Earlier this week we brought you details on the digital rights management scheme that SimCity publisher EA and developer Maxis have programmed into the upcoming city-building video game. You can find full details in our earlier piece, but the most crucial point is that the game will require players to have an active Internet connection simply to save their progress in the title. There seemed no mechanical explanation for this requirement, but EA believes that this hurdle will go a long way toward preventing widespread piracy of the currently PC and Mac-exclusive SimCity.
Given its ongoing, collective hatred of any DRM scheme (which, it should be stated, is based on the numerous times that seemingly innocuous DRM schemes have done little to quell piracy while drastically hindering the gameplay experience of many legitimate players), the Internet masses immediately decried this decision, claiming that EA is purely motivated by profit. While the publisher has yet to address these complaints directly, a new blog post written by Maxis head Lucy Bradshow appeared this morning that attempts to explain to prospective buyers why the decision for this particular DRM scheme is, in fact, beneficial to all those hoping to enjoy the latest sequel in what is undoubtedly one of EA’s longest running, most intensely beloved franchises.
“Creating a connected experience has always been a goal for SimCity, and this design decision has driven our development process for the game,” Bradshaw writes.
“Perhaps [SimCity creative director Quigley] Ocean said it best when he said that real cities do not exist in a bubble; they share a region and affect one another,” Bradshaw states. “[SimCity's new] GlassBox [game engine] does more than just segregate computing tasks, it also allows us to make it so that you can create specialized cities that are visually unique and personalized, and that can be economically integrated into a larger region. You’re always connected to the neighbors in your region so while you play, data from your city interacts with our servers, and we run the simulation at a regional scale.”
“For example, trades between cities, simulation effects that cause change across the region like pollution or crime, as well as depletion of resources, are all processed on the servers and then data is sent back to your city on your PC. Every city in the region is updated every three minutes, which keeps the overall region in sync and makes your decisions in your city relevant to any changes that have taken place in the region.”
“Running the regional simulation on our servers is something we also use to support features that will make this SimCity even more fun. We use the Sim data to update worldwide leaderboards, where you get to see your city or mayoral standings as compared to the other cities in your region and between all of the regions in the world. And since SimCity is a live service, we’re also using the data to create weekly global and local challenges for our players that keep the gameplay fresh and surprising,” Bradshaw adds.
In closing, Bradshaw states that SimCity is the best entry in the franchise to date and that due to how interconnected it is, the gameplay itself requires an omnipresent Internet connection. It simply wouldn’t be possible to achieve the level of regional interconnectivity Maxis has planned for the title without players being constantly connected to one another. Yes, this requirement does make it slightly more difficult to pirate the title, but if Bradshaw is to be believed, the decision to require an always-on Internet connection was not made by cynical bean counters, but instead by the creative types who designed the game’s inarguably impressive feature set.
Whether you’re apt to believe Bradshaw or not is another question entirely, but her words do make a lot of sense. It may simply be that long-time SimCity players have to adjust how they think of the game. No longer is SimCity a simple single-player attempt to turn the arduous task of city building into a compelling game; Instead, the latest entry in the franchise is akin to a massively multiplayer online game. We’ll leave it to you to decide if this is a positive or reason enough to avoid the title when it hits shelves in March of 2013.
I may not be the smartest man in the room, but I’m not a fool. This horrid attempt at stemming “Piracy” has proven in the past its ineffectiveness.
At this point, I’m left with two choices:
1) Don’t buy the game at all and keep playing SimCity 4 and SimCity Societies (although Societies sucks, to be honest)
or 2) Wait for it to be pirated so that I can play it on my own machine, by myself.
This is another genre that EA has f***ked up…and they wonder why everyone despises them…Please…
Just make games that we can play. If you don’t want to do simulation, don’t. Period. I don’t have enough room on my SSD to install a game that I can’t simply play on my own machine with or without internet. The whole point of playing SimCity is to play by yourself. They could’ve easily made this a “Mode” and let the rest of us isolationists build the cities of our dreams in our own bubbles…
If I don’t have the ability to play by myself without an internet connection, that game is as useless to me as any online web app. Except, it’s probably worse because it still takes up space on my PC.
Bingo
Yea no.
They say the servers have to handle data are PC cant. UM, if my PC runs GTA IV at HIGHEST SETTINGS great, it would destroy this. There lying to justify crap DRM and they know it.
Im NOT buying it. I am gonna wait until it gets cracked to play without DRM and pirate it. Screw EA.
earnest cavalli sorry, but your an idiot if you belive that shit you just wrote… Do you even play games? Have you heard of error 3007? It fucked over paying customers for 4 days not allowing full paying customers to connect to diablo 3 servers Just because the company fucked up… EA is just plain greedy.. Their just trying to kill the pre owned game market so the money stays in their shitty pockets, not the retailers.. Your not buying the game, your paying $80 for a fucking short term license to the game till they shut the servers off
I just cancelled by pre-order for SimCity from Game. I fly a lot so a constantly connected game will not work for me. In fact, I have a 12 hour flight coming up in which I was looking forward to playing SimCity, online DRM makes this impossible.
I’ll just download a pirate version that does NOT need to be online all the time. I’d rather have bought the game, but if they are not offering it in the form I require it in, well, someone else will.
Sigh… Why can’t these companies just stick to the traditional way, install and play. Piracy has been around for years, nothing you can do about it. With DRM and MMO coming to Simcity, I hope Maxis won’t make the same mistakes Monte Cristo did with Cities XL.
We told you, we told you SO MANY TIMES. We KNEW this was going to happen, and you thought we were just being paranoid.
I’m sure Sim City is a great game, I really do, but quality of a game is moot when you bar players from even accessing it in the first place. I might as well sit back, Electronic Arts, and watch as you try to cope with your newly won bad press. If you’ve any intelligence at all, you’ll give players an actual off-line mode in the next few weeks.
Oh, and here’s a shrill laugh to accompany it.
HAAAAAAUGH.
The simplest fix is DON’T ADD OTHER PLAYERS TO YOUR REGION. You have the option to make a private region so you can play alone if you want or you can give it to have another friend play.
Maybe people want to play the game without internet. What if someone dont have 24/7 net or in the future EA turns off the server? It will render your game you paid 59.99 for useless.
Definitely just lost a chunk of city because my private game that I have no desire to share with anyone couldn’t sync to the server and had to reboot from an old restore point. How am I supposed to enjoy a game that might very well erase my progress at any given point? It’s a Sim City game; I want to be alone and build. I don’t need to be constantly connected in every little thing I do.
I WANT MY MONEY BACK. SCREW YOU MAXIS AND EA FOR THIS BULLSHIT DRM…. YOU RUINED SIMCITY. WHERE DO I GET MY REFUND!!!!
Strange that the developers themselves have now admitted that the always on requirement is in fact unnecessary and thousands of gamers have signed a petition because it is not positive at all.
I also Cancelled my pre-order,EA Is meant to screw games firstly Age Of Empires Series now Simcity
even if we buy it and what do u think they will run server till, i played simcity 4 till date,will they run there daam server for 10yrs
Great, then have your “connected experience”, but make it an option. Don’t force people to go online to play a single player game, or a “sandbox” if you will.