You can finally play SimCity offline

While I see your point, based on what you are saying, it would still take a developer's resources to implement those DLC's when they could be working on critical bugs (because you are saying the people working on DLC's are just designers, not developers also). If they were also developers, then that voids your argument, because then they should be working on the bugs.

Personally, I think it's an even more limited issue. It is a franchise in which players always played alone on a single computer. I think EA could have done a better job meeting the desires of its actual players instead of trying to make the game they thought the players wanted.

You should be investing in advanced new technologies, and looking at the exciting new delivery methods available. We're evaluating these 5.25" "floppies", which promise an exciting new delivery method for interactive content.

Seriously, though, it's a tough one. In the one hand we have ever-advancing connectivity, making the shift to thin-client and server-side compute compelling, but in the other, over-centralisation, which results in poor resilience and risk management. If I had to put money on it, I'd wager that the overall direction over the next decade (assuming we're not all ash before it's out) is going to be towards distributed computation, but still within the client-server model we recognise. Beyond there... NFI. Quantum computers and unicorns.

Following with what jonlucc said, Titanfall is online-only from what I understand, and there hasn't been a huge backlash against it. It makes sense, from some standpoints. The experience offline wouldn't be what the game developers wanted it to be. SimCity on the other hand, was never developed to be online-only. The reason it was is because EA got greedy, and everyone saw right through it.

Now, should apps have an offline mode? Yeah, if at all possible. Let's take Google Play Music as one example. By default, it's a streaming service. But if I lose connectivity I still want to listen to my music, so I can download the songs locally. Now, I just found out the other day that these files aren't downloaded locally forever, so when I left a service area my music stopped even though I had downloaded it previously. Frustrating to no end.

So yeah, if the app should have an offline mode and it makes sense to have an offline mode, don't neglect to put one in just because you want complete control. But in this case, EA was just being greedy, and didn't hide their intentions with a good enough excuse.

I first played Sim City on the Amiga when the original was released, and I've played various versions since.

The problem is that they messed majorly with gameplay in a way that effectively created an entirely different type of game. For my part, I enjoyed Sim City as a way to tinker on my own, and have no desire whatsoever to play with others, and it seems that's the case for a lot of others too. When that's the case, I also don't want to be forced to be online when playing.

It means nothing for webapp developers in general, other than that you should be aware of how your users use your app and not suddenly release a version that turns everything upside down and expect not to upset a lot of users.

It seems like there's a very loud minority concerned with the online issue. They created a shitstorm about Diablo 3 too, but the game still sold very well. The bigger issue seems to be that SimCity wasn't fun to play & didn't offer the scale of previous versions.

Assume X number of people boycotted it, but Y people couldn't pirate it so they paid for it. The X people will be very loud, but the Y people won't.

Considering some of the atrocious numbers I've heard thrown around regarding piracy on the PC, DRM that scares off some customers may be the result of some execs doing some hard number crunching. Something like:

At current estimates, we sell 1m copies, and we'll get 5m pirates. If we put in really restrictive DRM, 100k of those original 1m sales will be put off, but we'll pick up one tenth of the pirates, putting us on 1.4m sales. Worth it!

The problem with this calculation is that the pirates are often based in 2nd world countries that don't have a culture of paying for media (e.g. Russia) so preventing piracy won't boost sales from these countries. But have you folks ever tried to convince anyone with money on the line that piracy numbers != lost sales?

Maybe I'm atypical these days. I don't preorder. I only play the 'top' games that are rated and reviewed exceedingly well unless I have a specific reason to do otherwise (specific niche that I want to play). I waited until after launch and then heard it was terrible- so I didn't buy.

But I don't have time to play most games. 90% of the games I've bought on Steam I've put less than 5 hours into.

Which, unsurprisingly, turned out to be a lie.

Which if I recall correctly, turned out to be untrue. Shortly after it came out there were hacks that would let you spoof EA's servers or remove the need all together and play locally with only minor features disabled.