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Comment by johnward | Hacker News Reader

Here's the thing. If people don't buy the game because of DRM then EA execs see this as "no one will ever buy a city sim". So a bunch of people who did buy the game doing chargebacks seems like it sends a better message. It says "I wanted this game for so long I pre-ordered. After I couldn't play due to DRM I wanted a refund."

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It's a long term strategy. If EA never made another Sim City game, eventually, eventually, someone else would. A Sim City game with a different name, sure. But a Sim City game.

Actually, there are already games similar to Sim-City (we could call them city building simulators) such as http://www2.citiesxl.com/ or http://www.worldoftropico.com/us/index.php

I definitely with the strategy you bring forward. Just let the Sim-City franchise (it is only a name at this point, Will Wright and the majority of original Maxis crew are out), any other studio can get a better game with less stupid DRM.

Cities XL tried the same thing EA was pulling. Their launch was also a debacle, everyone got mad at them, and they had to shut all their online servers down for lack of money, leaving people with a functional single-player game but a fraction of the functionality they had anticipated (for example: no railroads, subways, or anything like that.)

Which is a bit of a shame, since _City Life_ (the predecessor) was an okay game.

Plenty of good building games around from the 90s to today.

Gool Ol' Games offers plenty of classics if you haven't played them. Ceasar 3, Roller Coaster Tycoon, Pharaoh / Cleopatra, Stronghold Crusader... all DRM-free and less than $10 each.

Dwarf Fortress is free as well with an awesome following. If you can get over the ASCII / tileset thing, its a good game.

Well, that's awesome if you're into that, but personally I like games that leverage the abilities of modern graphics card. I'm not afflicted with a lot of nostalgia, though, either.

Yup. People who preordered (like myself) want to play this. The DRM is restrictive and sucks, but I was hoping EA learned from Blizzard in this instance.

If you just don't buy it, EA will assume everyone pirated the game and cancel any future SimCity games... then we end up stuck in a DRM-filled loop forever. Requesting a refund is far more productive from a feedback perspective.

If the game is as they say it is and can't be played without the server, due to critical game logic being done there, I don't think they can get away with the pirating excuse as easily this time.

What seems like the obvious solution to me: let EA stop making city sims if they're bad at it, and fire all the ex-Maxis staff who they put on them. And then, let some other company get into the city-sim market if they think there's demand, and then hire all those same staff for their expertise.

Or does EA now hold all the patents on drawing roads and zoning buildings onto an isometric tilemap? :)

That would be an interesting strategy. Too bad they are banning accounts now if you try that. But I think if SimCity doesn't sell well, EA will know why. There's too much talk about this online. They know the DRM has probably irreperably hurt the future sales of the Simcity game.

A good strategy for dealing with EA might be to use a separate card (disposable prepaid debit cards?) for each game order, minimizing the risk of collateral damage if you're banned because of a chargeback. Of course, if they find out you're using multiple accounts, they will ban all of them anyway.

It would be nice if we didn't have to treat game companies as adversaries like this.

if someone is determined to treat you as an adversary, it doesn't really make much sense to behave as though they aren't one.

"Someone" == EA's entire target market? If this is really the logic they are abiding by, perhaps their problems are even worse than we thought.

no, i meant that since the game companies are already treating us as adversaries, the question of us not treating them likewise does not even arise.

ea are treating their entire target market as adversaries; game companies have been doing that for years.

I am all for getting your money back, whether it is a refund or chargeback/whatever via the bank. But I feel as though if it is some sort of chargeback that your account SHOULD be banned as you don't want the game any more.

of course, if you actually do that (even though it IS a good idea), they can just ban you, departing you from the keys to any games you have with them.

Remember, don't cross EA, it's only through their glowing generosity that they allow you to use some of the programs on your computer.

You like those programs, right?

I'm not buying a game to make a point. I'll instead nit buy a game and not fork over my hard earned dough.

They can't do that for all their games.

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