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Comment by mintplant | Hacker News Reader

I'm trying to figure out what you mean by this. There is no SimCity title on this list, nor has there ever been a "SimCity 2" to begin with. Unless you're talking about the just-released series reboot? Or maybe "The Sims 2" - which has no always-on DRM system to speak of?

In any case, if a game has always-on DRM, the publisher could always release a patch disabling it before shutting down the servers.

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The patch would cost a lot more development dollars. In order to make always-on DRM effective there needs to be some significant logic kept on the company servers. If it was a simple on/off switch it would be very easy to break. Thus, creating a patch to move that logic from the company servers to the players computer is going to cost a lot of money at a time when the company is shutting down the servers because they're trying to save money. Not going to happen.

>The patch would cost a lot more development dollars. In order to make always-on DRM effective there needs to be some significant logic kept on the company servers.

Well, there's that and the fact that this is a really mature genre. This year's Sim City game isn't any more fun to play than the one from 20 years ago, so they're probably afraid more copies will start circulating and cut into current sales.

He probably meant SimCity 2000, which can still be played despite being nearly 20 years old... it would surely be on that list if it was more recent.

Has EA ever done so or indicated they will release such a no-DRM patch? I have a feeling they'll just say "too bad." I'd bet many of those games had significant single-player modes that are now inaccessible.

Valve at least has announced they have a patch ready if Steam should ever go offline.

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