Maxis internal SimCity memo leaks

I have been a gamer longer than some of you have been alive, and I can remember when EA was a company I could trust. When Motor City Online was introduced, I loved it. I faithfully and gladly paid a subscription to play a game online with strangers. I invested loads of time and money on this game, and then they pulled the plug. I was furious, devastated, and above all, I wanted my money back. The game I owned was a coaster. They offered a free replacement. I chose the Sims Online. See that operating anywhere? That was the end of Online Only gaming for me. They are not just moving the goalposts, they are flooding the stadium during halftime and having a bass tournament. With all of the technology advances, EA would have us believe that we need their servers to do what our machines can't. Just say you want total control over the games you sell now, and are willing to ruin them to have it.

Sometimes people want to buy a game, go home and play it. Alone. Without the world watching. Without lag. Without the internet. Get it EA?

Got to love this quote "The game launched with great reviews from both new critics and the veterans who have loved this franchise for so many years."

I guess Ms. Bradshaw didn't see the 67 average score from critics on Metacritics. Yeah, that's some great reviews there.

If only they had factual data available to prepare for that, do server hardware and bandwidth requirement sizing and avoid this launch day disaster, like using internal stresstests, a beta, second beta, preorder count statistics - oh wait - they had.

Nice try with the (intentionally) "leaked document", all I read out of it is that she's even bullshitting her employees at Maxis with "overwhelming reception and sales" - 700.000 cities created within 24 hours, that's like 70.000 to 140.000 launch day "customers" if estimating a 5 to 10 cities creation per player on launch day (which for these tiny regions is even still a generous assumption, so the number of people that could actually play this on launch day are probably even less than that).

No need to stock up on server hardware, just patch out Origin, make it playable offline, release the server binaries so we can host our own multiplayer regions (on our hardware) and add a server browser / LAN mode / direct IP join and this game might just maybe start to sell well.

I liked what I read until the part that said "... consumers have every right to expect a smooth experience from beginning to end."

The experience better not end!  I had to pull my SC4 disc out of my computer to install SC5!

Consoles are shit, PC gaming is where it's at, social gaming is meh.  And as far as mobile, no opinion whatsoever dont care either way.

butthurt, butthurt everywhere. I for one will be buying this game after the issues are fixed. This is where gaming is going so i'll just go with the flow.

Read the whole post, got to the last paragraph and thought to myself, "Classy response. Gained respect for Maxis." Check the comments and I find shit flinging and people that are taking this negatively.

no worries,  i wont be buying your product

" Leaked" my a**. This is PR Damage control.EA must think we are idiots to not see what this actually is.

'Leaked memos'? Yeah, right. More like 'attempt to make EA look innocent and helpful'. Blugh, fake shit like this is unbelievable.

Ignoring the non-stability related problems with this game.... The problem is you can't make a singleplayer game require online and still treat the game as a singleplayer game.  If it's 'always online required' then you have created an MMO style game and need to approach the network infrastructure as such.

It's sad to see EA trying to push Maxis as their scapegoat.  Anyone with half a brain would know the publisher holds the weight in the creation of the contract between developer and publisher. EA says always online and must require Origin, so Maxis has no other choice.  Of course, since Maxis agreed EA gets to say stuff like, "You signed the contract, you knew what you were getting into! - It's your fault!"

And now in order for Maxis to continue making money through EA they have to take the PR hit, otherwise EA could stop future projects with Maxis.

The writing is all over the wall on this situation. EA screwed up thanks to their 'money first, gamers last' attitude towards the game industry.

My boycott of EA continues, and it will never end when they keep making such blatantly money-hungry decisions with no regard or respect to the game idea or the gamers.

EA execs have their heads so far up their a** they even have the gall to not only pull advertising for the game, but to deny refunds at the same time!  I mean, how much of a slap in the face to their customers is that?  They have no faith in their game, so they pull advertising, but won't bother refunded customers who bought a broken product.  

Those of you who support EA, please take the blinders off and see the reality.  EA is a viral drain on the game industry.

7.1 Metacritic Critic score, 1.6 user score (granted user scores aren't worth shit because 99% of users are fucking retarded but they're the ones who brought it up). Not exactly great. Average, maybe. I'd probably settle for around mediocre. Just wanted to let you guys know.

We had great reviews? what is she on?

How proud are they of it now?

EA want us to hate them.

I have no pity for Maxis if they continue to stay with EA.  They should know how EA is bad for business but they still get in bed with them.  I hated EA already but Chinese spammers with messages that say things like "Only losers like to play alone."  This is just beyond insulting and detrimental...

They aren't just shooting themselves in the foot, but slitting both their wrists and cutting their throats.

Its like the publishers want their games to be pirated.

A review is reflective of the product at the time of release. If the product is botched on release, for WHATEVER reason, it is a problem with the product regardless of how well you patch it on a later date. Remember when games HAD to be released in perfect condition because we didn't have online patching?

It's BEYOND fair... server issues are the first thing you should mention in a review! This game  is a real stain on the SimCity franchise.

Of course it's fair.  Online is so bloody integral to the game that you'd best believe that it's a critical factor that's going to make or break scores.  A tack-on multiplayer mode to a largely single player experience is what gets a pass on bad online play.  This is -all- online.

Guys, I hate drm! One time, on Farcry 3, I had to open this Uplay thing. It took almost 10 seconds! I DON'T HAVE THAT KIND OF EXTRA TIME!

I wish that game related sites like this would not post opinions in their findings. Just report the damn news and that's all. 

Also, they updated the problem today http://www.ea.com/news/a-simcity-update-and-something-for-your-trouble

and I agree with Arata. Whenever a game goes wrong under EA's name, there is instant hate and childish comments. Any other gaming company gets like a week or two to fix it and then they are ok again. It is such a shame that we pander to the common spoiled childish gamers that this generation has created. 

I also have to say for the record, that my opinion does not say I prefer online gaming for this, but I can see why they wanted to do it. I was against it for Diablo III, but now it doesn't bother me. 

"The game launched with great reviews" - There are few good reviews, tons of 1-Star reviews, and most of the bad reviews mention: 

1) The cities are too small.

2) No underground construction.

3) Server problems.

@Slash_out

My bad, the wording kind of confused me.

Not going to repeat what others have said, but I am just staggered that Maxis went full into a social version of Sim City without doing any in depth market research amongst people who like the original, how people enjoy and tolerate social gaming on mobile devices, but demand their own world on home computers, without the internet throwing cat turds into their sand box..

It is an enormous error of judgement on the part of the lead designers at Maxis.

Also, did EA seriously believe they could sell the idea that simulation code was so intricate and powerful, that it had to be done server side? They actually believed in their accountant run board that the gaming community would swallow that BS?

Just saying, if this gets pirated six ways from Sunday. EA is helping the wrong statistic in a big way.

Think about it, all games get pirated, so games that are harder to pay for will get pirated more. The circle of life.

What saddens me the most is that, she and the Maxis team took all the responsibility for these.

They didn't deserve this publicity, they really didn't...