EA apologises over 'dumb' SimCity launch | Hacker News Reader

EA apologises over 'dumb' SimCity launch

bbc.co.uk

21 pointshansbo19 comments

am i the only one who thinks this was no apology at all? (judging from the comments in the forum that's not really the case)

it did not look like an apology at all. It looked more like an excuse saying that the drm is fine as it is and they just underestimated the userbase. essentially putting the blame on the users. one of those apologies that really isn't...

Mostly agree. It seems like they're saying that they're sorry there aren't enough servers to handle the online requirement, but not sorry that SimCity has an online requirement. (They also want to remind you that they're making a lot of money, as it's a major hit across all major markets.)

Nothing they have done or said strikes me as an honest admission of guilt, sorrow or concern.

They gave everyone a free game.

That sounds like something.

This is not an honest apology. It would be, had they offered full money back, not another game from their catalogue (hopefully one where they will milk you inside the game). While stretched a bit, its like your family dying in airline crash and the company is offering you a free tickets.

But no wonder they came up with something. Their sales must be hit real bad. At least 4 of my friends, hard gamers, told me they are not getting in. Later? Nope. They say they will pass until next version.

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Online isn't DRM. No more that WoW online is DRM: AKA an incidental side effect

> So what went wrong? The short answer is: a lot more people logged on than we expected. More people played and played in ways we never saw in the beta.

How can the play style of people have such an impact on the servers?

Sure there could have been people spamming buildings in order to produce high traffic. But that's sounds like an unlikely exceptional case.

This part really confused me as well. The other thing that I was confused with(as someone who played the beta) was if they knew play style could have an effect on server load, why did they have such a restrictive beta? The beta was short and greatly limited what you were able to do, so it seems logical that it would not give a fair representation of how people would play the game. I think if play style was an issue then they made the mistake of using the beta as a marketing tool, rather then as a method of testing the game/system.

My guess is "play style" is being used more generally to refer to how long they play the game during a session and how frequently their game sessions are.

Probably they spent more time playing on the highest game speed, which taxes their servers more. They eventually disabled this speed when it was clear their infrastructure could not handle it.

This reminds me of http://youtu.be/e-LE0ycgkBQ

All the FIFA Ultimate Team releases the last three years has also been filled with trouble during launch and high peak times. Release problems is not a new thing for this company.

Until people learn to vote with their wallets, nothing will change.

Some (most) people probably wouldn't have been aware of EA's past failures. And EA have been refusing refunds, so they've basically eliminated that avenue of voting with your wallet.

This only works if the products are good substitutes for each other, and in entertainment products, this is usually not the case. There's only one Beatles, one Star Wars franchise, and one Sim City -- lots of alternative ways to spend time, but no substitutes. Even with the kerfuffle, I will still buy Sim City when it comes out for Mac because I remember spending many, many late nights with the original game.

Thank you, you've put into words what I've long believed but been unable to describe. I definitely believe in voting with my wallet, but I can't see "don't buy the new SimCity" as a legitimate option when that's precisely what I want to play. Until CitiesXXL comes out with identical enough gameplay, this is the only game that will scratch that particular itch.

The page now 404's, even though it's still linked like this from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology/.

Edit: It's resolving properly now for me.

Still 404 for me.

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