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EA apologises over 'dumb' SimCity launch

21 points| hansbo | 13 years ago |bbc.co.uk | reply

19 comments

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[+] rjzzleep|13 years ago|reply
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...

[+] fredleblanc|13 years ago|reply
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.)
[+] gte910h|13 years ago|reply
Online isn't DRM. No more that WoW online is DRM: AKA an incidental side effect
[+] joering2|13 years ago|reply
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.

[+] moccajoghurt|13 years ago|reply
> 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.

[+] stevenameyer|13 years ago|reply
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.
[+] iy56|13 years ago|reply
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.
[+] pkhamre|13 years ago|reply
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.
[+] RKearney|13 years ago|reply
Until people learn to vote with their wallets, nothing will change.