mac512k

@sooty: as consumers, I don't think we understand how powerful we, and our money are towards the future of trends and marketing. We also forgive very easily when something great comes out, that is hidden by poor choices implemented into a game. With the trends of Pre-Purchase, and review/blog sites stuck behind restrictions on what they can/can't say before a release, it's getting harder and harder to judge a game. We hope it's going to be good so we pre-purchase. Reviewers want to review the game (and other games) so they abide by those restrictions and rules.

DRM didn't work and neither does always-on. I'm a strong believer if you make it easier to acquire than pirating, you've won. SimCity, is not easier. If someone makes it so you can play offline, why wouldn't you go that route? You've paid for the game, you can't play it, and the best EA can do is drop features to make it somewhat playable.

To me this entire game screams marketing and Buzz words. I was following the news, but not following everything about it. When reviews and Quick Looks game out, I was shocked on how small the cities are, and how much a connection is needed. I think they talked on the GiantBombcast about how they needed multi-cities because they knew the zones had to be small, because the game wouldn't be able to run on current machines. To me that's a daisy chain of failures, that they didn't really want to solve the problem, just make money.

The damage for SimCity has been done. Forgive or not, I'd love to see if/when they release The Sims 4, if this structure will be implemented into that game.

While I haven't played SimCity, i've followed the news regarding server issues, bugs, and general problems with the game.
The larger issues it seems, is not being able to play a game you paid for on or past launch day. For a MMO this would be the norm. SimCity is not that, it's a game that has never had that system implemented, nor a system that the fan base may be accustomed to. The enthusiastic gaming community understood and knew what could have and in-fact did happen. You can't carry that over to the general public. I had to imagine EA was worried and thought the same. While the general public was waiting to play this game, they didn't see the massive storm of server issues and connection failures ahead.

I don't really have a great understanding on who controls how many servers a game gets, but I know EA has a few server intensive games under its belt. Why didn't they better estimated the load for a launch day title? To me, the SimCity launch was a disaster. Everything that could go wrong, did. From being dropped and loosing progress, to just not being able to log in. The best thing they came up with, was blocking features in the game not to fix, but bandage it.

While I don't disagree with an always on connection, I think the traditional idea of "Launch Day" needs to be revised. Perhaps getting more servers up so you don't have issues, or launching the game region by region to ease the load. Even launching the game, but calling it launch week, or month!

I'm guessing a lot on the future of development houses, sales, and sequels ride on Launch day/week/month numbers. If a game can barely or not even run and get plenty of negative press, what happens in the future? Do the people that control what happens next, understand the issues with servers and connection problems? Or do they look at scores like Polygon.com that had multiple retraction because they, (Like the general public) had massive issues on and past launch day. I know that some development houses judge bonuses and pay raises on a score of a game. I'm curious to what the actual sale numbers are, or if this will in-fact cause issues with add-on packs or paid DLC for this game.

From a 9.5 to 4

http://www.polygon.com/game/simcity-2013/2630

In a way, I'm glad this happened. Perhaps this will make other developers, publishers, and the general gaming public, understand what "Always-on " really means. Will this end the technology? Will they try to make it better? Or will nothing happen, and this issue will just be the norm for every game. I've heard that Publishers think the idea of a single player game is going away, and i'm sure that means this Always-On idea is just going to grow. It's just not about making, selling, and playing a game anymore. It's about keeping servers up, making sure your connection never drops, and thinking about the future. What happens when EA Drops the servers forever? As we all know, EA has no issues with turning off games and when will it be SimCities turn? Will you be able to play it offline? Or is it just done?

As a huge SimCity fan, as a gaming fan, I just want to play the game. I'm not mad that this game has huge issues. I'm mad because it doesn't need to. It's a SimCity game. It didn't need this always on connectivity. This game has been around for 24 years and has never had this problem. This was done for protection, to make money, for whatever... it didn't need to happen this way. To me the last SimCity game to ever come out was SimCity 4 and I will be playing that instead of SimCity (2013).

You're very question kind of can be asked to the console makes themselves. It seems with every update Sony, Microsoft, and even Nintendo puts on there system, they're turning them more and more into a multimedia set-top box, further away from a game console. MS has made it hard to just play a game, while all the other systems are adding Hulu, netflix and there own proprietary music and video services. If anything the next batch of consoles are going to be pretty much PCs.

With the rumors of both next gen systems using off the shelf PC hardware, I'm guessing we're gonna get something that resembles a Mac Mini, or the Alienware X51. With the advent of Steam and other services, PCs are pretty much game consoles now. You can hook up an xbox 360 controller and most games just recognize the controller and the on screen prompts change to show 360 buttons instead of keyboard keys.

With myself, I'm totally leaning away from consoles because of the transition/mess they're making current consoles, PC is already what they want to be. However, I'm using the PC as a game console.

This seems very much like the whole "hey, we can't play ps2 disks on he system, buuuuuut you can re-buy them via the online store and play them. " . No one really made a stink about that. Maybe because we're almost in the next generation. Regardless, Sony must have seen that and thought, "alright. Everyone fell for our , can't play ps2 games on a ps3 BS. Let's try this with the psp. " The only difference is, the psp is still on the market.

Let's hope the new security measures  secure every part of your information. Either way this freaked me out and i'm just going to buy PSN cards from now on. 

Made a mashup of old school logos in Tron world. What do you think?   Check out my flickr feed for hi-res  http://www.flickr.com/photos/techthis/

That's it! Thanks dude. 

I tried asking a dude at Gamestop but he had no idea what I was talking about so I figure, i'd try here.  
 
It's a Last gen game, I think just the PS2, It stared a Girl that lost her Boyfriend through a portal ( I think he was a rockstar) and she has to go through the portal to rescue him. I think she gets a gargoyle sidekick to help her on her way.  
 
Any help would rock!