SimCity players to receive free PC game for their troubles

@50

Can’t give a refund to those that bought the game digitally, hell even physical because you still keep the game. Even though I have returned Rage to Amazon I still can play it. The user is essentially getting a game for free if a refund is given.

@52 That’s hardly impossible to verify. If they can track people ingame, they can track them on their client too. Incompetence just isn’t a very satisfying excuse.

@53

I can’t return a PC game to any of the big chain stores even Gamestop and Amazon seem to be catching on as well.

Steam would be able to do this but they don’t and if they don’t, I don’t see anyone else doing it. And no there is no way to actually verify this. If I bought the game physically for a friend and gave it to him how is EA going to find out who I gave it to? The code is not placed on the disc, You still have to manually enter the code in so how is EA going to verify anything and how would they remove or block it? They go in your machine and force an uninstall?

Its pretty obvious EA doesn’t have any type of system to handle this as if you were to force a charge back they block your entire account. Not the game that is being refunded, no, your entire account with all the EA games attached.

@54 I’m assuming you missed the part where EA were in fact offering refunds for physical copies within 14 days, just not for digital.

You know just as well as I do that it would be pretty easy to block a game from being played if you truly wanted to.

Hell, EA and Ubisoft seem to be doing that even without actually trying.

Like I said, being incompetent isn’t an excuse.

@55

“Hell, EA and Ubisoft seem to be doing that even without actually trying.

Like I said, being incompetent isn’t an excuse.”

Snarky remark? That is just server which effects everyone what we are talking about is individually.

“You know just as well as I do that it would be pretty easy to block a game from being played if you truly wanted to.”

Again Steam doesn’t do this once a game is bought and is installed you can’t get a refund for the game. If steam is not doing this then I don’t see anyone else doing it. You are just grabbing at straws. Everyone knows that plays on a PC that there is no used market and you can’t get a refund especially digitally. You just seem to be grabbing at things to sell the EA hate because its EA even though Steam the “savior” of the industry doesn’t do this you turn a blind eye to it.

@56
That is not completely true. If you offer your firstborn and your own sould to Valve they will consider giving a refund for a 5$ game

@56 Steam is just as wrong for not doing it. How is that an argument for anything. Two wrongs make a right now?

Steam isn’t the one happilly selling people a broken game, and they quite recently issued refunds for The War Z.

Where’s the EA refund, champ?

@58

“quite recently issued refunds for The War Z.”

Probably because of it not being an actual game. I have bought more then a few games through steam that have been broken and wouldn’t play and have asked for a refund. DId they give me one? Nope instead the cite their policy on returns and refunds.

My whole point about Steam not doing that is the entire PC market doesn’t do it so if you are going to get pissed at something get pissed at that instead of pointing the fingers at one particular publisher. I know how you love to hate EA but its getting old.

The server issues seemed to be squashed now as my wife and I were able to play all day yesterday. The game is fantastic and I am glad I bought it, probably should have waited a few days before purchasing it but that pain is over with now.

@59 Do you have any opinion on the Simcity trainwreck, or are we happy just running interference for EA and talking about Steam instead?

For what it’s worth, I’ve had the exact same thing happen when I bought RAGE and it turned out to be a barely playable pile of broken code and graphics glitches. I’m not happy with that, and they should’ve taken it back.

The time for the classic “My game is running fine, so everybody else must be spoiled” has really long since passed. Not even EA try to run with that one. I tried to convince myself of the exact same thing with Diablo III. In retrospect that was mighty dumb. At the end of the day, broken game is broken.

@60

Well I was able to play multiplayer with friends yesterday that have purchased the game as well and if I can play and they can play. I am happy. I could honestly care less about the rest of the people.

The first few days I was pretty livid but that anger was gone once I was able to play for more than a few hours without it crashing. The wife seems to be the same way but now we have moved on and making our cities. And that’s really all it comes down to. EA will have learnt a lesson from this and the next time they want to do an always on connection they will make sure its hammered down but so far EA is ahead of Blizzard since D3 by this time I was still having issues.

All we seem to be doing right now is fighting over our opinions which are like assholes. Everyone has one and they all stink.

@61 Diablo 3 was stable for me within 48 hours, and then there was almost a full day after that where it didn’t work, so I guess that just goes to show the general value of anecdotes.

I’d be surprised if EA or Activision have learned jack shit from those disasters. Both companies opted for an always-online system in games that never truly benefitted from them. All they did was break their respective products in the most embarrassing fashion.

For Ubisoft it took several disasters like that to actually get a clue.

.. And I’m sure it’ll still be profitable. Don’t tell me Kotick or Ricitiello actually give a fuck about their reputations at this point. If they did, there would’ve been refunds.

“. . . I could honestly care less about the rest of the people.

“The first few days I was pretty livid but that anger was gone once I was able to play . . .”

The sad, sad reality. Out of sight, out of mind. Back to business as usual. Who cares how much outfits like EA screw consumers as long as you’re happy, right?

“The sad, sad reality. Out of sight, out of mind. Back to business as usual. Who cares how much outfits like EA screw consumers as long as you’re happy, right?”

Yep, yep, yep, yep.

@63

“The sad, sad reality. Out of sight, out of mind. Back to business as usual. Who cares how much outfits like EA screw consumers as long as you’re happy, right?”

?? I am a consumer and I happy with the game now that the server issues seem to not be an issue to me,the wife or friends. I don’t see any screwing over. I just see a company that tried something and it not working as intended and Maxis seem to be working on that issue along with giving the consumers a freebie. That’s a whole lot more than I have seen Blizzard do with Diablo 3 or Rage with the driver issues not to mention charging 60$ for a tech demo.

EA is a company that’s entire existence is to make a profit off entertainment so the only way they will learn is by people not buying their games. I bought the game and I enjoyed it so I don’t see me as being a consumer being screwed over other than a few days of potential game time being lost.

You know your dreamcar is selling soon, after many years of waiting time you finally can get your hands on it. You take a couple of days vacation to drive to your new girlfriend to brag a bit and take her to the drive-in theatre. EA is selling you this brandnew car. You happily drive the car from their property but it stutters at the next intersection. You call them, tehy tell you that they are sorry and they will as soon as possible send a mechanic but meanwhile you should walk home or take the bus as the car is in no way reliable. You call your girlfriend, that it’s getting late…

Your car isn’t working for a couple of days now, you called EA a couple of times and you get the answer that they are working on the problem and you can get your car back, if you want, but it’ll only drive in first gear. You imagine your girlfriend on the passenger seat, while low riding in first gear…

Seeing that you spend the last days at home instead with your new girlfriend (who is pissed), you tell them that you sue the heck out of them, if you don’t get to drive your car properly until coming weekend! Meanwhile the same story happend to a lot of other people and it’s on big news sites around the globe. EA isn’t happy with their bad press and so they tell you that they are willing to compensate your anger and that you can choose from their used car department. You know, the rusty ones…

Finally it’s weekend, you get your car back, it’s working, albeit the wiper blades are scratching the windshield if you use them and the horn makes a sound as if an elephant farts. But yeah, at least you can finally drive with your baby to the drive-in theatre. Where you notice that, once you pulled the handbrake-lever it gets stucked. But hey, at least you are stucked in good circumstances, with your new darling and your new car under the moonlight of a romantic drive-in theatre…

/the end

EA CAN KISS MY ASS, I’M DONE WITH THESE GREEDY FECS!

@66

Car analogies don’t work, its not the same thing. Car is something that gets you to work and to your gf, where a game is just that a game. Plus a game is not over ten grand to play also not as essential as a car is.

Jesus, once the corporations manage to brainwash people into thinking that broken shit is actually your problem, you know something is very very wrong.

I guess you’re all in the wrong here. What we should do is just hand EA 60 bucks, and not expect anything in return. What, you don’t just want to buy the game, you actually want to play it too? Who do you think you are, the King of Siam?

There are servers involved, guys. Nevermind why, or who put them there, the fact that they’re there completely justifies any inability you may have to actually play your game, and disowns you of any right to be miffed.

So stop acting like spoiled brats. You have no appreciation for the privileges you’re afforded by your corporate overlords. Now please be a good piece of 60 dollar chattel and shut your mouth, so Johnny Ric(h)itiello can count your money in peace.

@69

THis is how the industry is going if you would go to developer centric conferences you would see the theme with games becoming a service and they controlling the distributions. Like or leave it that’s how its going to be. Activision,EA,Ubisoft are just starting the trend and its obviously working.

Like a lot of commentators are pointing out, if you aren’t able to deliver an actual service, then you won’t be able to sell it either. I don’t see the benefit in being unable to play a product I paid for.

Diablo III and Simcity are now infamous titles, more than they are famous ones.

If EA and Activision want to prove that they’re every bit as tonedeaf and boneheaded as Ubisoft, they should definitely continue to degrade the quality of the entertainment they provide, in order to live out their very own braindead executive pipedreams.

They’ll just bleed out quicker that way, and the longer they keep going that way, the less they’ll be missed.

@71

Never said it was good as with anything that is setting a trend there are growing pains. Steam was absolutely broken when it first launched and everyone at that period of time was saying it would never become popular.

The difference is that Steam was an both a logical step and a brilliant idea. It literally changed gaming.

You can hardly say the same for online systems that no one asked for, getting shoehorned into games where they never belonged.

I was genuinely optimistic and I defended Diablo III because I thought it was an awesome idea to have a highly connected multiplayer ARPG-as-MMO. But it wasn’t even close. It was a halfassed ARPG, with arbitrary multiplayer that was all about playing through the same content five times.

If you want to get serious about games-as-a-service you first have to get serious about games. I’m just not seeing it. Simcity seems every bit as unambitious as Diablo III. For one it’s called Simcity, when all you get to manage is a suburb, at most. And it’s full of bugs even when you can play it.

If they’re serious about making it an industry standard, they should act like it. Showing up with too few and untested servers for the umpteenth time just makes them look like a bunch of losers.

@73

You haven’t played it and that is pretty obvious so I am not going listen to your rant about the game especially heresay. I found it to be a step up especially with the multiplayer and you having control over entire region which forces you to collaborate between all the cities. I haven’t seen any bugs within the game so I am not going to comment on those. You just seem to be going for EA blood. Whatever floats your boat.

“umpteenth time ”

Uh this is Ea’s first time using an always on connection. SO yeah where is this umpteenth time? You are just drinking your daily hate-orade.

I have played it, although just for a few hours. It’s a pretty superficial mix of Cityville, The Sims and Simcity, and I’m obviously not the only one who thinks so.

Some of the games all too obvious shortcomings are detailed here,here, and here.

While it may be EAs first fuck-up, they’re joining Activision and Ubisoft in having tried the exact same thing only to gloriously crash and burn.

Ubisoft kept at it, but after failing something like four or five times, they finally quit. The count on EA has officially begun.

@75

I have read reviews of it and the rants and really I seem to not be playing the same game because I don’t see the failings listed.

THe thing about Games becoming a service is that there needs an infrastructure to support it and we aren’t quite there yet. This is EA’s first time doing it and now they have to run with it for Simcity 5. Next time they consider it they will have this to remind them.

@75, that poor bastard that owns a i7 cant play Sim City, *Sob*, he spended over $1000,- for a computer and 2x SLI GPX card, and the game start to crapping all over the place…

I guess he have to upgrade his computer into the new Chip-set i9 hopefully problem solves…