SimCity, DRM, and What It Means for NHL 14 - Wiggy's Blog

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SimCity, DRM, and What It Means for NHL 14 Stuck

Posted on March 11, 2013 at 05:49 PM.

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As I've written about before, the scourge of online connectivity is nothing new for EA, especially on the sports side. While SimCity is taking a pounding right now -- and justifiably so -- nothing is really surprising about this whole affair. The constant umbilical connection to the EA servers has been a reality for years with sports games, and now EA is firing a salvo towards solo gaming, conditioning users to accept the always-online reality as the norm while simultaneously creating an ecosystem where multiplayer and solo content are blurred, muddying the argument altogether.

For starters, sports titles have been the initial test bed for online passes over the past several years, including the NHL series. This was seen by the publishers as the softest way to introduce a type of tax on uses games while ensuring more new copies in the channel. Because the "tax" was essentially baked into the cost of the new game, users have generally taken it as a cost of doing business, as most hardcore players will buy a new copy to participate in the early community passion and support that a game initially receives.

At the same time, server connectivity issues are nothing new for EA Sports games, including NHL 13. There have been plenty of releases in the last few years of NHL that have had shaky launches for the EA server part of the equation, and server outages for maintenance have become commonplace. On top of this, the constant EA server connection has led to my favorite EA Sports reality, the spinny wheel. The constant juggling of server communication, marketing data, user interface, hard drive saving and upload traffic lead to a constant hitching and bottleneck when trying to navigate menus in NHL games, but this has also been a big issue in titles like NBA Jam: On Fire Edition as well.

What becomes so bothersome about these problems -- both the current SimCity issues and the longstanding EA Sports annoyances -- is that they're forced upon the consumer because of developer/publisher design choices and philosophies. It's one thing to institute always-online DRM or third-party servers for your product; it's another thing to require this and then hold your consumers hostage with bad performance of these design choices. The audacity of these sorts of design decisions is even more frustrating when the price of the products on offer is being buoyed by an online pass model as well as extensive DLC.

Frankly, there's a fair way of implementing these kinds of changes while still respecting your customers. Pricing of the initial game, season passes and DLC need to reflect this new reality. When users are being asked to jump through hoops and suffer through new realities without gaining any benefits, either in new services or added features, then why are they still paying as much, if not more, then they have up till this point?

I think EA will probably leave products like NHL 14 out of this debate for now by not requiring an always-online connection. The online pass requirement and DLC revenue model allows EA to maintain its existing "online server" setup without needlessly forcing people into always-online for solo play. Then again, the rumors of Microsoft's new console suggest an always-online reality (or at least a limit on the used games market), which would bring this issue into even sharper relief.

I truly hope the power brokers who hold sway over these types of decisions aren't so shortsighted that they cut off the nose to spite the face all in the name of some piracy crusade that they'll likely never win.

Comments

# 1 lynkraid @ Mar 11

Not only for EA Sports, but for the next generation consoles even considering the idea of forcing always online connections for the console and gaming. XBOX720 and PS4 hopefully can see online only isn't the answer.

DLC is a whole other issue, while most PC games support modding, EA doesn't want any just so they can force you to buy over priced DLC just so a game doesn't go stale.

But as someone who bought Simcity on the 5th, its been annoying to say the least. When I first was able to play it, I only made it through the tutorial, then I was kicked off due to server problems, I had to wait an hour to get back on, once playing it only lasted about 2hrs and then servers were down all day. Been like that since the 5th, play a while then get booted right in the middle of your game. On Sunday the servers were down all day for me. This morning I was playing for a hour until I was booted again while servers went down.

I could only imagine the hate EA Sports would get if this ever happened with Madden.

# 2 Hurricanes919 @ Mar 12

I'm afraid that we as video game consumers have too few options and not enough discipline to assert the "invisible hand" by just not buying the product. No matter what EA does or doesn't do I'll be lining up to buy my next copy of NHL, Madden, Fifa, etc. Are we to blame?

# 3 GlennN @ Mar 12

I am a SimCity fan, but I would not touch the new SimCity game with a 10-foot pole. Nicely played, EA! Way to lose sales.

# 4 miguel19 @ Mar 12

@hurricanes 919 Of course we are. If nobody bought simcity for instance, I would bet for EA releasing a patch removing the always-online DRM within days.. But people support it, so I don't see this practice going away anytime soon.. @lynkraid I believe Sony already said that forcing always online connection isn't going to happen. There are big markets where the infrastructures aren't there and many people who would buy a PS4 would not be able to have a internet connection all the time. China comes to mind. So that isn't happening, at least for the PS4

# 5 GuyinPA75 @ Mar 12

I agree with GlennN.

Forcing me to be connected to something that really does not need to be at all just forces me away from purchase and support of the product.

EA is becoming way too greedy with their products and how they support them. It is to the point now when I see EA's name on the game or box, I really shy away from looking further at that game.

The EA logo to me is a warning label. Just as back when I was a child and I saw the Mr. Yuck sticker I did not touch something.

Same is going for gaming now. EA logo = Mr. Yuck sticker.