plans to remove conventional single player from their games entirely. This is mainly because games are costing more and more to produce, and coupled with the dropping value of the dollar, forces companies to find new ways to squeeze even more money out of your pocket. Its already rumored that EA plans to release DLC with larger map sizes for Sim City. Oh yeah, you can't edit Sim Cities maps and the maps are incredibly small. Anyways, what are your thoughts on the always online future of gaming? Are you ready for it, or does it spell doom for your man-cave gaming days of old? |
03-05-2013
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Professional Burger
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: McDonalds
Posts: 2,564
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03-05-2013
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User Registered
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Las Vegas
Posts: 4,626
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quoted myself from your sc beta thread
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03-05-2013
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Professional Burger
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: McDonalds
Posts: 2,564
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Also, you should watch this video TotalBiscut did. Sure, your internet connection may be stable, but that doesn't mean the servers will always be stable. There will be days they will have to be shut down for maintenance, or because they were hacked. You can't keep your save files because they are stored on EA's server and locked to your origin account. You can't switch servers because your save files are locked to a specific server. It may not be that noticeable when you're actually playing the game, but EA has made it so that you do not own the game you bought. You don't even get the full experience. Their philosophy is that you are renting their games. They treat their full price retail games like Free to Play games. So I wouldn't support EA at all simply because of how much they are screwing up the gaming industry. Oh, right, here's the video. |
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03-05-2013
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ENGUARD
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Canada
Posts: 996
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03-06-2013
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The Psychonaut
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Middle o' space
Posts: 1,527
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Blizzard had its reasons for making D3 req. internet, but they just didn't add up. I've lost faith in new-age gaming. Back to retro games. No Steam, just download my game and play. No account, no password, just fun. 'Nuff said. |