Free SimCity DLC offers sponsored Nissan Leaf car dock

What the point of that? Nissan spends on advertising which is broadcast to ONE million players. This isn't realism, it's just pumping and investing money into a game because EA wants too. It's a Japanese company aswell, so clearly Nissan wants to lose money thinking this is a good marketing tactic!

excuse me....what?

DLC?

I get my fix of that in Simcity 4 through STEX, why thank you.

Ummm....am I the only one who feels that this is a bit tacky? I mean first the server fiasco where they refused to refund me and then in-game advertising? I guess Maxis realized that no one is buying the game so they resort to advertising to get more money. I play MLB the SHow on the PS3 and EXPECT advertisements. When I play Simcity, I DO NOT EXPECT it. I mean seriously could you play Bioshock Infinite when there are logos of Nike all over the shops? Good job EA and Maxis for ruining the franchise.

It's.... DLC that will only be available for us to use for a set amount of time? The hell? I mean, I know it's just advertising, but still? Give us content, then take it away a few months later? Really?

I guess it's no surprise, since they'll do the same thing with the game's servers...

Take your free DLC and #dealwithit

Goddamnit Maxis, I bought the game for $60. Following your link for the free leaf station I realize I'm playing a stripped down version of Simcity considering the DLC content I'm not gonna pay for. I'm a true fan, I deserve better treatment.

Consider 1 month since release.... microtransactions already?

Free DLC is good even if it's branded, but happiness at no cost seems like a potential game-breaker. Maybe if there was a limit of one per city... also, reducing pollution seems like a more plausible effect than general happiness increase.

Well it is a Japanese car manufacture that makes cars in air tight high tech factory and fills there tires with nitrogen why not make a game breaking building in EA's broken game?

Jeremy Clarkson: "Don't worry kids Dad's not having a stroke, he's just driving a Nissan!"

Someone please explain how a charging station uses no energy. How. Energy just falls out of the heavens into the batteries?

And so EA reveals its true intentions, let the microtransactions begin...

I'll assume you guys would be pissed if, for example, GTA V had McDonald restaurants in it. Or God forbid if you can catch an in-game flight operated by JetBlue. I guess I'm part of the minority, but you guys are acting like games are completely ruined with product placement.

I don't know whether to cry or puke my guts out

cant tell if this is hilarious or insulting. probably both...

if they increase the build size of this game i might bite, but this....this...turns me off like a woman on her period. Dare i say.......wtf you slimy bastards

The merits of branded DLC aside (I don't have an issue with it in this instance), I can't help but wonder how completely clueless the Maxis PR department is.

Surely it's not a good idea from a PR perspective to release branded DLC which could (correctly or otherwise) be seen as a money-grab and/or soulless corporate propaganda when the original game is still broken?

As @maddogmark25 points out, it appears that they're using resources that should be devoted to fixing the game to putting out this DLC which indicates a basic lack of understanding of what the game owners want.

That's because the station is powered by the broken hearts and tears of Maxis' fans. This is ridiculous... even after the launch fiasco I was still contemplating of giving it a go, but now I'm definitely not. I refuse to support such ideology, because you know that this is gonna spread to single-player campaign stuff as well... like the Panasonic Suit Changer in Dead Space 4, or some crap like that.

lol This whole SimCity story keeps getting better and better.

How come nobody complains when fans make this kind of stuff? Like they did in the old games. Like they do in other games like Forza? There's no offense made by EA whatsoever with this, other than it being a tad tacky.

I genuinely don't believe this - releasing DLC before the game even has the features promised at launch...

Shouldn't the building offer some advantages but with some tradeoffs? It seems odd that it doesn't even use electricity. That's my only issue, they are adding an item that is "overpowered" because Nissan wants as many people as possible to be exposed to it. Will this make a big difference? Maybe not this specifically, but the concept is something that players should be concerned about, how far will they go with this?

People don't like pay to win, this is sort of a let our advertising into your game to win. Again I mean that conceptually, I know this one little thing is not going to throw the entire balance off, but down the road there could be dozens of these.

I'm okay with this. It's a small DLC paid by the companies, free of charge to you. Gives you stat boosts, at the "cost" of advertising in your game. It brings money to the developers, who would have charged two dollars for such a simple DLC anyways. And it's a quick in-game happiness fix. I don't mind it. I wouldn't mind to see more of this happen in other games. I'm not saying to the point of going extreme like giving...say...a Budweiser armor to Issac Clarke in Dead Space. Just harmless stuff like this.

Its powered by anger and frustration

I gotta be honest and i know this is against popular belief but , in some cases, product placement can be a good thing. If done right and not oversaturated , it can make the game more authentic and at the same time potencially can reduce games cost for the users at the same time. You don't see ppl complaining for example on FIFA that they have advertisements on the clubs jerseys and they are nike jerseys instead of naikee jerseys, because that makes the game more authentic.

Meh, I don't really mind. People act like gaming is not a business. This is a pretty seamless way for them to get some ad-revenue with minimal impact on the player. More money they get from outside sources, less they have to ravage my pockets so I'm fine with it. You don't even have to use it if you don't want.

Wow, free adverts! O, wait.

The thing is they are using us the player to make a buck. What's next McDonalds?

sellouts

Yay in-game advertisements! I'm surprised they still don't charge for this.

How about a free DLC that disables DRM?

At least it lets you choose to install it or not! Situation could be worse.

But does it attract homeless people like parks?

I think people are biased by EA hatred. Product placement isn't going to brainwash you, because it's done in plenty of games. People love the authenticity of real cars in racing games, and real guns in military games. You're not being brainwashed and going out to buy a GC36 or AK74.
Not to mention, it's free, and whether or not it's automatically downloaded into your game, you personally have to place it down. Considering it doesn't do anything extraordinary, they're not really encouraging people to use it.
Regardless of what they put out, people are going to complain. If they fixed online, and increased the map size, even if it was good from the get-go, people would still basically call EA the anti-christ.

WOW free ads? thanks EA!

I can find trainers which could boost stats better than this piece of shit.

Green cars... woot!

In-game ads... very disappointing...

To all the SimCity players like me = This would be a disaster, think about the amount of traffic we already get hit by when we go over 150K population. If this would have reduced air pollution and traffic, then it would have been fine and fun to have but it clearly states that it's useless.

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but I thought the ad was just the Nissan logo on the port itself and Nissan cars driving around. I didn't take it as an actual pop up ad or commercial. I don't see a problem with that.